[Lord Snooty]

March 22:

Possibly the most flamboyant player ever to turn out in the bright blue n white stripes of Huddersfield Town, Frank Worthington, died twelve months ago today in 2021. He was 72 and had been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.

Frank first came to Town as a junior in 1966 and became my favourite player when I attended my first game a year later when he scored the only goal of the game in a 1-0 win over QPR.

He was leading scorer in the 1969/70 promotion campaign with 18 goals and then in the next season with 9. But the next one, the relegation season, he only scored five times as his ambition to move to a bigger club took his eye off the ball. He was linked with Liverpool, but ended up at Leicester, finishing his Town career with 48 goals and is now in 26th position in our all time goal scorers chart, level with a couple of players who came after him, Duncan Shearer and David Cowling.

His career took off in the First Division with Leicester and he played for England gaining 8 caps and scoring twice, but he never really hit the heights that his talent should've and after Leicester, he teamed up again with his old Town manager Ian Greaves at Bolton, where he scored this wonder goal against Ipswich.

He had a spell over in America with Philadelphia Fury before coming back to play for Birmingham City. But then his career hit the buffers when he signed for a really poor Leeds Urinals team and was part of their line up that lost a famous League Cup defeat at the hands of 3rd Division Huddersfield Town in 1982.

He had a long and varied career and was still playing at 44 when he was manager of his home town club, Halifax Town. He told his tales on the after dinner speaking circuit, where his most famous quote came, which was often attributed to George Best.

All the money's gone. I've spent about 90% on wine, women and song. The rest I just frittered away.

Or words similar to that. But it was true. The money had gone and he spent his final days next door to an acquaintance of ours in a small terraced house in Outlane.

On this date in 1930, Town played Sheffield Wednesday in the FA Cup semi finals. The game was played at Old Trafford and after scoring in every round, Alex Jackson scored again to keep the record going. He had scored a hat trick against Bury, two against Sheffield United and one each against Bradford City and Aston Villa. This time he scored both goals in a 2-1 win over the T'Owels as Town reached the FA Cup Final for the fourth time and the second visit to Wembley Stadium.

The crowd at Old Trafford for this one was 69,292 and we would play Arsenal in the Final after they drew 2-2 on this day, but won the replay against Hull City.

That would be Town's second trip to Wembley. The third was in 1938 for the Final against Preston. On this date in 1994, we had the chance to make it a fourth trip there as we travelled up to Brunton Park for the second leg of the Autoglass Trophy Northern Area Final.

We had won 4-1 in the first leg a fortnight earlier and a crowd of 8,330 turned up to see this one, the Carlisle fans more in hope than expectation. But that hope was high when they went 2-0 up in the first half. What on earth did manager Neil Warnock say to the Town players at half time? The paint on the walls must've been blistering from the heat of his wrath.

Our brave lads did manage it though, playing out an estimated ten minutes of injury time, in a time before the fourth official would hold up a board telling us how long left. I didn't go, but listened on the radio and it seemed like they were playing an extra half hour.

So the game finished 2-0 but the Terriers won it 4-3 on aggregate and so after 56 years, Huddersfield Town would once more walk down Wembley Way. The opponents will be Swansea City, who had a similar Area Final. They beat Wycombe Wanderers 3-1 at home but then had to hold on to the aggregate lead as they lost the 2nd leg 1-0.

That Final will be played on the 24th of April.