[Lord Snooty]

April 13:

A sad one to start with. Especially after yesterday's Thrice Champions date, as one of the stars of that era, Billy Smith died on this date in 1951, aged 55.

He had been through it all, starting out his Town career in 1913 and ending it in 1934. In that time he won promotion in 1920, but missed the FA Cup Final. Two years later though, he won the Cup with Town, scoring the penalty that won it, in 1922. Following that, he won the Charity Shield as well. Then of course there were the three League titles. And after that, two FA Cup runners up medals in 1928 and 1930.

And so with all that, he ended up top of our all time appearances chart with 574 (521 in the league and 53 FA Cup). He's also 4th in the scorers chart with 126. And that's all with four years missing due to the First world War.

Ron Staniforth was born on this date in 1924, just as Town were reeling in that first league title. He was born in Manchester and played for Stockport County, but when their manager, Andy Beattie became Town manager in 1952, Ron was his first signing. It proved to be a great signing as he played in every game of that first season (as did the entire defence), in which we won promotion back to the First Division.

He played 118 times for Town in his three seasons here and also won England caps. He played 8 times for England, including matches at the 1954 World Cup, alongside Town team mate, Bill McGarry.

Goalkeeper Bob Hesford was born on this date in 1916 in Bolton. He joined Town in 1933, becoming the regular goalie in the last three seasons before the 2nd World War. He had training to be a teacher whilst at Town and when he retired through injury in 1950, he became a teacher in Huddersfield before emigrating to Africa to teach.

He won an FA Cup runners up medal in 1938 when he played in goal for Town against Preston, only being beaten in the last minute of extra time from the penalty spot.

On the pitch, this was a special day for Alf Lythgoe in 1935. He scored five goals in a 6-0 home win against Blackburn Rovers. That equalled the club record set for goals in a match by Dave Mangnall in 1931. He came so close to beating it as well, with the score at 6-0, he hit the post.

This wasn't his first five goal haul of the season though. Having signed from Stockport earlier in the season, he had already hit five in a Division Three North game against Southport.

That was a 6-0 win. Also on this date, we had some big defeats. We had the Premier League trip to White Hart Lane in 2019 when we got stuffed by Spurs 4-0, with Lucas Moura scoring a hat trick. We had already been relegated at this stage of the season.


I hinted at this next one the other day, that was the trip to Carrow Road on Easter Monday 1998. Iwan Roberts scored a couple for Norwich as they hammered us 5-0.