[Lord Snooty]

August 28:

This is a good day. A good day if you like goal scorers, for on this date, in Fort William in 1962, was born, the great Duncan Shearer. He's 60 today. Happy birthday, Duncan. 

After a trial with Partick Thistle, Dunc went and signed on for Clachnacuddin, which is where he was spotted by the Aberdeen manager, Alex Ferguson. He made a half arsed attempt to sign the big man, but the reserve game he was invited to play in got called off and the dozy red nosed pillock forgot to ask him to another.

Instead, Shearer ended up on a train to London and signed for Chelsea. He only played twice for them, but he said in his autobiography that he learned a lot at Stamford Bridge, which he eventually got to show when in 1986, Mick Buxton brought him up to Huddersfield Town. He was an instant success, scoring a hat trick on his debut at Barnsley on Easter Monday and there was no looking back for him.

He scored another two goals in the next game, a 2-0 home win over Stoke City. The season after, in the Christmas holiday match at Leeds Road, he score four goals in a 5-2 win over Bradford City and was leading scorer at the end of the season. He was leading scorer and Player of the Season in the next one. 

That was the relegation season though and he never got to play 3rd Division football because he was sold on to Swindon Town, with Lou Macari forking out a quarter of a million quid for him. We bought Craig Maskell with the money.

At Swindon, his goals won them promotion to the top tier, a couple of seasons before the Premier League was introduced. However, they never played a game in it, as they were demoted two divisions due to financial irregularities. And Derby thought they were hard done by! 

Dunc was top scorer and Player of the Year at the County Ground, before he was bought for £800,000 by his boyhood hero Kenny Dalglish, for Blackburn Rovers. He did the same again for them. Well not quite. He did win promotion with Rovers, but he was only a bit player and he was eventually replaced by another famous Shearer, who could score a goal or two.

Then it was up to Aberdeen, ten years after Fergie forgot to ask him back. He won the Scottish League Cup in 1995, scoring the second goal in a 2-0 win over Dundee. He was capped seven times for Scotland while he was at Aberdeen, scoring important goals as his country qualified for Euro 96. Craig Brown then unbelievably left him out of the squad for the tournament.

His next move was to Inverness Caledonian Thistle, scoring 17 goals, hanging up his boots at 38 years old, just a stones throw away from Clachnacuddin where he'd started.

He stayed on at Caley Thistle as a coach and was in the dugout for the famous Super Caley Go Ballistic Celtic Are Atrocious match when they won 3-1 at Celtic Park in a Scottish Cup game in 2000. He then had jobs with Aberdeen and then Buckie Thistle before returning to Inverness where he was a Youth Development coach until leaving in 2017.

He's now a columnist for the Press & Herald in Aberdeen and it was announced last week that he will be inducted into the Aberdeen FC Hall of Fame, to which he said; "I didn’t even know they had a Hall of Fame!" 

Anyway, in his time at Leeds Road, he played 93 (+3 subs) times and scored 48 goals, which stands him at this moment in time, in 26th equal place alongside Frank Worthington and David Cowling. And despite him saying that Aberdeen was the best club he ever played for, we all know he really meant to say Huddersfield Town.

Now at the top of today's page, I said it was a good day for goal scorers. Well just check out these names and these big wins, all on this date.

In 1965, we beat Middlesbrough 6-0 at Leeds Road. It was our third win out of the first three games and we were top of the 2nd Division. This was the last time we had two hat tricks scored in a single match. They were Alan Gilliver and Les Massie. If my trawling through the record books is correct, it was the fourth occasion that we managed two hat tricks in one game.

We can't get two hat tricks in a decade now.

That was the biggest second tier win for a few years until coincidentally on this date in 1999, we pumped the Palace 7-1 at the McAlpine. Some more ace goal scorers in this one. Clyde Wijnhard got a hat trick, Marcus Stewart scored twice, Chris Beech and Kenny Irons got one each.

There was another big score in the Wartime League on this date in 1943, when Billy Price scored four goals in a 7-4 home win against Bradford Park Avenue. But more recently, much more recently, last year to be precise, we walloped Reading 4-0 at the John Smith's Stadium on this date in 2021.

Some more ace scorers in this one. The (Ron) weasley Lewis O'Brien, the prolific Matty Pearson, the prolific assister Sorba Thomas scored a superb individual goal in this game. Why doesn't he do this more often? Danny Ward rounded the day off in style, rounding the keeper to pop the ball into the net. He would later on in the season, score a hat trick against this opposition, making him the first hat trick scorer for the club since he scored a hat trick at Watford in the previous decade.

And finally today, just a 1-0 win. That was on this date in 1920 when Huddersfield Town played it's first Division One match following promotion the previous season. It was a win at home to Preston when the top scorer in the promotion season, Sammy Taylor, got the only goal of the game.

So, we've had some brilliant goal scorers scoring on this date over the years. Pinching a question used on Twitter the other day, if you could bring back one striker from the past, in his prime, to play in this season's team, which one would you go for? I wouldn't mind Jordan Rhodes in his prime.

Have a think and while your thinking, have a watch of these two beauties.......