[Lord Snooty]

April 29:

A momentous day in the history of Huddersfield Town. Not only did we win the FA Cup, but also the wonderful Christopher Schindler was born......

Yes, as you probably know already by the way the club have been banging on about it, it is one hundred years ago today that Huddersfield Town won the FA Cup for the one and only time, on this date in 1922.

The game itself would be played at Stamford Bridge, the same venue as our first Final, two years previously against Aston Villa. This time the opponents were Preston North End, who were playing in their third final, having won it once in 1889.

Town went to Whitley Bay for their training camp for the 1920 Final. This time they went to Blackpool and traveled down to London on the same train as the PNE players, the day before the game.

Before the match, both teams were introduced to the Duke of York by the respective captains, Joe McCall of Preston and Town's Tom Wilson. We were favourites for the game, having beaten the Lillywhites 6-0 in the league a week before and made just the one change to that line up, with Billy Watson returning in place of Harry Brough at left half.

Town were managed by Herbert Chapman and lined up as follows; Sandy Mutch, James Wood, Sam Wadsworth, Charlie Slade, Tom Wilson ©, Billy Watson, George Richardson, Frank Mann, Ernie Islip, Clem Stephenson and Billy Smith.

The game itself was a scrappy affair with just one goal in it. Just like it is now, the media of the day didn't have a good word to say about Huddersfield or Preston and reports in newspapers described it as bad tempered and it did discredit the game of football. Town had the best chances though and Frank Mann set up Ernie Islip for the first one, which was well saved by the PNE keeper, Jim Mitchell, who unusually was wearing spectacles. Other chances were created by Billy Smith, Clem Stephenson and George Richardson but there were no goals by the time the first 45 minutes were up. Town skipper Wilson had kept Preston's centre forward Billy Roberts in his pocket throughout.

The breakthrough came in the 67th minute when Smith went on another of his runs down the left wing and cut inside the box, only to be scythed down by right back Tom Hamilton, right on the edge of the penalty area. The referee though had no doubts it was inside, despite Preston protests and pointing him to the marks on the pitch. And so a penalty was awarded.

The speccy eyed Preston goalkeeper did his best to put Smith off by jumping up and down on the line, but the star man kept his cool and with advice form Clem to "ignore the devil dance and just shove it in the net", he did just that, just inside the right hand post.

Town professionally saw out the remaining minutes of the match to bring the Cup back to Huddersfield and were presented with their medals and the famous trophy by the future King (the present Queen's dad). The Town fans in the crowd of 53,710 sang Smile Awhile, the club anthem that had just been introduced and is now the first football club anthem to still be being sung after a hundred years.

And as mentioned earlier, one of the coolest penalty takers in the history of the club was born on this date in 1990. That man was of course, Christopher Schindler, who is 32 today and was born in Munich.

He is now back in Germany, playing for FC Nürnberg, but he will always be welcomed back in Huddersfield for as long as he lives, after he took his chance to write his name in Huddersfield Town legend late in May in 2017.

We all know this story, the story of a man who left his home town club after working his way up from youth team to captain, to come and play for David Wagner and his revolution. A man who twice won the Player of the Season award at the John Smith's. A man who always led by example and a man who's good looks sent many a heart a flutter in Huddersfield, both male and female, eh fellas?

Ooooh, don't ya just love him?

Well Schindy's penalty at Wembley got us back into the top tier of English football for the first time in 45 years and it was on this date in 1972 that we played that last First Division game. It was against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, which of course was the scene of our triumphant return at the start of 2017/18.

This however was a dull 0-0 draw, the fourth game in a row where we hadn't scored and had Mick Fairclough leading the attack in place of Frank Worthington, who had played his last game for the club the week before, having been linked with a big money move to Liverpool, which never came off.

One man who did play his last match for Town in that game at the Palace was Trevor Cherry, who sadly died on this date two years ago in 2020, aged 72. It was a sudden death apparently and his former team mate at Leeds, and Town coach when Trev had returned to be on the Board at Town, Terry Yorath paid this tribute when the tragedy struck......

"My heart goes out to his family. I'll miss Trevor. The last time I saw him was the Leeds v Huddersfield game at the John Smith Stadium, he was a good man and very honest. He was the kind of player you always wanted in your team, he worked hard, could play in a number of positions, and I always thought of him as Mr 100 percent, he always give it his all.  He played for England and you don't play for England unless you're a good player."