[Lord Snooty]

June 4:

Another day, another Ray Wilson international cap. This was the 29th of the 30 caps he got as a player for Town and was the second game for the Three Lions in the mini tournament out in Brazil.

Having been hammered 5-1 in the game with Brazil, Alf Ramsey brought Gordon Banks in to replace Blackpool's Tony Waiters in goal, but Ray kept his place at left back in this match against Portugal on this day in 1964 at the Estádio do Pacaembu in Sao Paulo. They had one of the stars of the game in the 60s in their side. Having faced Pele in the last game, Ray was now up against Eusébio.

The Portuguese took the lead just before half time through Fernando Peres and Roger Hunt equalised just after the break and the match finished as a one all draw.

On this date in 1971, we had the final group game of the Anglo/Italian Cup. Town had beaten Sampdoria both home and away but had lost at home to Bologna. This final game of the competition for Town was against the spaghetti boys at the Stadio Communale, with Town going into it in prime position in the English table.

But Francesco Rizzo, who had played for Italy in the 1966 World Cup, was the scorer of the game's only goal, to knock the Terriers out. That wasn't how the game went though, with Town frustratingly missing chance after chance. Les Chapman, Frank Worthington, Mick Barry and Trevor Cherry should all have scored and Ian Greaves commented afterwards that this was one of the best performances under his management, despite the result.

So the players went off for the summer break in confident mood for the up coming season. Sadly that confidence was to be drained as the Town got relegated from Division One.

As for Bologna, they played Blackpool in the Final and it was the Tangerines who won it 2-1.

Born on this date in 1981 was Gary Taylor-Fletcher. He was born in Widnes and is 41 today. He of course, scored both for and against us in the Play Offs. He scored for Lincoln against us in 2004 and then for us against Barnsley in 2006.

His best goal for us was probably the one that was marked down as the 500,000th ever Football League goal. He scored this against Rotherham Utd in August 2006, but who the hell was counting half a million goals?

GTF never won promotion with us or Lincoln, but he did later on with both Blackpool and Leicester. One player who did win promotion with us and is also having a birthday today is Rajiv van La Parra, the dangerous Dutch winger that we got from Wolves and helped the Town win promotion in 2017.

He was born in Rotterdam in 1991 and is 31 today. His first Town goal was against his old Wolverhampton colleagues in the early days of 2016/17 and as he celebrated in front of their fans at the away end of the JSS, they all heartily congratulated him.

He was a bit marmite when playing for us. Some fans loved his trickery and skill, whilst others couldn't stand the lazy so n so.

Whatever we all thought, he was an important cog in the David Wagner squad, but after relegation to the Championship, he was sold in the half time raffle at Luton Town awaaaaay, with Red Star Belgrade winning the prize.

He didn't last long there and is now playing in the Bundesliga 2nd Division for the Würzburger Kickers.

So which side of the marmite fence do you fall on? Van La Parra, footballing genius or waste of space?