[Lord Snooty]

November 1:

It's a happy birthday today to our former Scottish under 21 international and now Canadian international midfielder, Scott Arfield. He was born in Dechmont, a small village in West Lothian on this date in 1988 and is 34 today.

Signed by Lee Clark from Falkirk in 2010, he was a crucial member of the squad that won promotion to the Championship in 2012 and was one of the successful penalty takers in the shoot out at Wembley, having the bottle to not just be one of the first five, but the actual fifth taker, the crucial one. Not that it was the crucial one in this game as we all know. 

And then at the end of 2012/13, Mark Robins released him. Nobody seemed right bothered either. But it was a terrible decision. Not only did he get a job with Burnley, he was part of their squad that won promotion to the Premier League, twice.

And now he's at Rangers with a Scottish Premiership winners medal and a Scottish Cup winners medal, as well as runners up medals for the Scottish League Cup and the Europa League.

Whaddya reckon? Should we have kept hold of him? Was Robins a charmless nurk? 

On this date in 1997, we were on a terrible run of form that had seen Brian Horton sacked and replaced with Peter Jackson. We hadn't won a league game all season and today's visit of Stoke City would be Match no 15. Jacko had been in charge of the last five games and had only won one point from a draw at home to Portsmouth.

We were rock bottom of what we now call the Championship and as we reached half time of this game against the Potters, we had managed to keep it to 0-0. What followed next was remarkable and set us up for the Great Escape.

Straight after half time, new signing Lee Richardson hit a superb low shot from outside the box, into the back of the net at the South Stand end. Stoke soon equalised though and so it was business as usual trying to hold on for a point. But then in the 80th minute, we got a free kick in their half.

As the big lads were trotting forward, Richardson surprised everybody by playing a quick through ball to Marcus Stewart and quick as a flash, he had it in the onion bag. Two-one to the Town.

It was still 2-1 when they got a corner in the last minute and Carl Muggleton, the Stoke keeper came up for it. He almost got a head on it, but it was headed away towards the touchline, where the Stoke lad who'd taken the corner kick was ready to knock it back in again. However, he slipped and made a right mess of it. The ball fell at the feet of Paul Dalton, who set off on a run towards the unguarded Stoke goal.

Jacko was chasing him up the touchline shouting "SHOOOOT!", which he eventually did. The defenders were desperately trying to get back and almost had done as the ball just about made it and nestled in the back of the net.

Absolute pandemonium! 

Have a gawp at this......

On this date in 1967, we played in the 4th round of the League Cup for the first time. Having beaten Wolves and Norwich, we were drawn at home to play West Ham United, with all their World Cup winners. Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters all played on this Wednesday night.

It was a star of the future who won it for us though, with 18 year old Frank Worthington scoring his first goal for the club to put us 1-0 up. Left back Chris Cattlin scored to make it 2-0 and the World Cup winning whammers were sent packing back darn to that there London.

So we were now into round 5. A round we have never been in since.

Who have we got? Fulham, down at the Cottage. Well, they're bottom of the 1st Division, so our boys will be fancying this one. It's in four weeks time. Can't wait.

Talking of Fulham, we played them on this date in 1919. We beat them 3-0 to move up to 8th in Division Two. Goals came from Sammy Taylor (2) and Frank Mann. However, not all was well at Leeds Road and a crowd of less than 3,000 attended, giving gate receipts of only £90. The club was unsustainable. The fact that Fartown (aka Huddersfield Rugby League Football Club) were playing at the same time didn't help and they banked £1,600 for their County Cup match with Hull.

What's worse was that the Football League President got involved, making a statement that our Football League membership was in serious trouble.

Over the next few days, our club would go from a poorly supported club, to a club in a full blown crisis..........

Meanwhile, here's where everybody else had gone that Saturday afternoon. Fartown.