[Lord Snooty]

October 24:

Sad news to start with today, as on this date in 1961, Clem Stephenson died, in Huddersfield, aged 71.

He was one of the stars of the triple championships of the 1920s and went on to be the longest serving manager and was at the club fron 1920 to 1942.

Clem was born in 1890, on the 6th of February. So if you want to read more about him, trace back on this thread to that date and indulge. I did write quite a bit about him then, so just a brief summary coming up now.

He signed for us in 1920, from Aston Villa, shortly after playing for them against us in the 1920 FA Cup Final, which they won 1-0. He'd had ten years at Villa and that was his second Cup winners medal after winning one in 1913 in a 1-0 win against Sunderland. He'd also had three league runners up finishes in his time there.

So when he joined the Town, the first signing for Herbert Chapman, as a 30 year old, many would've thought his best days were behind him. Not at all. He went on to become the first man to get three FA Cup winners medals when we beat Preston in the 1922 Final, following that with a Charity Shield win.

Then he won the league three times in a row, followed by two league runners up spots and a runners up medal in the FA Cup Final of 1928 when he skippered the team in the shock defeat against Blackburn Rovers at Wembley in 1928.

Then in 1929 he became manager, staying in the job until 1942. In that time he had us FA Cup runners up twice, and league runners up twice, but throughout his time as manager, we remained the northern powerhouse side, challenging for medals every year.

Clem's playing record has him 29th in the appearances chart with 275. And in the scorers chart, he's in 24th with 50 goals.

As a manager, he was in charge of 556 games, not including the war time ones. Of those, there were 235 wins, with a win percentage of 42.27%.

Upon the field of play, we had two victories under Clem's management on this date. In 1931, we played Sunderland at Leeds Road and beat them 4-1. Dave Mangnall scored twice, in the seson he scored a total of 42, 36 year old Billy Smith got one and George McLean got the fourth.

And then in 1936, we beat Middlesbrough 2-0 at home. Ex Newcastle striker, Jimmy Richardson got the first and Alf Lythgoe got the second.

Staying with the theme of beating north-east teams, on this date in 1953, we beat Newcastle United up at Sid James' Park. This was in the season after promotion back to Division One, when we finished third. It was the 7th win in 8 games that had us up into 2nd place. Jimmy Glazzard scored the first and the second was an own goal from their centre half, Frank Brennan.