[Lord Snooty]

September 9:

On this date in 2019, following the sacking of Jan Siewert, potless Phil Hodkinson appointed the one we've all been wanting. I say all, I mean me. You may agree or not, but that man was the former boss of Concord Rangers, Danny Cowley. I'd said after the defeat to Lincoln in the EFL Cup that Dan was the man. Him and lil bruv would see us out of the deep do do's we were in.

We were next to the bottom of the league, level with Stoke on one point. All three games under the caretakership of Mark Hudson had been lost and that run kept going for Danny boy. His first two ended up in defeat, but then came an unbeaten run which saw him pick up the Manager of the Month award and we were up and running.

Potless became a prize prick, in my eyes, when he sacked the pair of 'em at the end of the season and despite them not exactly storming the league with Portsmouth, I still think we should've kept them on instead of bringing in a Spanish numpty from Leeds.

What do you think?

So from one manager who had under a year in charge, to one who had eight and a half years. That was Mick Buxton, who on this date in 1978 was in as caretaker after Tom Johnston retired.....again!

He'd been in charge last week for the home game with Reading that attracted a really low attendance of 2,951 for a 1-1 draw. The people must've thought something was in the air as the following week, on this date in 1978, an extra thousand turned up for the visit of Doncaster Rovers. And what they saw was the first win under the management of Mr B. It would be the first of 178 wins.

It was a 2-1 win with goals from Keith Hanvey and Paul Bielby scoring. But it didn't spark immediate success. Things got going though over the next few weeks as he started adding names that would become familiar over the next few years. Names like Malcolm Brown, David Cowling and Mark Lillis came in.

The brilliant strike partnership of Ian Robins and Peter Fletcher had to wait to get started though. Robins signed from Bury, but Fletch had got injured and so Buxton brought back Bobby Campbell, who himself went and got injured as well.

But by the end of the season, Robins/Fletcher was up and running, with 28 goals between them and that set us up for the biggy next season.

So only 4,038 came to see us play Donny at Leeds Road in 78. Back in 1952 on this date, we went to play them away and 27,614 came out to see this midweek match. Now if you ever went to their Belle Vue ground, you will know that that is a physical impossibility.

Anyway, we were top of the 2nd Division table, but could only draw this one, with Jimmy Watson scoring ours in a 1-1 scoreline.

Town would finish the season as runners up and gain promotion. Rovers finished in 13th, above the likes of West Ham, Everton, Brentford and Southampton.

Back in 1919, apathy was the order of the day. We were in Division Two and would end up winning promotion, but on this date, another poor crowd of only 4,000 came out to see the bright blue n whites beat Bury 5-0 and move up to 5th in the table.

Those four thousand folks saw Jack Cock become the first Town player to score four goals in a league game for the club. Frank Mann got the other. Happy days?

Well no. The club was about to go into turmoil, with Cock being sold to Chelsea sparking off scenes of panic, backstabbing and skullduggery.