[theo_luddite]

Crisp Owl could send a team out one week and play the other side off the park, then the following week they wouldn't turn up at all. Despite all the noise about wanting to get to know all about Yorkshire and absorb it's culture, he never even rented a room up here. He was on the first train back to that there Larndan after every game (or certainly not on the coach back north if we played anywhere near there) and the first or second off-peak train out of Kings Cross on a Monday. It wasn't long before we were the unfittest side in the division, nobody trained at all until he turned up, and everyone we played eventually hung on until we ran out of steam 30 minutes into the 2nd half.

Fortunately, Wagbo changed all that, though I seem to recall at least one player went moaning to his agent about all the extra and "late in the day" training he was suddenly having to do.

Professional footballers eh?

[Amelia Chaffinch]

I didn't know that he didn't lay his head up here.

[Lord Snooty]

July 19:

So we were just coming out of lockdown for the first time. Town had beaten West Brom and secured a place in the Championship for the next season. And I'd just been to see my mum for the first time in months and was just setting off home when, on this date in 2020, the news came through on my phone that Town had sacked Danny Cowley.

I thought it was a joke at first. Quite unbelievable. His brother Nicky Cowley was also given the elbow, with chairman potless Phil Hodgkinson saying.....

I would like to place my thanks on record to Danny and Nicky for their hard work and dedication towards securing the club’s place in the Sky Bet Championship for next season. That was the clear priority when they were appointed in September and we are very grateful that has been achieved. We all wish Danny and Nicky all the best for the future and they leave with my best wishes in their future endeavours.

However we have made this decision in the belief that, in the long term, it is in the best interests of the club as we move forward. We have a different vision for the way we operate, and how our ambitions can be achieved.

Danny Schofield will take charge of the last fixture of the season, away at Millwall.

What did you think at the time? The football had become crap after the restart, but the boys had done what they were brought in to do, avoid relegation. We were looking forward to the future. Now that future is very uncertain.

Twelve months on, Town signed Jon Russell on this date in 2021. It was a very underwhelming signing. Another one for the B team. He'd been on loan at Accrington Stanley (who're they?) last season. Wow! But he had come through the Chelsea Academy and we have had some good players from there before, so maybe he might turn out to be alright.

Leigh Bromby had this to say.....

We’re very happy to welcome Jon to the Club today. He’s a very interesting player who offers different qualities to the squad, and we believe there is still a lot that we can work with him on to help him improve.

From speaking with Jon, it became really apparent just how much he wanted this opportunity; he has a huge desire to be here. That’s a great starting point for any player, and the main quality we’re looking in for our First Team, B Team and Academy players.

I’m excited to see how Jon progresses working under Jon Worthington in the coming months.

He eventually got into the first team squad and what a brilliant signing he turned out to be. He even scored the Goal of the Season, but was strangely left out of the Play Off Final starting XI.

[Lord Snooty]

20 July:

On this date in 2016, Town played Liverpool at the John McAlpharm Stadium for the Shankly Trophy. This was a pre season friendly, played in honour of Bill Shankly, who managed both teams with varying success. He won the league three times with Liverpool, as well as two FA Cups, the UEFA Cup, three Charity Shields and started off with the Second Division title.

That was just after he left us at the start of the 60s and by the time this game came up, the Reds were managed by Jürgen Klopp and we had his best buddy David Wagner.

Wagner had brought a load of German players in and Chris Löwe, Christopher Schindler, Elias Kachunga and Michael Hefele all played in this one. A record crowd for a Kirklees Stadium friendly match of 21,166 turned up to see it and it was Town who had the better opening with Kachunga and Rajiv van La Parra firing in shots that tested the keeper, Loris Karius.

But as usual, it was chances missed and the opposition took the lead. Sadio Mane had a goal disallowed for a foul on Joel Coleman, but then Mane and Roberto Firmino teamed up to set up new signing Marko Grujic, who beat Coleman at his near post.

Jack Payne and Joe Lolley again tested the keeper, but it was Liverpool with the next big chance when Coleman brought down Philippe Coutinho in the box. He got himself up, dusted himself down and took the spot kick himself. And Coleman saved it!

That was encouraging for Coleman, especially as Wagner had just brought in Danny Ward from Liverpool. Wagz played Luke Coddington in goal for the second half. He was the grandson of former Town skipper, John Coddington, but never managed a first team game again and was later loaned out to Wrexham.

Ex WBA star defender Jason Davidson also came on for the second half, as did Kyle Dempsey, who nearly equalised shortly after the restart. Klopp also made a boatload of changes and when Lucas got an injury, he put the reserve keeper, Shamal George up front. Takin' t' piss!

Phillip Billing went close with a shot, Dempsey had another short saved, but then the Premier League team got another penalty when 12 year old boy, Ben Woodman fell over in the playground. This was in added on time and Alberto Moreno beat Coddington from the spot.

Final score, two nil to the Pool, who lifted the Shankly Trophy. Klopp and his boys didn't seem right interested. We hung about for ages waiting for the presentation. They eventually persuaded Dejan Lovren to come out and receive it.

Two Town team mates of the 60s had birthdays on this date. Les Massie was born in Aberdeen in 1935 and Bob McNab was born in Huddersfield in 1943. Bob's 79 today. Les died in 2020, aged 85.

Les played ten years at Leeds Road and was the fourth Town player to score 100 goals for the club, after Billy Smith, George Brown and Jimmy Glazzard. He has since been overtaken by Andy Booth and hopefully Jordan Rhodes will this season.

He scored 108 in total and is also high up the appearance chart, in 12th spot with 363, one place above the aforementioned John Coddington. Les and John joined up again later in their careers, playing in the League of Ireland for Drogheda United.

Bob McNab was only a team mate of Les's for a couple of seasons. He was transferred into the big time in 1966 when Bertie Mee signed him for Arsenal, for whom he made around 300 appearances. He also won England caps, only four of them though.

He had nine years at Highbury, but the highlight of his career was when he appeared in an episode of On The Buses, as a character called Bob.

His daughter, Mercedes McNab took on the acting genes after him and was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Bob though, won the First Division title with Arsenal in 70/71 and also won the FA Cup in the same season when they beat Liverpool at Wembley 2-1.

After a short spell at Wolves, he moved to America, where he still lives. He did have a short time back in England though, being part of the Portsmouth takeover by Milan Mandarić in the late 90s. Bob was caretaker manager before Tony Pulis came in.

He played 68 times for Town at left back, but never scored.

[Lord Snooty]

July 21:

Happy 40th birthday today to Ian Craney. He was born in Liverpool in 1982.

He was signed for Town by Stan Ternent from Accrington Stanley, just after the start of the 2008/09 season and made his debut in a shocking home defeat to MK Dons. It was a terrible start to the season, with just two points on the board from the first four games.

But then Craney got his first goal for Town and it was the winner in the game down at Cheltenham, adding to a goal by Nathan Clarke to give us a 2-1 win.

He added more goals, scoring against Oldham, Hartlepool, Crewe and Southend and then Port Vale in the FA Cup. But Turnip had been replaced by Lee Clark by then and Craney's appearances fell away and he was sent out on loan to Morecambe in the next season and he eventually left for Fleetwood.

When his playing career ended, he got into coaching and worked with Paul Cook at Wigan and Ipswich.

[Lord Snooty]

July 22:

Having sacked Danny Cowley with one game to go in the truncated post Covid season, Town went down to Millwall on this date in 2020 with Danny Schofield as caretaker manager.

It was a magnificent performance by one particular Huddersfield Town player, scoring once and adding two assists to a man of the match performance. That player was Connor Mahoney and unfortunately, he was playing for the Lions on this day. Let's hope he's as good as this when he lines up for Schofield in next week's opener against Burnley.

He opened the scoring after five minutes, slotting home a left foot shot. Karlan Grant equalised for Town before half time, finishing off from a pin point Alex Pritchard pass.

One all at the break then, but Jake Cooper had the Lions back in front, heading home from Mahoney's cross. Jiri Skalak then pounced on some piss poor play from Richard Stearman to make it 3-1 on the hour and then with ten minutes left Jon Dadi Bodvarsson latched on to a Mahoney pass to make it four.

Not to worry, we had avoided relegation and ended up in 18th on 51 points, with Grant top scoring with 19. Stand in boss, Schoey lad had this to say......

I don't know what's going to happen in the next few days. I don't know if anyone has been appointed.

I think the players will want to get off and reflect and recover. They have put in a lot of effort and it is probably time to come away from football a little and watch Netflix and do what they do.

Obviously the dressing room is flat after a 4-1 defeat, but there were some positives to take with the performances of some of the young players.

Talking of temporary managers. Gerry Murphy, the best caretaker since Hong Kong Phooey, was born on this date in Dublin in 1943, making him 79 today. He had three stints as stand in boss for Huddersfield Town, the first coming in 2007.

He first joined us as a scout in 1988 and worked his way up to be Academy Manager, staying at the club until 2009 when Lee Clark let him go. His first stint as caretaker came in 2007 when Peter Jackson was sacked for the second time, following a 5-1 defeat at the City Ground. It started well for Gerry, beating local rivals Bradford City 2-0 at home. Paul Hayes, on loan from Barnsley getting his only goal for us and then a young lad called Danny Schofield scored the second.

The rest of Gerry's short stint didn't go as well. Draws against Carlisle, Brighton, Port Vale and Oldham, before losing at Blackpool. Andy Ritchie came in the day after the seaside defeat.

When Rich Tea got sacked around twelve months later, Gerry was in again, for the final six games of the season this time. His second stint began with draws against Doncaster and Port Vale, but then he won the last four games of the season, starting off that run with a famous win at home to Leeds Urinals, the one where Andy Holdsworth scored.

That was followed by Andy Booth giving us a 1-0 win at home to Tranmere. Then Boothy and Schoey scored in a 2-0 win at home to Walsall, before Phil Jevons rounded the season off in style scoring in a 1-0 win at Luton.

But it was during his next caretaker stint that he wrote his name in Huddersfield Town legend, by beating Leeds Urinals for a second time, this time at the Big Yellow Skip.

It was 2008/09, the centenary season and Dean Hoyle had just got rid of Stan Ternent, despite getting a solid win at home on the Saturday against Crewe. Gerry had the best part of a fortnight to get his team ready for the trip to Beeston. It didn't get off to a good start when that nurk Robert Snodgrass scored past Matt Glennon in the fourth minute. But then just after half time, up popped young left back, Joe Skarz to score in front of us in the away end.

It was in the 81st minute when Gerry played his master stroke, bringing on Danny Cadamarteri for the ineffective Keigan Parker. As time was running out, Danny got the ball on the right wing and set off towards the Leeds box. He sent a low cross to Michael Collins, who shinned it into the far corner, wrong footing Casper Ankergren in the BellEnd goal.

Absolute limbs!

That was followed by a win down at Brighton, with Collins getting the only goal of the match. Then a surprise defeat at Leyton Orient, followed by a home win against Walsall, with Collins getting another 90th minute winner, after Gary Roberts scored first. And then Gerry's last game in charge, a 1-0 win down at Southend, with yesterday's birthday boy, Ian Craney getting the winner.

Lee Clark took over soon after that and Gerry went back to the Academy. Not for long though. Clark obviously realised that Gerry was the main man who could easily step in if things didn't go well. So he persuaded him it was time to retire.   

Gerry's record though, over three stints reads; Played 17, Won 8, Drew 3, Lost 6.

[theo_luddite]

"the ineffective Keigan Parker" - perfectly summed up his whole career in two short words there Snoots

Whatever we were using to help us scout players back then must have been similar to the stuff we used for our 2nd season in the Prima Donna League, but obviously without as much help, if that's what you call it from Football Manager or EA Sports FIFA 20xx (name your year) football stuff. Likely we were using Boy Scouts rather than real ones.

[Lord Snooty]

July 23:

So after Danny Cowley had been controversially sacked and Danny Schofield had had one game as caretaker manager, on this date in 2020 potless Phil Hodgkinson played a blinder by appointing a coach from Leeds Urinals, who none of us had heard of. Hands up if you had heard of him.

His name of course, was Carlos Corberán. His claim to fame was leading the Leeds reserves to the PDL Northern League 2018–19 title. Oooooh!

Baffled by this decision. Why would you get rid of the Cowleys, whose record was superb, despite getting some poor performances post lockdown and give the job to an unknown? Potless doing things on the cheap again!

Sadly, it looks like the pandemic is going to go on for a while yet, so we won't yet be able to get to the stadium and let that Pure Plonker know what we think of him and his new Head Coach.

So, how many of you thought this would be a good appointment?

[Lord Snooty]

July 24:

On this day in 2019, Jan Siewert took his Huddersfield Town team to Doncaster to play the Rovers in a pre season friendly. He picked a side with a mixture of last season's Premier League failures and up coming stars. Players like Lewis O'Brien, Josh Koroma and Scott High were on the bench. Aaron Rowe started the game, as did Matty Daly and Rarmani Edmonds-Green.

But it was two of the PL boys who worked a wonderful opener for the Terriers. A superb pass from Collin Quaner invited Rajiv van La Parra to curl one into the corner of the net, which he did brilliantly. Top bins! A bit like the one he scored against West Brom in the PL.

Town went 2-0 up early in the second half with a brilliantly worked free kick from Reece Brown. He chipped the ball over the wall to Juninho Bacuna who had snuck in behind and he fired home a volley.

That's how the game finished. Two nil to the Town. Looking good for an immediate return to the Prima Donna League.

Born on this date in 1883 in Irvine, North Ayrshire was Andrew Armour, an outside right who played three seasons at Leeds Road before the First World War.

He made his debut for us though as a centre forward in a match at home to Burnley in 1911. He scored in a 1-1 draw and then scored again in the next game, a trip to the seaside to play Blackpool at Bloomfield Road. That was a 3-1 defeat and he was in his usual right wing position for the rest of the season, not adding to his goal tally in 19 matches.

He played every game but two in the next season, again only scoring two goals, but they were both against Yorkshire rivals. One in a 2-0 home win against Barnsley, but then scoring the only goal in the final match of the season against Leeds City at Leeds Road. A massive 8,000 crowd turned up to see our boys beat the team managed by Herbert Chapman and finish the season in our highest position at the time of 5th in the 2nd Division.

His third and final season saw him score three goals, against Bury, Fulham and Wolverhampton Wanderers, with his final appearance for Town being the last match of the 1913/14 season, a 1-0 win away at Leicester Fosse.

Despite him being an ever present in that season, he left to return to Kilmarnock for his third spell there. Why did he go? Possibly because he was 31 years old now and Town had a young right winger waiting to make a name for himself. That was Billy Smith.

Andy played a couple of seasons in the Scottish League, before joining up. He was a sergeant in the Royal Army Service Corps, signing on in June 1916 and playing when he could for Killie and also Clydebank. At this time he was married with a son.

He survived the war and later in life became a GP. He died in 1955, aged 71.

Here's a picture of the HTFC 1913/14 team with Andy on the front row on the outside left.

[Lord Snooty]

July 25:

On this date in 2018, Town played French giants Olympique Lyonnais at the John Smith's Stadium in a pre season friendly.

This was the pre season to our second Premier League season and confidence at the moment held no bounds. After this result we were dreaming about qualifying for Europe. This very same team would, in a couple of months time, beat Man City at the Emptihad in the Champions League and make it to the round of 16 before going out to Barcelona.

And here they were, getting beaten 3-1 by little old Huddersfield Town. Yes it was a friendly, but we'll take any crumb of comfort at this stage. It was the first game at the stadium since the death of Town and England legend Ray Wilson and so a minute's round of applause rang out before kick off.

Town started the game with David Wagner selecting new recruits Ben Hamer, Adama Diakhaby and Ramadan Sobhi all in the starting line up.

It was goal less at the break, but early in the second half Maxwell Cornet, who will be back at the stadium this week playing for Burnley, opened the scoring. Half time subs Terence Kongolo and Michael Hefele were both beaten by a defence splitting pass and Cornet took the ball round Hamer to make it 1-0.

Cornet was left to blow his own trumpet as Lyon then substituted ten of his team mates, which allowed Town to get back in the game. First Phillip Billing won a header from a corner to feed Kongolo for the equaliser. Then Laurent Depoitre, on for Steve Mounié, scored twice, firstly from good hunting down from the industrious Alex Pritchard. And then he blunderbusted his way through the French defence to fire home in the last minute and Town had won 3-1.

So the moral of this story is, don't read anything at all into pre season results. This was a very false dawn as we got stuffed every week afterwards and were relegated before Easter.