[Lord Snooty]

August 24:

We have a couple of hat tricks to talk about today. One in the League Cup and one in the Championship. But I'll start today with a heroic defeat against a Premier League giant.

That was last season, on this date in 2021 when we played Everton at home in the EFL Cup. This was just a few days after the morale boosting injury time winner against Sheffield United and was another good performance in which we were unlucky not to win.

After the Toffenoses took an early lead through Alex Iwobi, we stormed back at them with Danel Sinani, Fraizer Campbell and Duane Holmes coming close, with Duane being denied by the save of the season from Asmir Begovic. But he could no nowt about Tom Lees scoring with his nut from close range from a corner, right on half time.

So level at half time and then Town took the lead in the 57th minute, again from a corner, with Matty Pearson heading home to put Town 2-1 up.

Hold on. What's up wi' t' ref? Foul? Feck off, referee! Ya cheating Barsteward! Matt Donohue and his guide dog apparently saw a foul on the keeper by Fraizer. Video evidence afterwards was inconclusive, ie, it never was.

Then Mr Magoo took centre stage again, sending Everton's Moise Kean off for pushing Sorba Thomas in the face. A bit soft but, letter of the law an' all that.

So advantage Terriers and we pushed for the winner. But it was Everton who won it with a top piece of Premier League quality from Andros Townsend and so it was they who went through to the next round.

It was a great performance from the lads though, setting us up nicely for the visit of Reading on Saturday.

Back in 2003, we had a League Cup match away  at Scarborough, at the McCain Stadium. We had Neil Warnock in charge and he was making a return to the place where he started his managerial career, winning the Conference for them and a place in the Football League.

This was a 2nd leg after the first leg had ended goal less in front of a very low Leeds Road crowd of just 2,822. There seemed to be that many Town fans walking around the seaside town in the warm, sunny afternoon, but the official attendance was just 2,612. Possibly a lot of them never made it up the hill to the Theatre of Chips.

Anyway, it was all one way traffic in the game, with Town strolling at 3-0 with two goals for Iain Dunn and one from Iwan Roberts, when suddenly the floodlights failed. Play on, we all shouted. It was a nice clear night and we could see perfectly well. But no, the ref was having none of it. There's only about five minutes left.

It seemed like an eternity before anything got done and the light was darkening all the time. An abandonment was looking likely, but thankfully Warnock found a fifty pence piece deep down in his trouser pocket and stuck it in the meter.

And that was that. Next day we had the draw. Arsenal at home. Bring it on!

By 2005, the League Cup had dropped it's two legged games for the first two rounds and so on this date we played a one off tie at another lost football ground. This was Saltergate the home of Chesterfield and we won it 4-2.

The Twisted Spirestarters had our old Chief, Wayne Allison leading their attack, but it was our Polish ace Pawel Abbott who opened the scoring in the 9th minute. Derek Niven equalised though in the 41st and so it was all square at the break.

Gary Taylor-Fletcher restored Town's lead in the 56th minute, only for Kevan Hurst to equalise yet again. Come on, lads. Concentrate!

No worries though. Fletch scored again and then completed his hat trick in the last minute and the Terriers were through to round two of the Carling Cup, a trip to Premier League Blackburn Rovers.

On this date in 2013, Town took on AFC Bournemouth in the Championship. They'd just come up from League One. We had done it the year before.

They had Eddie Howe back as manager after his short stint up north with Burnley. We had Mark Robins and this was probably the highlight of his time as our boss as we won 5-1. The Cherries got their own back twelve months later of course, when they beat us 4-0 and Robins got the boot.

This game though was a triumph. Adam Hammill scored first against a defence led by Tommy Elphick. He's had a terrible time at the McAlpharm, hasn't he? A 7-1 defeat with Brighton and now this.

James Vaughan then scored a hat trick, including a penalty. Marc Pugh pulled one back, but then Adam Clayton completed the rout and we had a 5-1 win, our biggest 2nd tier victory since 1999, a game I shall be writing about in a few days time.