[Lord Snooty]

May 23:

The biggest legend in Huddersfield Town history was born on this date. That's Billy Smith, who was born in the pit village Tantobie in the county of Durham in 1895. He signed for Huddersfield Town at the age of 18 in 1913 and made his debut on Christmas Day at home to Hull City. The following day, the teams met again at Hull and Billy scored his first Town goal in a 1-4 defeat.

He joined the navy during the First World War but was back in a Town shirt for the 1919/20 season, winning promotion to the First Division and making it to the FA Cup Final. he missed that match though through suspension.

He did play in the 1922 Cup Final though  and scored the only goal of the game, from the penalty spot as Town won the Cup for the first time. He followed that by winning the League Championship three times in a row with the club and by the time he left in 1934, he had the record for most appearances, with a total of 574 games for us, scoring 126 goals.

I wrote more about his career when I was bored during lockdown, if you want to read more about this great player...... http://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread...#pid195308

Billy died in 1951 aged 57, so wasn't around when his old team mate David Steele died on this date in 1964 aged 69. He was also a thrice champion, having been signed by Herbert Chapman in 1922 and played 203 games for the club.

He left to join Preston in 1929, but came back to Huddersfield during the 2nd World War when he was appointed manager of the club in 1943 when Ted Magner left. Town struggled after the war though and when they narrowly avoided relegation in 1946/47, he resigned.

And a few years later, another of the Chapman glory team died on this date. This one though, was one that some of us saw. We didn't see him play but we did see him come back to Leeds Road for the Final Whistle game in 1994.

It is of course, Joe Walter, who died in 1995, in Bristol, aged 99. His death occurred just a few days before two of his old clubs, Town and Bristol Rovers, met at Wembley for the Play Off Final. His funeral was attended by the entire Huddersfield Town squad and the manager Neil Warnock.

He played 57 matches for Town, scoring five goals.

And finally, we had a player involved in another infamous match for England on this date. It was 1954 and it was Ron Staniforth playing at right back in the Nepstadion in Budapest against Hungary. This was a friendly, but was a return fixture after the two countries had met at Wembley in the previous November, when Hungary won 6-3.

If that was a shock for the country that gave the beautiful game to the world, this one was off the scale as the Hungarians won 7-1. They were led by their captain, Ferenc Puskás, who became one of the most famous footballers of the era. He scored twice in this game.

Despite this result, Ron kept his place in the squad for the up coming World Cup.