[Lord Snooty]

October 15:

Town were playing in their first ever Football League season in 1910/11, but were playing in their second FA Cup campaign. Last season, after beating Heckmondwike 11-0 in a record score that has never been beaten, we played and beat Mirfield United, Rothwell White Rose, South Kirkby Colliery and then lost in a replay against Rotherham Town. That defeat came in the 4th Qualifying round.

In the second campaign, we beat Horsforth 6-0 in the first Qualifying round and then on this date in 1910, we once again played Mirfield United in the 2nd Qualifying round. And we won again.

Last season we beat them 6-0. This season, not such a big win, just 2-0. We were a Football League Second Division side, whilst they had just joined the Yorkshire Combination. More history repeated itself, beating South Kirkby Colliery again and then going out in a replay in the 4th Qualifying round, this time against fellow 2nd Division side, Lincoln City.

The 3rd and 4th Qualifying rounds though were what nowadays would be the 1st and 2nd rounds. In the next season, we came straight in at the 1st round stage in January, which is nowadays the 3rd round. That was an away game at Manchester United which we lost.

Anyway, back to today's game against Mirfield, a match I'm only mentioning because that's where I was born.

It was a 2-0 win and the scorers were Fred Fayers and Joe Jee. Fred was a centre half who played for us up to the start of the war, having earlier signed from Watford. He was playing as a guest for Stockport County though when in April 1916 he was called to a tribunal, in Stockport, to answer questions as to why he had registered as a conscientious objector.

Now Fred was known as Tiny, due to his small stature for a centre back, but he was no coward, as was suggested. He was born a Quaker in Kings Lynn in 1890 and so his strong religious beliefs prevented him from ever killing another human being. Fortunately for him, the tribunal accepted his word and so unlike some other "conchies", he wasn't thrown into prison, but was given the task of working on farmland in Cheshire, which he did for the rest of the conflict.

He never came back to Leeds Road though, preferring to stay at Stockport. He then signed for Manchester City, before finishing his career with Halifax Town.

Mirfield United though, had a man in their team who won the Victoria Cross. Donald Simpson Bell was his name. Although I don't know if he played in this Cup match against the Town, reading about him, it was around this time of his career that he was playing there. He was an amateur who later played for Crystal Palace and Newcastle Utd, turning professional in 1912 when signing for Bradford Park Avenue and he is listed as the only professional footballer to be awarded the VC.

He was awarded it for most conspicuous bravery on July 5th 1916, but was killed just five days later. His medal was bought by the PFA in 2010 and is now on display at the National Football Museum in Manchester.

One hundred and one years after the Cup game with Mirfield, on this date in 2011, Jordan Rhodes was in scoring action.

Two years previously, he had scored an all headed hat trick against Exeter City at home. Today, he scored another hat trick against the same opponents, this time away.

This was the season when he scored 40 goals in all competitions and this was the first of his five hat tricks in the season. One of the criticisms of young Jordan was that he scored too many goals in individual games rather than spreading his goals out and making more game winning contributions. He scored in 20 of the 54 games that season, so the point can be appreciated, but WTF? Complaining about a bloke scoring 40 goals in 54 matches.   

So this match played at Exeter's St James' Park was a 4-0 win. Alan Alan Lee scored first for Town in the 8th minute. Jordan took his time over his three goals. The hat trick two years previous was scored in 8 minutes from the first to the third. This time, he took an absolute age, scoring in the 26th, 65th and 89th minutes.