[Lord Snooty]

October 16:

A couple of birthdays to start with today. Phil Wilson was born on this date in 1960 in Hemsworth and so is 62 today. He came from Bolton in 1981, signed by Mick Buxton to partner Micky Kennedy in midfield, but then formed a solid partnership with Steve Doyle after Kennedy left, as Town won promotion from the 3rd to the 2nd Division.

He was a Jonathan Hogg style tough tackling machine but with more of an eye for goal. He chipped in with a few vital goals, including the winner at Maine Road in a 3-2 win against Man City in 1984.

By the time he left for York City in 1987 he'd scored 16 goals but was in the all time appearances chart and now stands in 31st with 271. He's the third Wilson in there, behind Ray Wilson in 27th with 283 and Tom Wilson in 2nd with 500.

Phil is in the middle row on the left in this picture.......

Wayne Allison is 54 today. He was born in Huddersfield in 1968 and celebrated his 28th birthday by scoring in a Huddersfield Town match. Sadly for us, it was for Swindon Town, not Huddersfield Town. It wasn't an own goal either. This was on this date in 1996, a year before he signed for us.

It was an away game for us and the Chief was leading their attack in a second tier game on a Wednesday night, just a week after the magnificent win we had at home against Birmingham City, which I wrote about last week. He scored in the 33rd minute and that made the score at the time, 3-0 to Swindon. That was the third goal in four minutes of madness.

Ex Liverpool striker Mark Walters had got the first in the 29th and then Peter Thorne got the second after 32. That wasn't the end of the first half scoring as Kevin Horlock added a fourth to make it 4-0 at the interval. Thorne got a couple in the second half to complete his hat trick after only 48 minutes and then they declared at 6-0, leaving us to see out an embarrassing night by keeping a clean sheet for the final 42 minutes.

Wayne came to us a year later and played a big part in the Great Escape season.

A few years earlier, on this date in 1993, we had our first ever meeting with Barnet. It was a 3rd Division match and we had Neil Warnock in his first season and it wasn't going well. We were 19th in the league and our opponents were rock bottom without a win all season.

The football being served up was utter garbage and I couldn't wait to get this berk out of our club. He was only taking us one way and that was down to the 4th Division.

We were humiliated by Barnet. Mark Wells scored for us, but two late goals from Tony Finnigan and Kelly Haag gave them the win. Surely Warnock will be sacked in the morning!

Well, no he wasn't. The Board gave him more time and even though we were in the bottom four at Christmas, he still held on. No way would he have held his job with such a record nowadays. But hold on he did and the rest is history, getting a run in the Autoglass Trophy and winning matches at the end of the season which kept us up. And then winning the Play Offs next season.

Then? Then! After all the loyalty the Board had shown him, he walked out and took a job at Plymouth Argyle.

It's not all bad results on this date though. Finish with a win. On this date in 2010, we beat Southampton at home after they had been relegated to League One after a points deduction saw them down in League One.

It was a 2-0 win with Anthony Pilkington and Joey Guðjónsson scoring. They had the last laugh though, pipping us to the final automatic promotion spot, whilst we cocked up in the Play Offs.