[Lord Snooty]

September 21:

I've written quite a lot about Dave Mangnall in this here daily thread, today I'm gonna do some more. For on this date in 1905, he was born in Wigan.

He signed for Town from Leeds Urinals in December 1929 as a replacement for George Brown, who had departed for Aston Villa in the summer. It was a case of replacing Huddersfield Town's leading goal scorer with a man who would go on to have the Town's greatest goals to matches ratio, scoring 73 goals in 90 matches.

He was another who had come from working darn t' pit. As the saying used to go, Huddersfield Town just went and shouted down the nearest pit shaft when they needed a new striker. Dave had gone darn t' pit in t' first place because he was rejected after a trial at Town and went to play as an amateur for Doncaster Rovers.

He was given another chance by Leeds and scored ten goals for their reserves in one match, a 13-0 win against Stockport County reserves. This led to him being picked for their first XI and his 6 goals in 9 matches for the BellEnders impressed Clem Stephenson enough to persuade the directors of Huddersfield Town to fork out the princely sum of £3,000 for him.

He made his Town debut in a 0-2 defeat down at the Arsenal, but scored his first Town goals, two of them, in a 3-2 win at West Ham on Christmas Day 1929 and scored again on Boxing Day as West Ham came up north and were beaten 3-0 with Bob Kelly and Harry Raw getting the others. He scored 8 goals in 14 matches that season, but didn't get selected for the FA Cup Final when we lost 0-1 to the Arsenal, Harry Davies getting the nod ahead of him.

In the following season he scored 9 goals in 12 games as Town finished 5th in the First Division. But the next season, 1931/32, Mangnall set his name in stone in the Huddersfield Town record books. We finished 4th in the league, but that was mainly down to Dave's 42 goals in 39 matches (33 from 34 in the league), which is still a club record he shares with Sammy Taylor, only Jordan Rhodes has come anywhere near since.

He scored 5 goals in a 6-0 win over Derby County, which young Jordan did manage to match against Wycombe Wanderers. Alf Lythgoe is the only other Town player to have done this. Dave did get another record that nobody has come anywhere near matching though and that is the club record for scoring in consecutive matches. He scored in 11 straight matches (7 league, 4 FA Cup, 19 goals). He did score in 9 straight league matches, but in between those was another famous match in which Town failed to score. That was the FA Cup quarter final match at Leeds Road against the Arsenal, which was attended by 67,037 people, another club record that will definitely never be beaten. Arsenal won 1-0.

Town finished 6th next season, but without the Mangnall boy who only played three times due to a serious injury. He was back in 33/34, playing in 16 games and scoring 10 goals as Town finished as runners up to Arsenal, who were completing their hat trick of titles, but without Herbert Chapman who had died earlier in the year.

His last game for Town was in a 0-3 defeat at Stoke in January 1934 and his last goal for Town was in the previous game, a 1-1 draw against Leeds Utd at Bellend Road. Injury ruled him out for the rest of the season and in the summer he was sold to Birmingham City, where he scored 14 goals in one season, before going down to London to play for West Ham.

He scored 28 times in his one season for the Hammers before leaving to become a legend at their neighbours Millwall. During the 36/37 season his goals led the Lions to the FA Cup semi finals, the first 3rd division team to reach that stage. On the way they beat Aldershot, Gateshead, Fulham, Chelsea, Derby and then in the quarter finals they beat Manchester City, who were, as now, the star studded team of the day.

Mangnall scored the first goal in the match at the Den, in which Millwall won 2-0 to earn a semi spot, to be played against Sunderland at one of Dave's old stamping grounds, the wonderful Leeds Road stadium in Huddersfield. There must have been a fair few Town supporters cheering him on in another big crowd of 62,813 as he opened the scoring in the semi final, but Sunderland came back to win 2-1 and go on to win the cup against Preston at Wembley.

Dave was famous now and as such went and asked for a pay rise from the Millwall management. This was long before players had any power at all and so he jacked the job in to go run a grocers shop in Sutton Coldfield. As the second world war was just kicking off, he returned to London and signed for QPR. Scored 3 times in three games for Rangers, which were crossed off as the fledgling season was abandoned. He stayed in London for the Blitz, playing for the QPR team in the Wartime League and becoming manager in 1944.

He must've been some kind of celebrity because he became friends with the American singer/comedian/film star Sophie Tucker, who became Godmother to his son. He stayed at Loftus Road as boss after the war, winning their first FL promotion as Div 3(S) champions in 1948 and remained in the post until 1952.

It was his only managers job as he left football to go live in Cornwall as landlord of the Navy Inn in Penzance. It was here that he died in 1962, aged 57.

On this date in 1999, under the fantabulous leadership of Man Utd legend Steve Bruce, we got through to the 3rd round of the League Cup.

It was a 2nd round 2nd leg on this night against Notts County at Meadow Lane. We had won the first leg, down at the Mac, by two goals to one. On this date we drew the second leg 2-2 to go through 4-3 on aggregate.

Kenny Irons and Dean Gorré scored the goals.

And when the draw was made, we got the big one. Chelsea away. That's due on October the 13th. Get your tickets sorted. This could be a classic.

And finishing on a bum note today. On this date in 1993, we had our record League Cup defeat.

After beating Scarborough in the first round, this second round first leg game at home to Arsenal, came during a rubbish run of form under new manager Neil Warnock. By today's standards, he would probably have been sacked after this one.

We were third bottom of the 3rd Division and Arsenal were Arsenal. Full of internationals, they had David Seaman in goal, a defence with Tony Adams and Martin Keown. Their attack was scary. Ian Wright scored a hat trick, Kevin Campbell scored one and muppet Paul Merson got the other, to beat us 5-0.

So it's down to Highbury for the second leg in a fortnight. Get your tickets sorted. This could be a classic.