[Lord Snooty]

March 17:

Five years ago, in 2017, me and Amelia had a lovely weekend in Bristol. We had planned to drive down on the Friday and watch Town play at Ashton Gate on the Saturday, with a leisurely stroll back home on the Sunday. Of course, Sky cocked that one up by moving the match to Friday night. So we didn't have much time on Friday, but had all day Saturday to explore. Had a look round an old boat and a walk over an old bridge.........

Oh the match? Bristol City were in the bottom three, we were in the top three. You know what happened. We lost 4-0 and almost lost Jonathan Hogg. He appeared to have broken his neck, but thankfully he hadn't. The Robins were 1-0 up when that incident happened and when Tammy Abraham made it 2-0 in the 14th minute of first half added on time, it didn't look like it was going to be our night.

The injury shook our lads up and the second half was probably the worst of the season and we ended up getting stuffed. And it was wet and bloody freezing as well.

Twelve months on from that, in 2018, we were bloody freezing again. We were in the Premier League by now and having hammered Crystal Palace 3-0 at Selhurst Park on the opening day of the season, hopes were high of a repeat scoreline when they came to ours. No such luck. They beat us 2-0 in a disappointing game, with James Tomkins and a penalty from Luka Milivojević, made worse by the weather. It was snowing quite heavy during the game, but by the time we were on the way home it was terrible. Trying to get up Wakefield Road towards Lepton was an absolute nightmare.

Strangely, by the time we got home to Barnsley, there was no snow at all.

Born on this date in 1891, was half back Frank Mann. He was born in Nottingham and started his playing career with Aston Villa. But he came to Town in 1912 and stayed until 1923, with obviously a big chunk of his career interrupted by the war. His first two seasons with Town he was leading scorer and was still banging 'em in when the league started up again in 1919, scoring 18 time as Town won promotion and reached the FA Cup Final.

He was a regular in the First Division and was on target 4 times in the 1922 FA Cup campaign, for which he got himself a Winners Medal. He scored the first goal of the semi final against Notts County, which Town won 3-1.

His last Town goal was in a 3-5 defeat at Villa Park, when he went and dropped down a division to play for Second Division Manchester United. I'll say that again..... Second Division Manchester United.

Frank was instrumental in getting the Red Devils promoted in 1926 and actually stayed with them until he was 39 years old. This made him Man Utd's oldest ever player for a very long time, only losing that tag recently to Ryan Giggs and then Edwin van der Sar.

On retirement, he took on the license of Zetland Hotel in Huddersfield. His 75 goals in the bright blue n white has him in the top ten of our all time goal scorers chart. He's in 9th place, in between Jordan Rhodes and Dave Manganall.

He died in 1966, aged 75.