[Lord Snooty]

February 17th:

Not a great day in Huddersfield Town history. Lots more defeats than wins and three FA Cup 5th round matches that we didn't win. Firstly, in 1996, we had reached the last 16 for the first time since 1971/72 and it was all going pretty well against Wimbledon.

Wimbledon? Yes, kids. Wimbledon. They were a Premier League team back then, before they were franchised out to Milton Keynes. Anyway, as I said, it was all going pretty well for Town, who were now in the 2nd tier, calling itself Division One back then and we were 2-1 up with goals from Rodney Rowe and Tom Cowan as the game went into time added on. A place in the quarter finals was on for the first time since 71/72 as well, but instead of playing out time well and seeing out the game professionally, our naivety showed up as we went for goal instead of the corner flag. Giving the Dons the ball back, they went up the other end and won a corner.

You all know what happened next. It finished 2-2 and so it was all down to their place for the replay. Their place being Selhurst Park. The replay's set for the 28th.

The other two 5th round matches were lost at home, at the John McAlpharm Stadium. In 2013, after beating Charlton Athletic and then Leicester City after a replay, we faced Wigan Athletic, another small club over achieving in the Premier League. Strange how the media hated Cruddersfield being in the Premier League, but never ever questioned the credentials of either Wimbledon or Wigan being in there.

Anyway, Wigan hammered us 4-1, with just a James Vaughan goal to show.

The next one was 2018. We were in the Premier League by now. Little Cruddersfield stinking up the elite league of world football. We had for years, dreamed of pulling ahome tie with Manchester United out of the bag and now we finally did, only 17,861 turned up for it. United had the whole of the South Stand, so only 13,000 of our fans, with around 7,000 empty seats.       

Anyway, the stay away fans didn't miss much. Our quest for that elusive quarter final place failed again as two Romelu Lukaku goals gave the Red Mancs a 2-0 win. We also got our first glimpse of this new fangled VAR system. What a polava that was. It'll never catch on.

Enough of the bad times, let's see what we did win. We beat Wolves 2-1 in 1912, Sheffield United in 1930. Torquay United in 1976 and Mansfield Town in 1990, with Craig Maskell getting the only goal of that game.

One more match to report on and it's another goal for Dave Mangnall. He scored his 18th goal in the tenth consecutive match to keep his record going. This was in a 1-1 draw against Middlesbrough at Leeds Road.