[Lord Snooty]

September 25:

Having had a reasonably successful season in 1970/71 back in Division One after 14 years in Div 2, Huddersfield Town had a slow start to the new season. We were in 21st place when on this date in 1971, our neighbours from down the road, Leeds Urinals came to visit.

They had finished the previous season as runners up to Arsenal and were managed by the odious Don Revie. They were a team loathed throughout the country, known as Dirty Leeds for their style of play. Dirty, but within the rules of the game at the time. They wouldn't last two minutes in the modern game.

Not just on the field either. They had already played twice at our ground this season, as they were forced to play four league matches away from Bellend Road following trouble in the last season when West Brom went to Beeston and beat them 2-1 with a highly controversial winner from Jeff Astle, that cost them the title.

They'd played Wolves and Crystal Palace at ours as well as Spurs at Boothferry Park in Hull and Newcastle at Hillsborough and would've come here expecting to win. Our brave boys had other ideas.

A crowd of 26,340 came out to see this one, with Jack Charlton scoring for Leeds after Jimmy Lawson had given Town the lead. It was an unlikely hero who got the winner as Roy Ellam, who went on to play for the BellEnders next season, popped up to bag the winner from a corner. The win moved us up to 16th with the hope of kicking on again, but sadly, we only won two more matches in the season and sleepwalked into relegation.

One of the teams we did beat in that season was Derby County, managed by Brian Clough, who went on to pip Revie's rabble to the title. The team that came down with us at the end of the season was Nottingham Forest. Unlike us, they came back strongly, having taken on Clough after he'd been rejected by Derby and Leeds.

But the Florist left the Premier League in 1999 and never got back again until recently, so when we met each other on this date in 2020, they were a pale shadow of the all conquering club they used to be. Such was the apathy towards them, no supporters turned up to watch this one, everybody instead deciding to stay at home and watch the match on i-player.

It was the season that started late, following the late finish of the previous season, due to government failures in preparing for and preventing the spread of a pandemic. So although this was the back end of September, it was only game 3 of the new season.

Town won it 1-0 for the first win under the new leadership of Carlos Corberán and it was a stunner that won it. A smart move involving a one two with Harry Toffolo and Josh Koroma saw Toffs deliver a perfect cross for Fraizer Campbell to volley the ball past Brice Samba in the TreeStumps' goal.

It was a crap game though, played with no crowd and a dead atmosphere. Who would believe that these two terrible teams would meet at Wembley in the Play Offs at the end of the next season?