[Lord Snooty]

June 20:

On this day in 1954, Huddersfield Town had two players on England duty at the Swiss World Cup. Ron Staniforth was earning his fifth cap in this game against the Swiss hosts, played at the Wankdorf Stadium in Berne. Bill McGarry made his England debut in this one, as the Three Lions won 2-0 to qualify for the quarter finals.

It was the Wolves who won it, with two of their players getting the goals. The first came just before half time from the outside left Jimmy Mullen. The game was wrapped up in the 69th minute from Dennis Wilshaw, who played at centre forward instead of Nat Lofthouse.

So England topped the group with 3 points, after drawing with Belgium in the first game and will play Uruguay next. The second place went to a Play Off. The Swiss and the Italians both had two points. Italy had just beaten Belgium 4-1 and had the better goal difference, which would've taken them through in some competitions. Switzerland beat Italy in the group match, which would've seen them through in some other competitions. This particular competition decided to decide it with a Play Off.

Switzerland won it 4-1 and would go on to play Austria in the quarter finals on the same day as the England/Uruguay game. More on that on the 26th.

Here's the highlights of today's game, without any commentary. Ron is number 2, Bill is 14.

On this date in 2020, the country was in lockdown due to coronavirus. It's not that long ago, you might remember it. Anyway, football had been suspended and well into June, the season hadn't yet restarted. Until now.

Today was the day we got going again. The last match Town had played was away at Bellend Road on March the 7th and now three and a half months later, we got to see our brave boys again. Well we saw them on i-player. The games were all played behind closed doors, some with unusual kick off times.

This first game back though was a Saturday afternoon, kicking off at 15:00 and the opponents at the John Smith's Stadium were Wigan Athletic.

Wigan had looked doomed earlier in the season, but just before lockdown they had rallied and were very much the form team. That form kept going at the restart as they came to our place and won 2-0.

It was an utterly shite performance from Town, even though we had 70% possession. Jamal Lowe scored first, chesting the ball into the net from a cross by Kieffer Moore. And just after half time, the points were wrapped up when an old hero of ours, Anthony Pilkington scored via  a wicked deflection off Lewis O'Brien.

This defeat moved Wigan moved above us as we dropped to 20th in the Championship.