[Lord Snooty]

October 11:

It's a happy 80th birthday today to one of our last England internationals, Mike O'Grady. He was born on this date in 1942, in Leeds.

He signed for Town in 1959 and stayed for 6 seasons, scoring 28 goals, but the highlight of his Town career would be gaining an England cap. Just the one as a Town player and only Ray Wilson would play for England as a Huddersfield Town player after him.

Mike scored twice in a 3-1 win against Northern Ireland in Belfast, just nine days after his 20th birthday. Oddly never got picked again for three years. By which time, he had transferred to his home town club, the Beeston BellEnders.

Talking of Town internationals. On this date in 2021, Sorba Thomas gained his second cap for Wales, playing the full 90 minutes in a World Cup qualifier against Estonia in Tallin, having got his first cap three days earlier as a sub against the Czech Republic.

He now has six caps, the last one coming a couple of weeks ago when he sent over a beautiful cross for Gareth Bale to nod home the equaliser against Poland. Unfortunately Gareth headed it against the bar and the Boyos lost 1-0.

Hopefully, our boyo can keep improving his performances over the next few weeks to make sure he stays in the squad for the World Cup.

On this date in 1924, Arsenal, managed by former Town caretaker manager Leslie Knighton, traveled to Leeds Road to play the current Football League champions Huddersfield Town, who were managed by future Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman.

Town were once more top of the league when the Gunners came up for this one and we would still be top after thrashing them 4-0. The first Town goal was a Football League landmark goal, being the first goal to be scored direct from a corner. This came after the rule had been changed during the close season.

It was scored by Billy Smith and the others came from George Cook, Charlie Wilson and George Brown.

On this date in 1994, Town returned to Valley Parade for an Auto Windscreens Shield match against Bradford City just two and a half weeks after we beat them 4-3 in the league. After that game, we had beaten Brighton and drawn at Birmingham to go top of the 3rd Division table (known as Division Two at the time) and arrived at the Manningham Tip full of confidence for a first round group stage game. It was the first match in the competition since we reached the Final in the previous season.

Simon Baldry and Andy Booth scored in a 2-1 win, which following the recent 4-3 win, had us chanting; four-three, two-one, four-three, two-one, to the tune of the clock chimes. 

On this date in 2003, the rescue job by Peter Jackson was well under way. This was after relegation to the 4th Division (known as Division Three at the time) and administration with Ken Davy taking the club on.

Our opponents today were Torquay Utd and we won 1-0, which was the fourth win on the trot, five if you include the brilliant League Cup win at Sunderland. The thing we all remember about this one is the 80th minute goal scored by Tony Carss, a volley from a corner, which is widely regarded as the best ever goal scored at the stadium.

Torquay had the last laugh though, pipping us to the last automatic promotion spot.

Sadly, the only video I can find is this poor quality one on YouTube, with very strange commentary......

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