[Lord Snooty]

August 17:

We've had some of the world's best strikers at Huddersfield Town over the years, but none of them had ever scored a hat trick in the opening game of the season, until Dale Tempest did it on this date in 1985.

It was in an exciting 4-3 game, at home to Millwall, which I missed.

Mick Buxton was still the manager, Simon Webster got the other goal and the attendance was 6,603.

Tempest was top scorer that season with 12 goals, but as we were struggling, Buxton eventually replaced him with Duncan Shearer at Easter.

After nine years floating around the lower leagues, Town were back in the Championship in 2012 and we played our first game back as a 2nd tier club on this date. It was the opening game of the Championship, a Friday night game, away at Cardiff.

We had Simon Grayson in charge, whereas the Bluebirds had Malky Mackay. They had the little toss pot Craig Bellamy up front, we had Lee Novak. Where's Jordan Rhodes was the question on everybody's lips. He'd been top scorer for the last three seasons, bagging a fantastic forty last season, but now the big clubs were lurking around trying to steal him off us.

He wasn't even in the traveling party for this game, with a mysterious injury being given as an excuse.

Anyway, we did well against one of the promotion favourites, but in injury time after a ton of pressure, our defence finally cracked with future Town skipper Mark Hudson grabbing the winner.

If that was a disappointing defeat, this next one was a disappointing win!

On this date in 2021, twelve months ago, we played Preston North End in the Championship at the JSS and won it 1-0 in what was a terrible match in front of the Sky Sports cameras. Why on earth did they pick this one?

This was only three days after the diabolical defeat at home to Fulham on Saturday. Head coach Carlos Corberan, with his job as such in question by supporters, made changes. In goal for his league debut was the penalty saving hero from the League Cup match at Hillsborough, Lee Nicholls, replacing the shell shocked Ryan Schofield. Another Hillsborough connection making a debut was ex Wendy defender Tom Lees. Lewis O'Brien came back into the side after having a Jordan Rhodes style mysterious injury, whilst transfer speculation kept coming in. And Scott High got a start after coming on as sub in the Fulham debacle.

It was another sub who made the difference in this one. Duane Holmes came off the bench in the 70th minute. Four minutes later, he had a shot, only our second of the game. Neither of them were on target, but this one went straight into the path of retreating Preston defender Sepp van den Berg, who couldn't stop himself redirecting it into the net.

We won, 1-0, without a single shot on target. Would this lucky win be a catalyst for a change in our fortunes?

Next up, a trip to Bramall Lane on Saturday.