[Lord Snooty]

April 16:

Four birthdays today to mention. I'll do them in the order they were born in.

First up, it's Tom Wilson. Born on this date in 1896 in Seaham, County Durham, he started out with Sunderland just before the war, then signed for Town in 1919 as a replacement for Tiny Fayers.

By the time he left, he had three League titles, an FA Cup winners medal, three FA Cup runners up medals and a Charity Shield winners medal. In fact it was he who scored the winner in the 1922 Charity Shield victory against Liverpool at Old Trafford.

Many of those games he played as club captain, eventually handing the job over to Clem Stephenson. He only had one England cap though, despite all his club trophies. That was in the infamous defeat at Wembley against the Scots when Alex Jackson scored a hat trick.

He was transferred to Blackpool in 1932 when he had lost the centre half's jersey to Alf Young and his final game for Town, a 0-0 draw at home to Everton, was his 500th Town appearance. That puts him in 2nd place in our all time appearances chart, behind Billy Smith.

Here he is leading the side out at Wembley for the 1930 FA Cup Final against Arsenal.

Next up is Mel Machin, who only was with us for a short time in 2003. He was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1945 and so is 77 today. he played for Port Vale, Gillingham, Bournemouth and Norwich, before taking a managerial career with Man City, Barnsley and Bournemouth. He then came out of retirement to be assistant to Mick Wadsworth. Following Wadsworth's sacking, Mel took over for the end of the disastrous 2002/03 season.

He lost his first game in charge, but then looked like he might be able to turn it around by beating Chesterfield and then winning away at Swindon. But it wasn't to be and when we went down, the club went into administration, Mel left and eventually Peter Jackson took over.

Jon Worthington is 39 today, having been born in Dewsbury in 1983 on this date. He first came to the club as a 9 year old, working his way through the ranks all the way to being made club captain in 2004 and now, back as a first team coach.

He was part of the "Young Guns" set up that went on to win promotion under Jacko in 2004. He made a total of 207 (with 30 subs) appearances before Lee Clark let him go in 2009.

And then we have Chris Löwe. Born on this date in 1989 in Plauen, which at the time was still in East Germany. He's 33 today and playing for Dynamo Dresden. He's been here very recently and so we all know all about him, so would just like to say, we couldn't ask for a better penalty taker to get a shoot out under way. Mr Ice Cool.

On the pitch, we beat Millwall 1-0 in 2010 with a goal from Peter Clarke. We would meet them again a month later in the Play Offs..........

In 1989, we beat Bury 6-0 at Gigg Lane. The next season, on this date in 1990, we lost 6-0 against Bury at Gigg Lane.

We've had four trips to Ewood Park to play Blackburn Rovers on this date, with results getting gradually better from a 3-0 defeat in 1932. We had a 2-0 defeat in 2001, a 1-0 loss in 2013 and then finally, in 2016, we beat the buggers 2-0. Nahki Wells scored first, then we got an own goal from Matthew Kilgallon.