[Lord Snooty]

February 1st:

It's a happy 33rd birthday today to our Premier League goalkeeper, Jonas Lössl. Born in 1989 in Kolding, Denmark, he is currently playing for the Danish national side at Brentford.

Back in 1922, we had another game on our road to the FA Cup Final. One hundred years ago today we beat Brighton & Hove Albion in a 2nd round replay (equivalent to the 4th round now) at Leeds Road, following on from the goal less draw a few days earlier. We won, obviously, 2-0 with goals from Clem Stephenson and George Richardson.

In 1933, we beat Sheffield United at Leeds Road, 1-0 in the First Division, with Charlie Luke getting the goal. But the remarkable thing here is the size of the crowd. Bearing in mind that we were still at this time, one of the top teams in the country, yet the crowd for this Yorkshire derby was just 2,218.

Why was this? Well the 1930s were a time of high unemployment and the Great Depression, which was a period of national economic downturn. The match was also played on a Wednesday afternoon due to Leeds Road not yet having floodlights. This wasn't a one off low crowd. Only four thousand and odd turned up for the Middlesbrough match and just over five thousand for the visit of Man City. Hard times.

Another FA Cup replay. This one was against Barnsley in 1961 and a whopping 44,761 came to see this one. This too was a midweek game, but we now had, following the sale of Denis Law to Man City for a British record fee, a set of floodlights. It was only the second time they'd been switched on for a Town match, with the first being that famous win over the Wolves.

Anyway, the match was a disappointing draw against our 3rd Division neighbours. John Coddington scored ours from the penalty spot. How will the replay go? It's on Feb the 6th at Oakwell.