[Lord Snooty]

March 8:

It's a happy birthday today to our former midfielder, Danny Williams or Big Willy Williams as he became known as.

Born on this date in 1989 in Karlsruhe, which was then West Germany, he's 33 years old today. He had four seasons at Reading and played 47 times in their 2016/17 campaign which ended in a penalty shoot out defeat at Wembley against...... ooh it was us wasn't it. 

Forty seven games. What a shame then that his two seasons with us were injury ravaged, because he was man of the match in that pulsating 0-0 draw at the national stadium and the games he did play in for us, he looked awesome. Particularly that famous win at home against Man Utd.

Sadly, he's without a club now and there's nothing on Wikipedia about whether he's been forced to pack in, but after leaving us in 2019, he's only played 11 times for Cypriot club Pafos FC.

As for matches on this day, we have a big match in the Autoglass Trophy to report on. Following a magnificent away win at Stockport County in the previous round, our boys under the management of Neil Warnock, on this date in 1994, played the Northern Area Final First Leg at Leeds Road against Carlisle United.

Excitement was at fever pitch in the town as we were just 180 minutes of action away from our first visit to Wembley since the 1938 FA Cup Final and as so, a massive crowd of 10,552 crammed into Leeds Road.

Doesn't sound a lot in a ground that once held 67,000 inside. But these weren't great times, the ground was crumbling and the skeleton of a new stadium was appearing across the other side of the car park. The 10,000 for this one was double the attendance for the last home league match against Brighton.

So are we going to Wembley or not. Well, a 4-1 win in this 1st leg has put us in a good position. Goals from Peter Jackson, Darren Bullock, Phil Starbuck and Iain Dunn will send us up to Brunton Park full of confidence. That game is in a fortnight's time on March 22nd.

Ooh Phil Starbuck