[Lord Snooty]

June 18:

Our Player of the Season for 1999/00, Jamie Vincent, was born on this date in 1975 in Wimbledon. Today would be his 47th birthday, had he not tragically died earlier this year.

He was the regular left back during that 99/00 season, a fantastic signing from Bournemouth, with Steve Bruce forking out half a million for him out of the ten million quid that Barry Rubery had given him to spend. There were some great names in that team, like Marcus Stewart, Clyde Wijnhard, Kenny Irons, Nico Vaesen, Dean Gorré and Ken Monkou, so for Jamie to win the fans' vote was a great achievement.

Sadly, the season fizzled out and the next one was a disaster. Jamie was sold to Portsmouth for eight hundred grand, after playing 66 times for us, scoring two goals.

He had a few more clubs by the time he packed in, Derby, Millwall and Swindon amongst them, before finishing in non league with Didcot.

Jamie died of a heart attack on January the 16th 2022. He had three children. His sister Lisa, gave a touching tribute to him, talking to Staffordshire Live.

"He was very charming; a very popular person. He was incredibly kind and very generous. But he was also a joker who would make you laugh."

"His sense of humour was amazing and he was such good company. I remember when it was my sister Sharon's 40th birthday. Sharon hated any kind of attention so she had said that she didn't want anything special. On the night, he turned up at her house wearing a Mexican outfit with a fake moustache. She didn't recognise him and thought it was a strippergram. She ran back indoors yelling. I think that sums up what kind of person he was."

Lisa was with Jamie at his mother's home near Croydon when he died earlier this year and says she was heartbroken when it happened. "About a week before Jamie died, he became ill. It was like a flu-type illness, meaning he was short of breath and he thought it might have been covid but it was not. He had been diagnosed with anxiety too", she said.

"He was living with mum at this point. At this point, our stepfather Jim was about to go into a hospice. Jamie was living with mum but mum had to go with Jim to the hospice and didn't want to leave him alone. So I came down from Burton to be with him.

"I knew about the illness and their trip to the hospital. I came down on Sunday morning and sat with him. He was awake and talking but I could tell his breathing was quite laboured. He had finished his drink and I said do you want some more and he said yes. I went downstairs and came back up again with a drink. When I got in, I noticed I couldn't hear him breathing."

"I'm a former nurse and I started CPR after phoning 999. He was taken to hospital and they worked on him for about 45 minutes. They called it later that day. I was heartbroken." She has said his death has left him and his three children Eleanor, 23, Oliver, 17, and Leah, 14, and his two-year-old grandchild Hallie devastated.

Lisa said: "He was a brilliant dad. He was very teasing. If they were in the car and they wanted to put their music on, he would pretend to be a foreign taxi driver and not know what they were saying. He was there for them all the time."

"Family was so important to him. We were all very close. My mum Maureen has been completely broken, I don't know how she gets up in the morning. She's an amazing woman and Jamie was her boy. She loved him so much."

"He was just so special to all of us. I'm just devastated. His light shone so brightly and it is difficult to know what life is going to be without him. I'm going to miss him texting me to tell me what music he was listening to and silly things like that."

Now, Lisa, who is 56, said she is raising money for the family. She added: "He died of dilated cardiomyopathy. It is a disease of the heart muscle in the left ventricle. Basically, the heart dilates meaning it can't pump blood, as well as the muscle walls, are weakened."

"It is not an easy one to pick up and I am not blaming the hospital for not picking it up. Unfortunately, Jamie hadn't yet got around to making a provision for life insurance. He was a big part of his family's lives and made sure there was always that support there."

"We wanted to raise money for them. He used to play for a team full of ex-footballers called Sporting Kitz. They had a charity football match and they raised over £2,000. He had a lot of friends both in and out of football."

"He was a wonderful person who will be missed."

Cult hero, Collin Quaner has a birthday today. He was born in Düsseldorf on this date in 1991 and is 31 today. Sadly his playing career ended this year through injury, but he will always be remembered by Town fans for his match turning contribution to the Play Off semi final at Hillsborough.

He only played 60 games for us (30 starts and 30 subs) and scored three goals. The most memorable one would be the one he scored in injury time against Preston, slotting home the rebound after Aaron Mooy had his penalty saved.

[Lord Snooty]

June 19:

On this date in 2018, Ramadan Sobhi of Premier League Huddersfield Town, played his second game for Egypt at the World Cup. He got more minutes in this one than he did in the first match against Uruguay. This was against Russia, the tournament hosts and was played at the Krestovsky Stadium in St Petersburg in front of 64,468 spectators.

The score was 0-0 at half time, but by the time our new boy came on in the 68th minute, the Russians had raced into a 3-0 lead. Sobhi must've had a great impact on the game as they pulled a goal back almost immediately after his introduction, when Mo Salah did what he does best. He fell over in the penalty area, won a pen and scored it.

The game finished 3-1 and with two defeats already, it wasn't looking good for progression for the Town's new signing. Not that that was of any interest to the media. They were all banging on about Salah.

[Lord Snooty]

June 20:

On this day in 1954, Huddersfield Town had two players on England duty at the Swiss World Cup. Ron Staniforth was earning his fifth cap in this game against the Swiss hosts, played at the Wankdorf Stadium in Berne. Bill McGarry made his England debut in this one, as the Three Lions won 2-0 to qualify for the quarter finals.

It was the Wolves who won it, with two of their players getting the goals. The first came just before half time from the outside left Jimmy Mullen. The game was wrapped up in the 69th minute from Dennis Wilshaw, who played at centre forward instead of Nat Lofthouse.

So England topped the group with 3 points, after drawing with Belgium in the first game and will play Uruguay next. The second place went to a Play Off. The Swiss and the Italians both had two points. Italy had just beaten Belgium 4-1 and had the better goal difference, which would've taken them through in some competitions. Switzerland beat Italy in the group match, which would've seen them through in some other competitions. This particular competition decided to decide it with a Play Off.

Switzerland won it 4-1 and would go on to play Austria in the quarter finals on the same day as the England/Uruguay game. More on that on the 26th.

Here's the highlights of today's game, without any commentary. Ron is number 2, Bill is 14.

On this date in 2020, the country was in lockdown due to coronavirus. It's not that long ago, you might remember it. Anyway, football had been suspended and well into June, the season hadn't yet restarted. Until now.

Today was the day we got going again. The last match Town had played was away at Bellend Road on March the 7th and now three and a half months later, we got to see our brave boys again. Well we saw them on i-player. The games were all played behind closed doors, some with unusual kick off times.

This first game back though was a Saturday afternoon, kicking off at 15:00 and the opponents at the John Smith's Stadium were Wigan Athletic.

Wigan had looked doomed earlier in the season, but just before lockdown they had rallied and were very much the form team. That form kept going at the restart as they came to our place and won 2-0.

It was an utterly shite performance from Town, even though we had 70% possession. Jamal Lowe scored first, chesting the ball into the net from a cross by Kieffer Moore. And just after half time, the points were wrapped up when an old hero of ours, Anthony Pilkington scored via  a wicked deflection off Lewis O'Brien.

This defeat moved Wigan moved above us as we dropped to 20th in the Championship.

[Lord Snooty]

Well one doesn't want to blow one's own trumpet but, doing my research for this I may have found a name missing from the Roll of Honour. Another Town player killed at the Battle of the Somme.

The Town official historians are doing some digging. More on this later......

[Lord Snooty]

June 21:

On this date in 2018, we had three Huddersfield Town players in one match at the World Cup in Russia. That was when Denmark met Australia in the Cosmos Arena in Samara.

Our two Danish lads, Mathias Jorgensen and Jonas Lossl were both non playing subs though. Aaron Mooy played the whole game for the Aussies.

Christian Eriksen produced the game's first heart stopping moment when he opened the scoring for Denmark in the 7th minute, a goal described on the BBC website as a stunner. But Australia drew level from the spot in controversial circumstances. This was the early days of VAR and problems were still being ironed out. Like for instance, when is hand ball handball?

It looked harsh, but beardy wierdy Mile Jedinak converted his second goal in two matches after VAR had overturned the referees decision.

Thank goodness, four years after this that all those problems have now been sorted and VAR is a much treasured and trusted thing.                          

Our boy Mooy almost snatched the winner late on, but his curling shot went just wide.

In the other group game, France beat Peru to qualify for the next stage.

Our young striker Kian Harratt, is 20 years old today, having been born on this date in 2002, in sunny Ponte Carlo. He's played only one Town first team match so far, coming on as a sub in the home game against L***s in December 2019, when he was just 17.

Having made his debut, Danny Cowley then sent him on loan to Harrogate Town. He was in their squad at Wembley for the National League Play Off Final, but was an unused sub. He then had a loan spell at Guiseley, but was recalled to go on loan to Port Vale, teaming up with his Town Academy mentor, Dean Whitehead.

At the Vale, he went one better than at Harrogate, not only starting the Play Off Final, but scoring the first goal of the match as well. He appeared to be coming on well with them, so it was a bit of a surprise when he didn't stay with us for the new season. It was a massive shock to see the poor lad sent to lowly Bradford City.

Ah well. Happy birthday, Kian. If you're celebrating it in Bradford, you're "in luck", because it's going to be the new City of Culture. So where's the best place to go for a night out in Bradford?

Well you could make use of one of City's sponsors, First Bus and get the first bus back to Huddersfield. 

[theo_luddite]

Back in the day, when I was a part-time stoodent in Bradford, (so waaaaayyy back in the day to be fair), and the old bus station was up behind the Alhambra and by the ice rink, there was a little curry cafe nearby that did the best curry you could find anywhere and it was "as cheap as chips." No idea if it's still there, no idea what it was called, struggling to recall which side of the bus station it was too (well, what do you think stoodents in Bradford did after a day at college)? The only times I've been to Sadfud since have been to sit/stand in the Midland Road stand where a certain Mr. Kamara would regularly get a "bit of stick" regarding his connections with The Chickens.

Otherwise for good night out in Bradford -

1. get the train to Bradford Interchange
2. walk across the front of City Hall to Forster Square Station
3. get the train to Skipton - sorted
(might not be advisable this week).

[Lord Snooty]

June 22:

On this day in 1966, Mexico were on their way to England to take part in the World Cup. They stopped off in Belfast for a match against Northern Ireland at Windsor Park.

Huddersfield Town's captain, Jimmy Nicholson was in the Norn Iron line up and he only went and scored in the first minute. The Mexicans equalised in the second half, but then three late goals gave Jimmy Nic and his pals a comfortable 4-1 victory.

Mexico were in England's group for the World Cup and didn't qualify for the next stage, losing 2-0 to England, but getting draws against France and Uruguay.

Ellis Hall, who played in Town's first ever Football League match in 1910, a 1-0 win away at Bradford Park Avenue, was born on this date in 1889. He was born in Ecclesfield in Sheffield.

He was one of four brothers, one of who was Harry Hall, who was also on Town's books and made his Town debut four games later. Ellis had signed on in the summer, transferring from Stoke. He had a couple of seasons at Leeds Road before moving to South Shields, teaming up with his other two brothers, Ben Hall and Fretwell Hall.

After the war, Ellis played for Hamilton Academical and Halifax Town. He died in 1949, aged 60.

Goalkeeper Danny Ward was born on this date in 1993, making him 29 today. He was born in Wrexham. He is of course, the number one goalkeeper for his country, though he has been sharing it with Wayne Hennessey. Both of them will be looking forward to playing in the World Cup later this year.

Danny is rightfully a Town legend, with his penalty saves at Hillsborough and Wembley getting us promoted to the Premier League. But in reality, he has wasted most of his career by being back up keeper to lesser talented keepers at Liverpool and Leicester, which has meant that at 29 years old, he has only 73 league games on his stats.

More than half of those were in that season he had on loan with us and he had a half season with Aberdeen in the season before. His Premier League total is a ridiculous two for Liverpool and one for Leicester.

What do you make of him? Should he look for a move where he's getting first team games? Or should he carry on living the Life of Riley, getting a huge pay packet for doing sod all?

Whatever he does, he will still be a Town legend for this moment when he saved from Fernando Foristieri.

And finally today, we have the birth of the greatest goalscorer in Huddersfield Town history. That's George Brown, who was born on this date in 1903 in Mickley, Northumberland.

George, known as Bomber Brown, is the all time leading goalscorer for the Town and has been since he scored his 159th goal for us in April 1929 against Leicester City. I can't see that being overtaken in my lifetime, unless Jordan Rhodes gets a shift on this season.

His first Town goal came as part of a brace against WBA in a 2-3 defeat at the Hawthorns on New Years Eve 1921 and was followed two days later by another in a defeat against Man City at Maine Road. He scored his fourth goal in three games a couple of weeks later when the Baggies came to Leeds Road and Town won 2-0. This all came shortly after he came to Leeds Road during a miners strike (he worked at Mickley Colliery) and asked Herbert Chapman for a trial.

The following season again he only made a handful of appearances, playing alongside Charlie Wilson, who he would eventually replace as centre forward. He scored 6 goals in 12 games that season. The next season though, with Wilson again leading the line, George chipped in with 8 goals in 22 matches as Town won the first of three successive First Division league titles. And the most important of those came in a 3-0 win at home to Nottingham Forest, with George Cook scoring the 1st and 3rd goals, meaning that Town had pipped Cardiff City to the title on goal average, the tightest winning margin ever in the history of football anywhere on the planet.

Town retained the title in 1924/25 and it was Brown and Wilson chipping in with the goals again, Wilson top scoring with 24 and Brown with 20. George scored the first goal of the season in a 3-1 win up at Newcastle. He scored his first goal against Leeds Utd that season in a 2-0 win at home and scored a hattrick at Preston at the back end of the season as Town closed in on the title with a 4-1 victory. In the end, we won it by the enormous amount of two points, enormous that is, compared to the previous season.

In the summer of 1925 though, Chapman left for Arsenal, leaving Cecil Potter in charge. By the end of the season, Town had completed the hattrick of titles, beating Chapman's Arsenal by 5 points. And it was George leading the way. Wilson got injured early on and only played 4 matches. It was Brown who topped the goal scoring chart with a superb 35 goals, equalling the club record held by Sam Taylor. He scored in both matches against Leeds and scored hattricks against Everton and Man City.

In the next season, he only scored 27 as Town finished runners up to Newcastle. Three of those goals came in a 4-1 win over our local rivals Leeds Utd at Leeds Road. And it was 27 goals again in the next season as Town came runners up again, this time to Everton, who's striker Dixie Dean only managed to score 60 goals! No goals against Leeds in this particular season. They'd been relegated. He did score 4 goals in one match though, a 6-1 FA Cup victory over Spurs en route to his first FA Cup Final (he wasn't selected for the 1922 Final), which we lost 1-3 against Blackburn Rovers.

The following season was a bit of a come down for the Town faithful. We only finished 16th, but Brown scored another couple of goals against Leeds, this time in a 6-1 win at home. Only 15 league goals for him this time around, 23 in total as Town reached the cup semi finals. And that was his Town career over, with 159 goals in 229 matches.

He went on to Aston Villa next, scoring 79 goals for them in 5 years. Then to Burnley for a season, scoring 24 goals. Then it was to Leeds where he scored 19 goals in his one season there before moving to Darlington and becoming their player/manager. And when he finally hung up his boots, he had a total of 273 goals in 440 games. He also played 9 times for England, scoring 5 goals, one against Ireland on his debut, two against Belgium in a 9-1 win and two against France in a 6-0 win. Only 9 caps seems not a lot for such a prolific scorer, but he was up against the aforementioned Dixie of Everton.

After leaving the Darlo job, he got himself a pub in Aston, but then tragically at the age of just 44 he died after a short illness in 1948.

[WakeyTerrier]

Danny Ward, It is a waste of talent being a back up goalkeeper but as long as he's playing for Wales I would doubt he is that bothered plus he is probably financially secured for the the rest of his life because of that Leicester contract. What's more important, Financial security or playing regular football? I know which I'd pick

On this day last year Czech Republic 0 v 1 England down at Wembley for Euro 2020 which was in fact Euro 2021.

We're on our way folks, next up the Germans. Who we've failed to beat in a major tournament since 1966

[Lord Snooty]

June 23:

Willie MacFadyen was born on this date in 1904, in Overtown, a small mining village in North Lanarkshire. He signed for Motherwell in 1921 aged 17 and went on to be one of the all time top scorers in Scottish football. He is now positioned 8th in the Scottish League's all time scoring chart, but he isn't Motherwell's top scorer.

Willie scored 251 goals for the Well, but Hughie Ferguson tops their chart with 284. And it was Ferguson who kept Willie's career on hold to start with. He was stuck out on the wing whilst Ferguson was at the club, but when he was transferred to Cardiff City in the Football League First Division in 1925, Willie took over the centre forward role.

It was the 1931/32 season that Willie really made a name for himself. Willie and the Well won the league, with Willie scoring a record 52 goals in the season, from 34 games. It's a Scottish League record that still stands today.

He was a strong and pacy forward, standing five foot eight and weighing eleven stone and had many a chance created for him by the skills of George Stevenson and John McMenemy. They were a formidable strike force and with his remarkable strike rate and the fact that the SFA were only picking players for Scotland who played in Scotland, he must've earned a massive amount of caps for Scotland. Did he? Did he 'eck as like! He got two!

He played against Wales and Austria in 1934, scoring in both matches and never got selected again.

And so after 15 years with 251 goals in the bag, Willie got his big move south to join one of the biggest and best teams in England, Huddersfield Town in December 1936. Part of the deal was the return to Motherwell of Duncan Ogilvie, who had only been at Leeds Road for nine months. Also part of the deal was Town travelling to Fir Park for the Ben Ellis testimonial match, which finished 2-2 with Willie getting both Town goals.

Willie came in to replace the injured Alf Lythgoe and scored on his debut, a 4-0 home win against Liverpool. He scored in his first four matches and was in and out of the team for the rest of the season, sharing the 9 jersey with Frank Chivers. He scored 8 goals from 16 in that half season.

In the next season, he scored 11 goals, the first of which was the opening goal of the 37/38 season, a 3-1 home win against Blackpool. One of his last goals for Town was the 3rd goal in the FA Cup semi final win against Sunderland at Ewood Park. Which brings us to his final Town game. That was the FA Cup Final of 1938. Town lost 1-0 and that was Willie's third runners up medal after playing in two Scottish Cup finals for Motherwell.

A big game to end his Town career on, but then he was transferred to Clapton Orient, who were not far from bottom on Division Three (South). Seems a huge drop for the lad, even though he was 34 by now.

But then the war broke out and Willie joined the RAF as a PT instructor, turning out for various clubs in the wartime leagues. He played games for Blackpool, Nottingham Forest and Rochdale, as well as the RAF XI for who he played alongside the famous Stanley Matthews.

After the war, he was appointed manager of Dundee United in October 1945, staying in the job for nine years. Shortly after the club record defeat, 12-1 against Motherwell of all people, he resigned and never got another footy job, becoming a chiropodist instead.

He died in Birmingham in 1972 aged 68.

[Lord Snooty]

June 24:

On this date in 2020, the country was in lockdown because of some virus or other, you may remember it. And the football season was still unfinished, but Town released the retained list anyway.

Kamil Grabara and Danny Simpson were both let go. Kamil hadn't played since suffering a head injury at Hull in January and Simpson, it came out later, had been offered an extension but told Danny Cowley where to shove his extension and went on to slag the whole club off on social media. Arse biscuit!

Elias Kachunga, Jon Gorenc Stankovic, Collin Quaner, Joel Coleman, Demeaco Duhaney, Rekeil Pyke and Ryan Schofield all extended their contracts into July, though only Schofield got kept on at the end of the season.

Loan men Jonas Lossl (Everton), Emile Smith Rowe (Arsenal), Chris Willock (Benfica), Andy King (Leicester City) and Trevoh Chalobah (Chelsea) all accepted extensions to their loans.

Emile went on to score the goal that kept us up, went and established himself at Arsenal, made his England debut, got less Arsenal time, got demoted to the u21s and I reckon he needs another loan at the John Smith's to get his career back on track. Agree?