[Lord Snooty]

March 30:

We've almost got a Hugh Grant film today. Four Birthdays and a Funeral.

In chronological order, the first birthday is from 1895 and that's Charlie Wilson, the centre forward who currently stands at no 17 in our all time goal scorers chart. He scored 62 in total between 1922 and 1925 after signing for us from Spurs. According to his Wikipedia page, he was known as "the clot from the midlands" as for some reason, he tried to disguise his identity whilst playing for them in the Wartime League.

Anyway, he signed for them after the war, having been at Coventry just before it all started. He won two League titles with Town, but got injured and sold to Stoke before the third title was won. He won promotion with Stoke and became the first Stoke player to notch up 100 goals.

After football, he became landlord of the Noah's Ark pub in Stafford. He died in May 1971 at the age of 76.

Next birthday. Born in 1946 in Dublin, it's Eoin Hand. He was Town manager from May 1988 to March 1992, taking over the job when the club was in a dire state having just been relegated to the 3rd Division following a disastrous season.

Most of his playing career was down south with Portsmouth, earning himself 20 caps for the Republic as well. His most high profile job was when he managed his country and almost got them to the 1982 World Cup, but they were cheated out of it by bad refereeing and a late goal for Belgium, which saw them miss out on goal difference.

He was replaced by Jack Charlton, who did manage to get them to the World Cup, while Eoin went off to manage in Saudi, then got the job at Town, having been brought in as assistant to Malcolm MacDonald earlier on.

He's now retired, living in County Kerry and is 76 today.

And the next one, born on this date is Mark Hudson. It's his 40th birthday today, born in 1982 in Guildford. I don't know why, but I always thought he was Welsh. Probably because I always associate him with Cardiff City. That's where he made his name, winning two promotions to the Premier League with them. He did however, also win promotion to the Premier League with us, lifting the Play Off trophy at Wembley in 2017.

He's now back at Cardiff as a first team coach. Before leaving Town, he had four games in caretaker charge, over two spells, when David Wagner left and also when Jan Siewert left. We lost all four of them.

And finally, we have a player starting out on what hopefully will be a distinguished career is Etienne Camara, who is 19 today. He was born in 2003 in Noisy-le-Grand, a suburb of Paris and signed for Town in 2020. His only first team appearance so far was in that FA Cup defeat at home to Plymouth last season, when he came on as a second half sub for Matt Daly.

The funeral? Sadly John Haselden died two years ago today in 2020. He was physio and assistant to Mick Buxton during the glory days of the early 80s and had actually been manager before when Tom Johnston left the club a few years earlier. He had 14 matches in charge in the dark days of 4th Division football.

As for the action on the pitch. The most recent game was in 2019, a defeat away at Crystal Palace in the Premier League. Me and Amelia were just arriving in Edinburgh for our anniversary weekend, when the news came through on 5Live that the defeat at Selhurst Park meant that Huddersfield Town had been relegated from the Prima Donna League, before the end of March! 

And now we're going to Luton Town. Luton Town awaaaaaaaay!

On a happier note, we got to see the show with Aljaž Škorjanec and Janette Manrara on their Remembering The Movies tour.