[Lord Snooty]

December 12:

On this date in 1999, we were on one helluva run in the league. Steve Bruce was the manager and he had assembled a bit of an awesome looking squad and we were playing some great football. What's more, last week's win over QPR had taken us to the top of the Nationwide League Division One (2nd tier). We had beaten Chelsea in the League Cup at Stamford Bridge and now we had drawn Liverpool in the FA Cup 3rd round, to be played live on the telly today, a Sunday afternoon.

Hold on a minute. FA Cup 3rd round in December? Aye. PL title holders, Man Utd had been invited to play in Brazil on the date of the usual 3rd round, in the FIFA World Club Championship. To allow them to go, the FA moved all the dates of the early rounds to accomodate Fergie and his Prima Donnas.

So everything was in place, the third round draw was made and United withdrew anyway, meaning the FA had to draw out of a hat, a lucky loser to take their place in the 3rd round. That lucky losing team was Darlington, who went to play Villa away and lost 2-1.

Banging on a bit now, Snoots. Get back to today's match.

So. On this date in 1999, Town welcomed the mighty Liverpool to the McAlpine Stadium for a match that attracted a stadium record football crowd of 23,678 (there'd been a RL international that had more there). That record was beaten in 2018 when the Reds came back for a Premier League game.

Unlike today's competition, the early rounds of the FA Cup weren't yet an excuse to leave out the entire first team squad and play a team of kids. Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier, picked a team that could've played in the league, including the likes of Michael Owen, Jamie Carragher, Steve Staunton, Vladimir Smicer, Dietmar Hamann and Sander Westerveld in goal.

Town had two changes from the team that played against Wimbledon in last week's League Cup game, with Craig Armstrong and Scott Sellars replacing the injured Ken Monkou and Chris Beech. Everton legend Barry Horne, was on the bench.

We absolutely battered them. But as usual with Town, fluffed so many clear cut chances and they scored with their only two, to win it 2-0.

We had nine shots on target in the first half. Nine! Against Liverpool. Westerveld was in outstanding form. As were Ben Thornley and ex Leeds numpty Sellars, having easily his best game for us. Michael Owen, still only 19 years old but the star player of the previous World Cup for England, never got a look in. Kevin Gray had him in his back pocket.

Houllier was panicking. So much so that he made an early substitution, bringing on Dominic Matteo for the ageing Staunton who was being humiliated by Thornley. It paid dividends immediately as Matteo set up Smicer who's run into the box was finished off by Titi Camara in the 36th minute.

Westerveld then saved a Thornley header and Dean Gorre had one blocked on the line and we went in to the break one nil down.

We were all over them in the opening minutes of the second half, but then got hit by a lightning quick break. Camara and Hamman combined to set up Matteo and he passed the ball under the advancing Nico Vaesen and we were 2-0 down on the hour mark. Plenty of time to come back.

Clyde Wijnhard and Marcus Stewart were running riot through their defence. Houllier had to go to a back five, bringing on Rigobert Song. Bruce brought on Giorgos Donis and he warmed Westerveld's palms once more before the end, but the Reds held on for the win.

I taped the match off the telly and watched it back when I got home. The studio experts (can't remember who) were all praising Bruce and his magnificent team, but this match was the watershed. We beat Grimsby in the following week to make it 10 wins out of 11 in the league, but that was it. Injuries came, the great form faded. Bruce, instead of trying to recruit players to replace the long term injuries, took time off to write his stupid novels and actually went off to commentate on the Man Utd matches in Brazil, leaving John Deehan in charge for a couple of league matches. And by the time the season finished, we had missed the Play Offs.

In 1967/68, we were in the League Cup 5th round for the first and only time in our history. Having beaten Wolves, Norwich and West Ham, we went down to Fulham and earned a 1-1 draw. On this date in 1967, we had the replay back at Leeds Road.

And we won it 2-1. Jimmy Nicholson and David Shaw with our goals, to give us our one and only League Cup semi final. The opponents would be the Arsenal and if you were reading this back in February, you'll know we lost on aggregate.

We had a crowd of 23,801 on a Tuesday night for this replay, which was around 15,000 up on the previous Saturday home game with Cardiff.

Despite the cup success, the league season was disappointing and manager Tom Johnston resigned at the end of the campaign, to be replaced by his number two, Ian Greaves.