[Lord Snooty]

August 13:

Happy birthday today to Naby Sarr, who was born on this date in 1993 in Marseille. Twenty nine today.

He came from Charlton Athletic in 2020 and played 66 times for us, scoring seven goals. His final game was in the Final at Wembley, in what turned out to be a calamitous tactical error by Spanish numpty, Carlos Corberan. Naby had been a brilliant impact sub in previous games, but just at the vital moment, Corberan decided to change everything and left Jon Russell on the bench.

Then! Then he released him after we'd lost, days before walking out of the club himself. Naby has signed for Reading, with Paul Ince not happy about his registration being held up by FIFA. Hoping he'll get a game today.

Should Town have kept him?

So while Naby was having his first birthday party in Marseille, we were on the road to Blackpool on this date in 1994. And what a fantastic day that was. The one day of the year that Blackpool had sunshine, but it didn't shine on the home team. It shone brightly on the many thousands of Town fans who turned up at Bloomfield Road, a dilapidated old ground in need of some rebuilding. There were so many of us that we couldn't all get into the away terracing and the stewards had to open up the unsafe, derelict open end behind the goal.

What a great performance it was from the Town with Neil Warnock starting his second season in charge. New signing Paul Reid scored twice on his debut as well as Ronnie Jepson, who also scored twice in a resounding 4-1 win. The official attendance was 8,343, at least half were from 'Udders.

Fast forward five years to 1999 and on this date, we were on Sky Sports, which was still a bit of a novelty back then. No doubt we'd been chosen because we had recently appointed "a name" as manager, Steve Bruce. The opponents were Blackburn Rovers at the McAlpine on a Friday night. Friday the 13th. Unlucky for us? No unlucky for Simon Grayson, the Blackburn defender who deflected a shot by Marcus Stewart into his own goal to give us a 1-0 lead at half time.

Magic Marcus made it 2-0 shortly after the break, but then Rovers hit back, scoring through Lee Carsley and then equalising with a Marlon Broomes header in the 89th minute. Dejection! Bruce, you've ballsed it up again. Snatched a draw from the jaws of victory.

But no. The lads were determined not to throw it away and some great work from Ben Thornley, Scott Sellars and Clyde Wijnhard, set up sub Rob Edwards to drill the ball into the net to send the stadium wild.

Good old Brucey. Never doubted your tactics for a minute.

Here, have a watch of this.....

Then fast forward to 2016. The first full season for David Wagner had started with a brilliant home win against Brentford, but then we had a surprising defeat in the League Cup at Shrewsbury in midweek. So we didn't travel to Sid James' Park with too much confidence to take on a Newcastle team managed by Rafael Benitez.

That confidence went into overdrive after this game though. What a result this was. A 2-1 win up at Newcastle. Our first win there since 1953.

It started with a Nahki Wells well taken finish just before half time. Dwight Gayle (where's he now?) scored for the Toon on the hour, but it was the Town who took the points. A fantastic tackle from young Kasey Palmer robbed the ball off the Newcastle defender and he sent it into the path of the onrushing Jack Payne, who'd only just come on. He expertly placed it beyond the keeper and celebrated in front of the thousands of Town fans stuck high up in the seventeenth tier of the Leazes Stand.

Two wins out of two. The Wagner Revolution is in full swing!

Sadly, three years later, the Wagner Revolution had been and gone and the club had gone full revolution back to being crap again. On this date in 2019, we saw the end of the Jan Siewert era and a quick glimpse of the future as we played Lincoln City in the League Cup.

Jack Payne by now was in the Lincoln side, having spent the whole of our Premier League life out on loan (Oxford, Blackburn and Bradford, all in League 1), then being released on relegation. He ran our Prima Donna rubbish ragged. They also had the brilliant Harry Toffolo doing the same and it was all over seen by their management duo of Danny Cowley and his brother Nicky.

The Terriers were terrible. I've seen some bad performances in my time. This was in the top ten of the worst. Players like Reece Brown and Herbert Bockhorn never played again. Players like Jaden Brown, Juninho Bacuna and Isaac Mbenza shouldn't have, but did.

The result was 1-0 to the Imps with Harry Anderson scoring, but it could and should have been much more.

Siewert, it turned out later, was sacked after the game by Phil Hodgkinson, but was kept on for another chance against Fulham on Friday night. He finally fecked him off after that one and the Cowleys would take over a few weeks later.

Here's little Jack smiling again. Should we have kept him? I know he's done the rounds of the lower leagues since, but surely he was better than some of the dross we did keep.