[Lord Snooty]

May 7:

Born on this date in 1961 in Sheffield was our goalkeeper, Brian Cox. Probably the third most famous Brian Cox on the planet, he's 61 today. He will sadly be remembered as the one who let ten goals go past him in a certain unmentionable match in Moss Side. But he was much, much better than that. I can't find a good enough picture of him on the interweb, so here's a picture of a different Brian Cox with a celebrity Town fan.

He helped us get promoted and kept a clean sheet on his 22nd birthday. That was when we beat Newport County at Leeds Road on this date in 1983, to win promotion from the 3rd Division to the 2nd, after a decade of lower league stuff. Newport came here knowing that defeat would end their chances of going up and in the end they finished 4th, four points behind us. We finished 3rd, behind Portsmouth and Cardiff City.

The game itself was a tense affair........... What am I on about? I have to admit, I missed the game. Was on a jolly down to Wembley for the Challenge Cup Final. Never thought when we booked it that this game would be so important in the history of Huddersfield Town.

This was the last time we won automatic promotion. Yes we have won promotion many times since, but all through the Play Offs. Anyway, it was David Cowling, who has a knack of scoring in big matches, doing the business again with a shot to score the only goal of the game.

There were more celebrations at Leeds Road, twelve months on in 1984. It wasn't us celebrating though. It wa' aboot a horf of a million Newcastle fans. They were everywhere that night. We used to go for pre match drinks in the Peacock on Leeds Road back then, but couldn't get anywhere near. The official attendance was 25,101 and there were only about 4 or 5,000 Town fans there.

This was the Newcastle side that had been revived by the arrival of Kevin Keegan, but also had Terry McDermott, Peter Beardsley and Chris Waddle in it. A magnificent attacking line up. They'd beaten us 5-2 earlier in the season, which wasn't the thrashing it looks on paper, probably the best game I've seen Town lose, if that makes sense.

Anyway, they needed a point to win promotion to the First Division. Keegan was out injured for this one and silly old Town went and took a two goal lead early doors. Those mad Geordies were looking madder than ever.

Graham Cooper scored them both, though looking at Wikipedia, his second goal has gone down as an own goal for Stephen Carney. Those mad Geordies got even madder just before half time. Mad celebrating that is when Beardsley pulled one back and then David Mills equalised.

That was the full time result, 2-2. We all made a swift exit and left them to it.

Here's that scoreboard again......

Now I have been banging on about Dave Mangnall all year about his goal scoring magnificence. On this date in 1932, he scored a hat trick at Villa Park to give Town a 3-2 victory and move us above the Villa into a 4th place finish in the Division One final table.

His third goal was his 33rd league goal of the season, but add them to the nine he scored in the FA Cup and that equals the record of 42 goals in a season, set by Sammy Taylor in 1919/20. That's a record that still stands today.

Other games on this day include the one in 1966 at home to Coventry, which I wrote about in the recent match thread and was Town's first ever go on Match Of The Day. We lost 2-0 and missed out on a chance of promotion. If you missed it on the match thread and want to have a look.......

We have more end of season glories against Man City. Twice played them on this date, none in living memory though. Well not mine anyway. We beat them both times 1-0 and both at Leeds Road. England international inside forward, Bobby Barclay scored in 1938 and eleven years later in 1949, it was Arnold Rodgers scoring.


We have played Brentford three times on this date. Firstly, twelve months before we beat them in the Play Offs, we beat them in the league on this date in 1994. Two goals for the cult hero, Iain Dunn in a 2-1 win at Griffin Park.

We played them at the Galpharm in 2011 and it was a right old crackerjack. Danny Ward scored twice and Lee Novak and Benik Afobe got one each in a 4-4 draw.

And they came back in 2016. Jamie Paterson scored for Town, but the Bees scored five. This result gave many a pundit the idea that David Wagner wasn't up to the job and come the start of the next season, many of them were predicting relegation for our lads, not knowing that the Wagner Revolution was well and truly under way.