[Lord Snooty]

November 10:

Get sat comfortably. there's a lot to get through today......

Yesterday, we had the defeat at Accrington in the FA Cup. We only had to wait four years and a day for our revenge. It didn't look that way in the first half though, as the two teams met again on this date in 2007.

It was a terrible start to the game. We were stood on the open terrace and the game was so bad that we turned around and started to watch the game being played on the nearby playing fields. 

Stanley were 2-0 up after 25 minutes, but right on the stroke of half time, with the Town fans getting prepared for an enormous BOOOOO, Malvin Kamara pulled a goal back.

The Stanners, who had current Wigan boss Leam Richardson in their side, were getting destroyed after the break. Marvellous Malvin was ripping them to pieces and it was he who levelled the scores up in the 83rd minute. And then in the 89th minute, all the pressure paid off when substitute Luke Beckett scored the winner.

The game on the playing fields? No idea. The second half of the Town match was much more interesting.

And when the draw was made, we got a home tie for the 2nd round. Grimsby Town.

Now there's an embarrassing stat that comes out every time we play away at Preston North End. And that is that we haven't won a game at Deepdale since the 69/70 season. Well today's the day, for on this date in 1969, Huddersfield Town, under the leadership of Ian Greaves, won 3-1 away at PNE.

It was a Monday night match, following a long away trip down to Norwich on the Saturday, which we won 2-1. The win at Preston was won with two goals from Frank Worthington and one from Jimmy Lawson.

On this date in 1928, we hammered Burnley 7-1 at Leeds Road. Not quite a record, as we'd beaten Birmingham 7-0 in 1913 and Cardiff 8-2 in the season before this game.

Alex Jackson, the famous Scottish winger who scored a hat trick against England, scored another hat trick in this one in front of a 12,645 crowd. Bob Kelly got one against his old club, Wilf Lewis got two and Laurie Cumming got the other.

Lewis was a Welsh international striker, who played one game for them against England whilst a Town player. More of that later this month. Cumming was an Irish international, who got two caps when he was at Huddersfield.

Of course, Kelly was a famous England international, so all the scorers for Town were representative of the entire British Isles. Don't want to get political, but is it United Kingdom? Great Britain? I don't know. Cumming was from Derry. Or is it Londonderry.

Oh no. Let's close that can of worms.

Here's a picture of Bob in his England kit.....

Now then. Six years after that win over Burnley, we did go and beat it. We had an 8-0 win on this date in 1934. But we'd had a 10-1 win against Blackpool in 1930 so this 8-0 win was no kind of record at all. 

It was however, our record victory over Liverpool. Yes kids. Liverpool. I'll say it again. Huddersfield Town 8 (eight), Liverpool 0.

It was at the time, Liverpool's record defeat and it's only been slightly bettered once since. That was in the fifties when they lost a 2nd Division game 9-1 at Birmingham City. So still an eight goal deficit. I'd like to think it's still a record. Well it is, isn't it. Of course it is. It's Liverpool's biggest defeat in the top flight of English football. Oh yes.

Now how this freak result came about, I don't know. Town, under the leadership of Clem Stephenson, were struggling in the league at the time and were actually bottom of the First Division at kick off time. We'd lost 5-0 at Portsmouth the week before and had only won three games all season.

Liverpool were no mugs. they finished the season in 7th, while we finished in 16th. So what was this all about? Don't know!

Town were 4-0 up at half time and it could've been more after we'd had one cleared off the line, one hit the crossbar and Albert Malam missed an open goal. It was Jimmy Richardson who scored the first after 18 minutes, in front of another disappointing crowd of just 12,512. Malam made it 2-0 and Alf Lythgoe made it 3-0, before Malam made it 4-0 just before the break from a twice taken penalty, after the Reds' keepr, Arthur Riley was adjudged to have moved off his line.

Malam, playing on the left wing, was born in Liverpool and was tearing their defence to shreds in one of only 21 games he played for Town before moving to Doncaster Rovers. He set up goals for Charlie Luke and Wilf Bott to make it 6-0. It was he himself though who got the seventh, to complete his hat trick, with Richardson, the ex Newcastle striker completeing the rout with the 8th.

And I've not even mentioned the Milk Cup yet. What a day this is!

On this date in 1982, little 3rd Division Huddersfield Town, with the magical Mick Buxton as manager, went to Bellend Road to play Second Division Leeds United in a League Cup 3rd round match. They'd just been relegated after being the team of the 70s that everybody hated under Don Revie.

They were a pale shadow of that side now and had one of our old stars playing for them. Yes, that's Frank Worthington on the cover of the programme.

We were playing brilliantly at this time and would gain automatic promotion at the end of the season and play against this lot in the league. We were on an unbeaten run as well, and had won the last five league games. We won this one as well. Of course we did. It's one of the highlights of my time watching Town. I'd been living in Batley throughout the 70s and went to a school full of Leeds fans. This win meant more than anything in the world that night.

We absolutely mullered them and to say we only just scraped home 1-0, it was a much bigger win than that. The goal itself was quite a simple one in the end. Brian Cox in goal kicked it out to Mark Lillis, who sped down the wing, crossed it to the far post where David Cowling met it with his head. I think, his only headed goal for us.

Absolute pandemonium in the crammed little portion of the ground they'd fenced us in. It was a 24,215 attendance, but there must have been at least 4,000 of us squeezed in to that pen. What a dump that ground was, by the way.

So after dodging all the bricks being lobbed into our little pen from the demolition site outside at the final whistle, we drew Arsenal away in the next round. Bring it on.

We have some international matches today as well. Ron Staniforth played for England in a Home Internationals game against Wales at Wembley on this date in 1954. Future Town keeper, Ray Wood played in this one as well. England won it 3-2.

And on this date in 1965, England played Northern Ireland at Wembley. Ray Wilson was in the England line up. He was an Everton player by now though. There was one Town player in the game though. That was Jimmy Nciholson, lining up alongside the likes of George Best, Derek Dougan and Pat Jennings for Norn Iron.

England of course would go on to win the World Cup in the following summer. They won this match as well, 2-1 with goals from Joe Baker and Alan Peacock, with Willie Irvine scoring for Jimmy Nick's team.

Finally.......

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

On this date in 1917, a year and a day before the armistice, ex Huddersfield Town player Ernest Kenworthy was killed by a shell on the Western Front.

He was born in Matlock in 1887 and played inside right in the Football League for Bradford City, before joining Town in 1909, in our Midland League season. He made his debut in the third game of that campaign, away at Rotherham Town and played 14 times in the league, scoring three goals, against The Wednesday, Bradford Park Avenue and Worksop Town.

He also played in all the FA Cup matches that season, including the record victory 11-0 against Heckmondwike, scoring twice. And also the infamous match against South Kirkby Colliery that I wrote about the other day.

His final game was against Gainsborough Trinity in January 1910, before retiring from the game to take up the teaching profession. By 1914, he was Headmaster back in Matlock, of the town school.

Despite this important position in his home town, he enlisted in the Army at the outbreak of the war and served as a gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery.

He was killed on this date in 1917 and is buried in Coxyde Military Cemetery, Belgium. He was 29 and left a widow and a child.