[Lord Snooty]

April 21:

On this date in 1928, Huddersfield Town made it's first visit to the Empire Stadium, Wembley. It was for the FA Cup Final and after beating Sheffield United after a second replay in the semis, we got to meet Blackburn Rovers. Town were favourites, being second in the league and having beaten Rovers 3-1 at Leeds Road just a month before. A crowd of 92,041 turned up for the game and Town, managed by Jack Chaplin lined up as follows;

Billy Mercer, Roy Goodall, Ned Barkas, Levi Redfern, Tom Wilson, David Steele, Alex Jackson, Bob Kelly, George Brown, Clem Stephenson ©, Billy Smith.

It was a shocking start for Town. Blackburn scored after 40 seconds. Harry Healless, the Rovers skipper crossed the ball into the Town box and Mercer, our goalkeeper, rose to catch it. No problems there then. No? This is 1928. Goalkeepers were fair game back then, totally unprotected and so Jack Roscamp shouldered him and the ball into the back of the net. One nil.

It was 2-0 in the 22nd minute as Tommy McLean netted and that was the score at the break. Town were back in it though in the 55th minute when Jackson scored our first ever Wembley goal. That wasn't his first Wembley goal of course. He'd scored a hat trick there for Scotland against England, three weeks earlier.

Our brave lads pushed for the equaliser but couldn't force extra time and five minutes from the end, Roscamp got his second and the match finished 3-1 to Blackburn.

Town and Barnsley have virtually swapped places from this time last year. They were in a Play Off position and we were looking like relegation fodder. We play them again tomorrow, live on Sky Sports of course, but twelve months and a day before that, on this date in 2021, we played them at the John Smith's Stadium behind closed doors.

Friday night's match will hopefully be a celebration. Last season's was more like a wake. If I remember rightly, we were shite! And the Tykes more than deserved their 1-0 victory with a goal in the second half from their big American striker Daryl Dike.

On this date in 2014, we had a Championship match against a fellow struggler, but this one we won, to reach the magic 50 point mark. We left it late though. It was an away game at Yeovil and with Nahki Wells giving us a second half lead, only to get pegged back again, we reached the seventh minute of added on time, still level.

But then up popped the bearded wonder, Adam Clayton to score the winner. It made Town safe, but plunged poor old Yeovil down. And they've just kept on going. Now in their third season back in the National League.

Clayts had grown a massive beard over the last few weeks and had pledged to dye it blue n white for the up coming Leicester match if he could raise over a thousand quid for the Town Foundation. We pledged, he kept his promise.

This was his last Town goal however. He won the Player of the Season award, but then got sold to Middlesbrough.

We sent another relegation rival down on this date in 2001. That was QPR, who by us beating them 2-1 in this match, got relegated to League One. Dean Gorré scored in the first half. I can't remember what time the 'orrible 'oops scored theirs, but I well remember our winner.

A point was no good for them and so when they had a last minute corner, everybody was up. I'm not sure if the goalie was up, but we won the ball and made a swift breakaway with the ball eventually getting to Andy Booth. His shot was saved but it fell nicely for Delroy Facey to tap into the open net.

QPR went down, alongside Tranmere and....... us. We only got two points from the following three games and went down.