[Lord Snooty]

May 26:

Town played a league game on this date in 1947. Following a really bad winter, there was a massive back log of fixtures and Wolves came to Leeds Road for the last game of the season. Wolves won 1-0 and finished third from the top behind Liverpool and Man Utd. Town finished third from the bottom, ahead of relegated Brentford and Leeds Urinals. Only two teams went down back then.

This was the latest finish to a season, before the recent Covid lockdown season.

Back in the 1920s, if there had been a European Champions League, we would've been champions of that as well. But seeing as there wasn't, it wasn't until 1970/71 that Huddersfield Town played in a European competition.

It wasn't a proper competition. It wasn't even up to the standard of the new UEFA Europa Conference. It was, the Anglo-Italian Cup. An invitational event, not one to qualify for and was made up of groups consisting of four teams, two from the Football League and two from the Italian League.

The one we played in was played at the end of the 70/71 season, just after Town had finished in 15th place in our first season back in the First Division and we were drawn with Swindon Town (you didn't play the teams from your own country), Sampdoria and Bologna.

So on this date in 1971, we played the first match, at Leeds Road against Sampdoria, who boasted a couple of players who had played in last summer's World Cup in Mexico. They were Luis Suarez of Spain and Italy's Giovanni Lodetti. We had no internationals in out team, but won 2-0 with a crowd just over 10,000 in to see it. Roy Ellam and Steve Smith scored the goals.

The manager of that team was Ian Greaves, who was born on this date in 1932. He, of course, had led Huddersfield Town to the Second Division Championship the year before. But for injury though, he may not have been around to do so. That's because when he played for Manchester United, he missed the trip to Belgrade in 1958 when eight of his team mates were killed in a plane crash in Munich.

In his time at Old Trafford, he won one league title and an FA Cup runners up medal. His managerial reign at Leeds Road began in 1968, taking in that championship, but he wasn't backed by the board adequately and after a couple of relegations, he resigned.

He then went and got Bolton promoted, then Mansfield promoted, as well as winning the FL Trophy.

He died in 2009 aged 76.

There are a couple of England internationals involving Town players from the great and glorious past. The first one came five days after the 5-2 win in Luxembourg and on this date in 1927, Roy Goodall and George Brown played in a 6-0 win away in France. George scored a couple of goals in the game played at the Stade de Colombes.

Then in 1938 on this date, another England win against France at the same ground. Again, two Town players took part, Alf Young and Ken Willingham. This was the third game in the three match European tour that started with the infamous match in Berlin and then a defeat in Switzerland.

England beat the French though, 4-2.

The Stade de Colombes would be the venue for the World Cup final in a few weeks time. The tournament was due to start a week after this match with England. The Football Association were still being pathetic about playing in this tournament, despite being invited to compete without having to qualify.

The French made it to the quarter finals, beaten by eventual winners, Italy. How far would England have gone? And would Goodall and Young have been Huddersfield Town players with World Cup winners medals?

Anything else happening? You betcha! On this date in 2012, this happened.........

........thus making legends of Alex Smithies and Steve Simonsen and ending ten years of lower league obscurity. We were back in the Championship and ten years later, we still haven't dropped back down.