[Lord Snooty]

February 13th:

We had a magnificent 6-1 victory at home to Reading on this date in 1981. And I have to say that this one was a bit out of the blue to be honest. We were on a bit of a poor run, having lost four on the trot, including an FA cup defeat at Orient and in the league against Burnley, Wimbledon and Preston. This was a re-arranged match, played in midweek due to our Cup run and the bad weather and our brave boys came back to form in spectacular style.

Goals that night came from Peter Fletcher, who scored twice, Mark Lillis, David Cowling and Brian Stanton. That's only five. Yes, the other was an own goal from Martin Hicks, his second own goal for us in that season.

In 1999, we reached the 5th round of the FA Cup and played Premier League side Derby County. The draw had given us a home match and was played on this date. We had beaten QPR and Wrexham in the previous rounds and 21,629 turned up to see this, the biggest crowd of the season. Again, we were on a poor run of form, not having won a game since beating Grimsby Town on Boxing Day and manager Peter Jackson must've been worried about his job following the recent takeover of the club by television set top box manufacturing millionaire Barry Rubery.

It was a magnificent performance from the boys and we were unlucky not to win and goals from Chris Beech and Marcus Stewart almost did it but the game ended 2-2.

The replay is set for Pride Park on the 24th. How will we get on?

And finally, it's that man Dave Mangnall again. He continued his run of scoring in consecutive matches in 1932 with two in a 4-0 5th round FA Cup win against Preston at Leeds Road. That took his tally to 17 goals in 9 straight games. The other two goals in the win were from Charlie Luke and an own goal from the Preston full back Frank Ward.

So having beaten PNE, we drew Arsenal, managed by Herbert Chapman of course, at home in the next round, the quarter finals. How will this one go? it's scheduled for the 27th.

U