[Lord Snooty]

August 16:

Good times. Bad times. Two very contrasting times, just three years apart.

On this date in 2016, David Wagner took his team, along with thousands of disciples of the Wagner Revolution, to Villa Park to play Aston Villa for the first time in almost thirty years. We went there on the back of two glorious victories against Brentford at home and Newcastle away, thinking anything is possible now. Or will the bubble suddenly burst?

It was an emotional day for the Villa fans as one of their own, Dalian Atkinson, had just been murdered by the police. There was a minutes applause for him during the game.

Villa had some big names still in their side, having just been relegated from the PL. Tommy Elphick, Leandro Bacuna, Jordan Ayew, Ross McCormack who always scores against us, and a young lad called Jack Grealish. And it was Grealish who set up Ross McTwattybollocks to open the scoring, turning to us and giving us the shush finger.

We got well and truly battered in that first half, but things started to turn back our way in the second. Sean Scannell had come on at half time. Nahki Wells joined him ten minutes later and we started creating chances. Elias Kachunga had an overhead kick go just wide. Nahki hit the post. But then Wagner brought out the ace in the pack in the 86th minute. Michael Hefele.

Fans had been singing his song all game, even though none of us had actually seen him play yet. He came on in the 86th minute and we were baffled as to why he would bring on a defender and leave Kasey Palmer still sat down.

And then it happened!

Hef ran on after giving Chris Löwe a slap of the hands as he replaced him. He didn't take up a defensive position, but ran immediately to take up the centre forward slot. The throw in had been played back to the Villa keeper, a young lad called Pierluigi Gollini. He fannyed about for a bit, with them being 1-0 up and running the clock down. But then he noticed out of the corner of his eye, the giant figure of a Bavarian Lion steaming towards him. The lad panicked and drove the ball forward. Hef turned his back to block it. It hit him on the arse.

We could not believe it. It's going towards the goal. Surely not. It is you know. Is it? YEEEEEEEEES!! It blummin' well has! GET IIIIIIN!

Absolute limbs. The bloke behind landed on top of me. We were right there in something like row 4 or 5 as the Hef with his clawed hands ran over to us and did a brilliant knee slide. Never seen owt like it.

The next four minutes plus injury time was a blur with everybody by now singing de de de de de de der, Michael Hefele. The lads ran over to us at full time and we had the victory wave. Probably the only time we had this for a drawn match. But this seemed very much like a win.

The one point gained kept us joint top on 7 points with Brighton, Norwich and Fulham. This is gonna be a good season.

Three years on from that night, we had lived the dream but were now living through a harrowing, frightening nightmare. Wagner had gone. Hefele had gone. The Terrier Spirit? Gone!

We were managed now by some bloke who used to manage the local children's hospice, a German lad called Jan Siewert from Wakefield.

The season had started badly with defeats against Derby and Lincoln in the Cup and all we had was one point from a quite encouraging draw down at QPR. However, on this date in 2019, Fulham came to the John Smith's for Sky Sports' Friday Night Football and the nightmare continued.

Tommy Elphick, who had been a Villa player three years ago, had now joined us and played alongside Christopher Schindler and Terence Kongolo at the back. Jonathan Hogg was still running midfield alongside young Lewis O'Brien looking good after his season on loan at Billy Bantam's Circus.

Fulham had come down with us from the Prima Donna League and had Aleksandar Meerkatrovic leading their attack. It was a goal less first half, but then Juninho Bacuna, who had been one of the bright sparks of the back end of our PL life, continued his disastrous start to Championship life by attempting to clear his own lines by whacking the ball away as hard as he could. Unfortunately he got it completely wrong and miscued what turned out to be the perfect cross for Meerkatrovic to nod the ball into the net past our new keeper Kamil Grabara.

But then just six minutes later, against the run of play, we were back level. Karlan Grant, another of last season's bright sparks, had a header just cross the line, with the ref pointing to his wrist and signalling back to the centre circle. One all. This nightmare could yet have a happy ending.

No it couldn't. Fulham kept coming and the inevitable happened in the 80th minute. It was a goal worthy of winning any game as Ivan Cavaleiro, on loan from Wolves and having played for them in Siewert's only win as our manager, curled a beauty into the top bins.

It was all over for Jan. It was just too much now. Potless Phil Hodgkinson had given him his backing, but after the boos rang around the ground at full time, he had to do something. Listening to Paul Ogden on the way home on Radio Leeds, he was reporting that Potless had been walking around talking on his phone, pacing up and down on the new blue track surrounding the pitch and rumours were coming out that Jan had indeed, been sacked.

Those rumours were true and Mark Hudson would once again be asked to lead the team in the next game, a trip to play his old club Cardiff City on Wednesday night.

Joe Walter was born on this date in 1895 and went on to live for 99 years, just missing out on his century by three months. He was born in the Eastville area of Bristol, which was where Bristol Rovers played for many years (the stadium land is now an IKEA). And it was from Rovers that Herbert Chapman signed him in 1922.

He played in the first two of our thrice champions seasons, before going back to the west country and joining Taunton United. Before all that though, he had played his part in the First World War, joining the Gloucestershire Regiment as a 19 year old. They had a football team and Joe played for them, deciding to carry on playing after the war had ended. He played local footy in Bristol before the Rovers signed him on.

He came to Leeds Road in the summer of 1922 and made his debut in the first match of 22/23, on the right wing against Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park in a 2-2 draw. His first of four goals in that triumphant season came in a 1-0 win away at Nottingham Forest. His first Leeds Road goal came against Oldham and then he scored in both games against Arsenal.

After Huddersfield and then Taunton, he came back up north to play for Blackburn, before going back down south again to play for the Pirates again and finishing off at Bath City.

He then got a job as a groundsman, working for the Bristol Co-Operative Society, but then became the head groundsman at Bristol City's Ashton Gate, the bitter rivals of his home club Rovers. That was in the 1950s, by the time he retired though, he was back at Eastville doing a bit of coaching.

And off into retirement he went, until he was tracked down by representatives of Huddersfield Town who were preparing to celebrate the end of an era at Leeds Road with the up coming Final Whistle match. They found him, aged 98, living in a nursing home in Bath and when Town were due to play Bristol Rovers away, he was invited to come on down to the match as a guest of both clubs. Rovers were playing their home games back then, in Bath at Twerton Park.

The game was a goal less draw, but Joe had been so enthused by all this attention that he accepted the invitation to be the guest of honour for the final match at Leeds Road in April. A feature was made all about him in the Final Whistle video and what a lovely old bloke he was.

In the next season, Town and Rovers both got to the Play Off Final and sadly just a few days before the match (which we won 2-1), old Joe passed away. He had died in his sleep and Neil Warnock and the entire playing staff attended the funeral.