[Lord Snooty]

September 13:

Three birthdays today. First up, a thrice champion. Sam Wadsworth was born on this date in Darwen in 1896 and started his career with his home town club, before joining Blackburn Rovers in 1914.

That was just as the First World War was kicking off and Sam signed up as a gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery and was wounded in action. His brother was killed during the conflict and Sam suffered with what we now call post traumatic stress.

After the war he joined Nelson in Division Three (North) and when they were looking for some money to build a new stand, Herbert Chapman stumped up the cash in exchange for bringing Sam to Leeds Road. He made his debut in April 1921 in a 2-0 win at home to Chelsea.

A year later, he was capped by England, playing at Villa Park in the British Championships against Scotland. That was at the beginning of April 1922, by the end of the month he had an FA Cup winners medal in his pocket as well as Town beat Preston at Stamford Bridge.

He stayed at Town throughout the 1920s and was almost ever present at left back throughout the three Championship winning seasons. At this time, he was also a regular in the England team, gaining nine caps altogether, the final four of these as captain.

He left Town for Burnley in 1929 but only played seven games for them. He then moved to the Netherlands and had a long career in management. He managed DHC Delft, PSV Eindhoven twice, DWS of Amsterdam, Brabantia and BVC of Amsterdam.

It was in Eindhoven that he died in 1961, aged 64.

His record for Town was 312 games and 4 goals. He is now 18th in the all time Town appearances chart, having just been overtaken by Jonathan Hogg.

Derek Stokes was born on this date in 1939 in Normanton, he had nine brothers and a sister. He started his semi professional football career at Bradford City whilst also working as a telegraph linesman for British Railways.

Derek holds City's record for scoring in consecutive matches at 8. This was later matched by Nahki Wells, who like Derek, left the Manningham Tip for Leeds Road.

He had six seasons at Town, top scoring in the first four, even though he was also doing his National Service with the RAF as well. He also played for the England u23s. It was a scoring Town debut for him in a 1-1 draw at home to Luton in the first match of 60/61. Later he scored hat tricks against Walsall and Leyton Orient, before eventually losing his place to Tony Leighton, prompting a return to Valley Parade in exchange for Roy Ellam.

He scored 69 goals for Town, which has him in 11th place in our all time goal scorers chart. After Bradford, he went out to play in Ireland for Dundalk and then Drogheda Utd.

When he packed in football he became a golf club steward and then a publican. He retired down south but came back up to Bradford when he was diagnosed with Alzheimers in 2019. He died in May this year, aged 82.

The third birthday is Fraizer Campbell, who is 35 today, having been born in Huddersfield on this date in 1987. He played in the Premier League with Man Utd, Spurs, Sunderland, Cardiff and Crystal Palace before dropping to the Championship with Hull and then finally to his home town club, where he was serenaded as "one of our own".

In February 2012, caretaker England manager Stuart Pearce, gave him a game for the country against the Netherlands. It was his only full England cap. Pearce had been in charge of the u21s for all of Fraizer's 14 u21 caps.

So today's question. Do you or did you consider Fraizer to be one of our own?

On the field of play on this date, we had our record League Cup victory in 1983. It was the first round and after the first leg 2-1 victory at Mansfield, they came up to ours for the second leg on this date and we walloped them 5-1. Goals coming that night from Mark Lillis (2), Paul Jones, Brian Stanton and Dave Sutton.

We have high flying Watford of the First Division in the next round.

Also on this date, this time in 2011, we played Sheffield United at Bramall Lane in League One on a Tuesday night and won 3-0. It was a brilliant performance, which started off with us getting hijacked by Paul Ogden outside the ground with his microphone. Thankfully, one never heard one's own voice on the wireless.

Lee Novak scored twice and gormless Oscar Gobern scored once, all in the first half. The Blades finished above us in the league though. They were 3rd and we were 4th. That didn't matter as we had a famous penalty shoot out, late in May in twenty eleven. Doesn't rhyme properly that one.