[Lord Snooty]

May 12:

Two players, my favourite Town player that I never saw, and also a modern day legend of the club were both born on this date. More about Rocket Ron later, first up it's Alex Jackson.

You may want to read the long version of his life and career, which I wrote during lockdown. If so, click here.... http://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread...t=profiles

For the shortened version.....Alex Jackson was born in Renton, West Dunbartonshire in 1905, played for Dumbarton, went to America, came back, played for Aberdeen, met Herbert Chapman in a pub.

Signed for Huddersfield, won a league title, scored a hat trick for Scotland against England at Wembley, scored in the FA Cup Final, scored 89 goals for Town, 8th in our all time goal scorers chart (just been overtaken by Jordan Rhodes), went to Chelsea, became a pub landlord, joined the army, became a major, survived the war but.......

He was in Egypt in 1946 when tragedy struck. He was in the Suez zone and whilst driving an army truck, it over turned and he was killed, dying of the head injuries he sustained before arrival at hospital.

He is buried in the Fayid War Cemetery, a patch of land on the western shore of Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake. He was only 41 years old.

Ronnie Jepson was born in Audley, Staffordshire in 1963 and so is 59 today. He's currently out of work following the sacking of his buddy Neil Warnock at Middlesbrough, when he and Kevin Blackwell were given the boot as well.

It was Warnock who brought Ronnie to Town in 1993 to replace Iwan Roberts, signing him from Exeter City. He was Player of the Season in 1994/95, the season we won promotion by beating Bristol Rovers at Wembley in the Play Offs.

Before Joining us from Exeter, he was at Port Vale, Peterborough and Preston. And after us he played for Bury, Oldham and Burnley. But it was at Huddersfield Town where he had his best years, scoring 42 goals, putting him in 38th place in our all time goal scorers chart, level with Bob Kelly and Lee Novak.

He returned to Town in 2008 as assistant to Stan Ternent, who he had played for at Bury and Burnley and assisted at Gillingham. But that didn't work out. Dean Hoyle took over as Chairman from Ken Davy and one of the first things he did was to get shut of Turnip. Despite being a Town legend, Rocket Ron was also dismissed and was out of work for a year before he teamed up with Warnock for the first time at QPR and has been following Colin around the country at various clubs ever since.

On the pitch, on this date in 2012, we were in Play Off action. This one was at the Stadium mk, in the League One Play Off semi final 1st leg match with Milton Keynes Dons. We had finished 4th, a point above 5th placed MKD and it was Town who took the lead through Jordan Rhodes, ending his five match dry spell. That was in the 32nd minute, a header from a Lee Novak cross, in front of the Town fans packed behind the goal in a crowd of 11,893,on a sunny Saturday lunchtime.

In the second half, up the other end, Jack Hunt, played a one/two with Kallum Higginbotham and finished off a good move to put Town 2-0 up and big favourites to progress to the Final, which will be back at Wembley this season. The 2nd leg will be back at the Galpharm in three days time, for the right to play either Sheffield United or Stevenage in the season's showpiece finale.

On this date in 2019, we played the final game in our two season stint as a Premier League club. It was down at Southampton an we drew 1-1. Nathan Redmond scored for the Saints, but Alex Pritchard scored the equaliser in the second half, punishing a mistake by goalkeeper Angus Gunn.

This result means that if we start 2022/23 as a Premier League team, we are currently on a two match PL unbeaten run, after we drew with Man Utd in the previous one.

And in 1951, we had the second of our two Festival Of Britain matches. Having beaten PSV Eindhoven 4-1 three days earlier, this time we went one better, beating French team, Stade Rennais 5-1. Albert Nightingale scored twice against PSV and he added another one against Rennais. Harold Hassall, the season's leading scorer with 18, added two goals to his list in this game. And Jimmy Glazzard, who would be leading scorer for the next five seasons, also scored twice.

They've got two different spellings of Harold's surname on these bubble gum cards.