[Lord Snooty]

October 25:

It's a happy birthday to a lad who was a crucial part of our last promotion season, even though he only played in 23 of the league games, mostly from the bench. I'm talking about Jack Payne, who was born in Tower Hamlets on this date in 1994 and so is 28 today.

Who can forget that winning goal at Newcastle?

Since then, he's slipped back to the lower leagues and is now playing for Charlton Athletic in League One.

In the penultimate game of our first season in the Football League, we set a club record victory score of 7-1 against Birmingham. On this date in 1913, we beat that score to set a new record by winning 7-0 against......... Birmingham.

CAAAN WE PLAY YOU EVERY WEEEEEK?

They were still called Birmingham then, after starting as Small Heath Alliance. They didn't become Birmingham City until 1943. But that wasn't why we beat them 7-0, was it?

I don't know why we had the bogey over them. It's not like we were running away with the league and they were bottom. We actually finished on the same number of mid table points.

Anyway, the scorers were. Bert Smith, a right half, who left for Tottenham after the war and played twice for England. Fred Fayers, the Quaker conchie, who I wrote about the other day. Irishman James Macauley, who left for Preston soon afterwards. And geordie lad Thomas Elliott (pictured) got a hat trick. He was deaf, according to his Wiki page. And an own goal from William Bell.

On this date in 1983, Mick Buxton and the boys went down to Vicarage Road to take on Watford in a League Cup 2nd round 2nd leg match, with a two goals to one lead from the first. They were one of the top teams in the country at the time, with Graham Taylor as manager, but we had been magnificent in the first leg when goals from David Cowling and an own goal for us gave us the advantage, despite a wonder strike from England international rap artist, John Barnes reducing their deficit.

Jimmy Gilligan and Steve Sims scored for the home team, but it was two centre backs scoring for Town to give us a 2-2 draw on the night and a 4-3 aggregate win. They were Dave Sutton and Paul Jones, the heroes on the night.

It will be another First Division team in the next round. A trip to the Victoria Ground to take on Stoke City.

On this date in 1969, Ian Greaves was getting his team into form. Form that would eventually lead to the team winning the 2nd Division title. Today we had a brilliant away win at Boothferry Park against Hull City.

It was a 3-2 win and Frank Worthington scored a couple of the goals with Bobby Hoy getting the other.

The win took us up to 2nd in the table and gave Town fans some kind of belief that this could actually be the year we got back where we belong after 14 seasons in Division Two, the longest spell we had ever had outside the top flight.

On this date in 1919, Jack Cock became the club's first ever England international. This was the first international game after the Great War and our Jack had played his part in it. I may have mentioned before that he won the Military Medal for Bravery in the Field and a Mentioned in Despatches for gallantry. Was this selection made as a thank you for his services to the country by the FA? The team was selected by a committee back then instead of a manager and a few of the rest of the side were making their one and only appearances for the country. Maybe that's why Fred Bullock got his one and only call up in the next year. Who knows?

Or it could be that Jack had earned his place with his performances on the field of play. He scored four in a match against Bury a few weeks earlier.

Anyway, he scored what must be the quickest goal on debut in an England international, netting in the first minute. I haven't said who the opponents were yet, have I? 

It was Ireland at Windsor Park and they got a late equaliser to draw the match 1-1 in front of a 30,000 crowd.

The sad aspect of this, our first England international, was that he'd already played his last game for us, in an away win at the newly named Leicester City (formely Fosse). He signed for Chelsea shortly after this match for a club record fee of two and a half grand.

Jack's story is another one that would make a great film. I will elaborate more next month when it would be his birthday.

We ain't done yet. Ray Wilson played for England again, on this date in 1961. It was a World Cup qualifier at Wembley Stadium against Portugal, with a full house crowd of 100,000.

And it was all over within ten minutes with goals from Burnley's John Connelly and Ray Pointer scoring in the 5th and 9th minutes. Burnley were in their prime at the time, having won the league in 1960.

This was the last game in the qualifying group and the win meant that England had got through to the Finals next summer in Chile. Portugal needed to win 7-0 to stop our lads getting through, so those two early goals would've just stopped them in their tracks. They'd only themselves to blame though after a shock defeat at Luxembourg three weeks earlier.