[Lord Snooty]

April 9:

We'll start today with one from the Roll of Honour. Sidney James (not that one) was a centre half who was born in Sheffield in 1891. He started his Town playing career at centre forward though when the regular Frank Mann was out injured. He scored on his debut at Leeds Road against Leicester Fosse in a 2-1 defeat in December 1913. He scored again on New Years Day in another 2-1 defeat, this time, away at Barnsley.

He played 9 Second Division games that season, plus 2 in the FA Cup. The following season, he reverted to his favoured position in the defence, but only played three matches. The war had started by that time though and unlike the 2nd World War, the Football League continued to the end of 1914/15. Whether Sidney had signed up or not I don't know, but he did play 30 games in the Wartime League in the 1915/16 season as football continued as a way of keeping up morale on the home front.

His last game for Town was in April 1916, away at Leeds City. He had signed on with the Duke of Wellington's Regiment (West Riding) and the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and held the rank of acting lance corporal.

He died on this date in 1917. He was killed during the capture of the village of Saint-Martin-sur-Cojeul. Only 26 years old, he is buried in the Cojeul British Cemetery in the village.

Ernie Hine was born in Barnsley on this date in 1901 and died 74 years later in Huddersfield. In between those years, he played for both clubs as an inside right. He first joined Barnsley in 1921 and scored on his debut in an FA Cup game against Norwich. By the time he left for Leicester in 1926, he had scored 81 goals for the Reds. He did even better at Filbert Street, scoring twice on his debut, clocking up 148 goals in six seasons, as well as getting 6 England caps. 

The scoring on debut sequence ended when he signed for Town in 1932, we lost 0-1 at Portsmouth. He only played half a season for us before transferring to Manchester United. He did score in his second game though, a 4-1 home win against Leicester, the club he'd just departed. He followed that with two at home to Chelsea and another one at Brammall Lane, by which time he had four goals in six games. All going well.

But then he went eighteen games without a goal. The worst goal drought of his career. So he was offloaded to Old Trafford, where he stayed for a couple of seasons. Then he returned to Oakwell to play out the remainder of his playing career. Thirty three years old by now, he still managed to play another four seasons. In the second of those come back seasons, he scored a hat trick against Leicester and also scored the winner in an FA Cup game at Oakwell against Stoke in front of Barnsley's record crowd of 40,255.

He hung up his boots in 1938, by which time he had become Barnsley's all time record goal scorer, and still is to this day. He bagged 131 goals in 310 games and his overall goal tally stands at 287. But you can add to that 4 goals for England and 20 goals playing for a Football League XI on a tour of Canada in 1931.

On the field of play, the last match on this date was in 2016, with David Wagner coming to the end of his first half season in charge. Jamie Paterson gave Town the lead in the 40th minute and we led at half time. Hull equalised in the 76th minute, but Town won it in the last minute of normal time when some young lad called Harry Maguire put the ball through his own net. Lol! 

We didn't win it though, did we. Adama Diomande got Hull's second equaliser in the 3rd minute of added on time.