[Lord Snooty]

September 5:

On this date in 1908, Huddersfield Town played their first ever official match. It was in the North-Eastern League away at South Shields Adelaide Athletic. Their name came from the fact that those who founded the club in 1899, lived in Adelaide Street. The match was their first game in this league and they had just moved to a new ground at Horsley Hill in the town. The only place to spectate from was a pavilion behind one of the goals, but they did get more facilities by the time they were elected into the Football League in 1919.

Town wore salmon pink shirts for this first game and were led by player/manager Fred Walker. We lost 2-0, in front of a 5,000 crowd, so either Wikipedia got it wrong about the small stature of Horsley Hill or that pavilion was quite massive.

Town's first ever line up was as follows:-

1. Billy Crinson - Goalie signed from The Wednesday.
2. Dick Ray - Came from Leeds City, later managed Leeds Utd.
3. Robert Trenham - Came from Leeds City.
4. John Morris - Another one from Leeds.
5. Fred Walker - Player/manager, came from Leeds City. (pictured below)
6. William Hooton - Another one.
7. J. Shackleton - Ex Bury and Spurs.
8. Harry Wallace - Another from Leeds.
9. Sam McAllister - From West Ham, this was his only game.
10. Dickie Morris - Welsh international striker, signed from Reading.
11. Charles Flowitt - Ex Donny Rovers.

That was Match 1. Fast forward to Match four thousand an' odd (just guessing, I'm not counting 'em) and we played the first game of the new season after the Covid lockdown on this date in 2020. It was played behind closed doors and was the first game under Carlos Corberán.

And it was dreadful!

A League Cup tie at home to Rochdale and we got beat 1-0. It wasn't really an under strength team either. We had Ben Hamer in goal, Christopher Schindler, Jonathan Hogg, Josh Koroma, Alex Pritchard, Harry Toffolo, Danny Ward, Juninho Bacuna all playing. Only Aaron Rowe, Romoney Crichlow and Ben Jackson could be called reserves.

Eoghan O'Connell scored the goal, a header from a corner.

Not all bad news though. On this date in 1962, we won at Carrow Road. Norwich had won the League Cup in the previous season, beating Rochdale in a two legged final.

This was a league game, a Division Two match and we beat them 3-2 to go top of the league. We had an awesome front line, with Kevin McHale, Len White, Derek Stokes, Les Massie and Mike O'Grady. It was O'Grady who scored all three Town goals.

Somebody must've been impressed with his performance. Walter Winterbottom picked him for England next month.