[WakeyTerrier]

9th Feb 2010 Brighton 0 v 0 Town at the Withdean Stadium (a term used very loosely)
Attendance 4711

From what I recall it was a cold, wet and if being miles away from the pitch wasn't bad enough I remember it being very foggy

That was Towns 35th game of the season and also my 35th Town game in attendance, in the end I did every game that season, a massive 55 in total dragging my backside to midweek games to silly places like Brighton, Carlisle, Southampton.

I must've had a screw loose

[Lord Snooty]

February 10th:

On this date in 1934, Billy Smith played his final game for Huddersfield Town. It was his 574th match for Town, his 521st league game. The match was against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane and we won it 4-1. And did he score in it? Of course he did.

He scored twice actually. His 125th and 126th goals, which at the time had him 2nd in the all time goal scorers chart, behind George Brown. He's now down to 4th, as in the following 88 years, only Jimmy Glazzard and Andy Booth have managed to overtake him.

Having played his first game in 1913, I wonder how many matches he would have played in and how many goals he would have in his total, if the war to end all wars hadn't interrupted his early career.

The other two goals in the match were scored by Willis Vaughton and Charlie Luke. Vaughton, in contrast to Smith, only played twice for the club and this was his only goal.

Thirteen years before all that, in 1921, Billy scored in a 2-1 win over Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park, with Ernie Islip getting the other goal.

Just for a change, instead of a picture of the great man himself, here's his great grand-daughter Mollie at this season's kit launch.

We reached the 5th round of the FA Cup in 1951, but lost on this date, away at Wolves 0-2. And it's Wolves who gave us a damn jolly good thrashing in our most recent game on this date, back in 2015. That was at our John Smith's Stadium and was the night that Rajiv van La Parra destroyed our feeble defence.

It was also the night that Conor Coady scored his first goal for Wolves. The daft ha'porth was still a Huddersfield Town player then though. 

Benik Afobe scored as well that night. Again, this was not for us but for them. It was James Vaughan who scored the Town goal, but we were already 3-0 down when he scored. Nouha Dicko scored the first and last goals of the game as the Wolves ran out 4-1 winners.

They beat us in the next season as well but after that, we have won the last five matches against them.

[WakeyTerrier]

10th Feb 2001
Bolton 2 v 2 Town
Smith and Gallen putting Town two up inside 23 minutes
Bergsson pulling one back on the hour mark before Per Frandsen scored a last minute equalizer to leave Town sat in 22nd place in the First Division

[Lord Snooty]

February 11th:

Two big wins of the David Wagner era on this date.

First up, in 2017, we went down to Loftus Road and beat QPR 2-1. Izzy Brown and Nahki Wells scored the goals before Luke Freeman pulled one back. The win was a sweet one for Town fans as the knob who predicted we would be relegated, Ian Holloway had recently taken the R's manager's job. Far from being relegated, this win had Town up to 3rd, overtaking Reading and six points points behind 2nd placed Brighton.

As we all know, we beat Reading in the Play Offs and so twelve months on from beating QPR in the Championship, we faced AFC Bournemouth at the JSS in the Premier League on this date in 2018. It was a Sunday dinnertime kick off for televisual purposes and the poor old Cherries fans had had to set off in the middle of the night.

They must have been thrilled about their long journey to the north when in the 7th minute, the diminutive midfielder Alex Pritchard scored his first Town goal, after being set up by Steve Mounie. And it was Mounie who put us back ahead after AFCB had equalised, nodding home an Aaron Mooy free kick.

Mounie made it three in the second half, ridiculously later given as an own goal and then little Pritch was upended in the box in added on time and Rajiv van La Parra stroked in the pen to finish the match as a 4-1 Town win.

This win moved us out of the bottom three, overtaking Southampton and Stoke.

[Lord Snooty]

February 12th:

Not one, not two, but three birthdays today. Baldy, Benny and Bully.......

First born was Darren Bullock. Born in Worcester on this day in 1969, making him 53 today. He was 24 when he signed for Town, arriving alongside Richard Logan, signed by Neil Warnock as a major coup from non league football. Bully was playing for Nuneaton and I think working as a brickie. That could be my memory playing up there. Possibly Logan was the builder. Anyway, Bully was the type of player that would've built you a wall and then smashed right through it. A proper hard man of the midfield, the likes of which we hadn't seen down Leeds Road since Chopper McGill was a lad.

He wasn't just that though. He could play a bit as well and in his Town career he notched up 21 goals from 155 (+1 sub) games for the Terriers. After us he went to Swindon and we played them at the McAlpharm in the last game of the season, he only went and joined in with our players end of term lap of honour, putting on a Town shirt as he walked around. The Swindon fans weren't happy apparently and he didn't stay much longer.

Reading his Wikipedia page flagged up a couple of things I didn't know or had forgotten. He signed for Warnock again later on in his career, going on loan to Sheffield Utd in 2001 from Bury. And in 2010, he appeared on Deal or No Deal and won a potload of cash, walking away with £13,770 after accepting the bankers offer.

A young team mate of his at Town was Simon Baldry. He was born on this date in 1976 and he's celebrating his 46th birthday today. In an injury ravaged Town career, he scored two famous goals. One of them was in the first minute of the Final Whistle match, the last ever game at Leeds Road. And the other was the goal in a 1-0 win over West Brom that completed the Great Escape in 97/98.

He almost made it to the Premier League when a deal worth a million pounds was struck with Middlesbrough, but got injured and it fell through. Sadly for the lad, he ended up dropping down the leagues. Firstly, another one who went and rejoined Warnock. This time it was at Bury. He then signed for Notts County before falling right out of the FL and played for Ossett Town, Guiseley and Bradford Park Avenue.

Much younger, born in 1993, 29 today, is Benik Afobe. He were no'but 17 when he came to us on loan from Arsenal in 2010, scoring 8 goals for us. Half of those 8 goals were scored in athletics stadiums. His first two were in a FL trophy game against Rotherham at the Don Valley and at the end of the season, he scored another couple at the Withdean against Brighton.

He can't settle anywhere though. He's had 16 moves in his career, the latest being a loan at Millwall from his parent club Stoke City.

There have been some memorable matches also on this date. A 4-3 victory over the Wednesday in 1927, with a Bob Kelly hat trick. A 1-0 win over Liverpool in 1938 in the FA Cup, on the way to the Final. A bizarre 6-4 defeat against Wolves in 1955, with Jimmy Glazzard getting a hat trick.

In 1983, we made it on to Match Of The Day. The whole country was snowbound apart from our little pocket of springtime. And so desperate were the BBC to find a game that was still on, they dipped their toes down into the 3rd Division. And our lads didn't disappoint, pulling off a magnificent 5-1 win with goals from Mark Lillis, Colin Russell 2, Keith Hanvey and Phil Wilson. Here, have a watch.

There was the LDV Vans Trophy Area Final 2nd Leg in 2002. We were 3-1 down on aggregate to Blackpool, but got it level by scoring twice in the first half through Clyde Wijnhard and Danny Schofield. But unfortunately we went and lost in extra time on the Golden Goal rule.

And then there was that FA Cup win at Leicester in 2013. We were both in the Championship, but just six weeks earlier we had got stuffed 6-1 at their place. We did better in the first Cup game, managing to get a draw, but this 4th round replay win was very unexpected. The game was on live TV, I can't remember which side it was on, but it was a cracker. We won it 2-1 with a thunderbastard of a free kick from Adam Clayton and then a superb solo effort from super Sean Scannell.

Wigan up next in the 5th round. Come on Town.

[Lord Snooty]

A couple of interesting notes from the match programme today. Bob Kelly's hat trick against The Wednesday was on his debut. The only town player to score a hat trick on debut. Many years later Duncan Shearer did on his first start, but he had come on as a sub in the previous game.
And on the same day as this match, George Brown was capped for England against Wales. Yes kids, international matches were played on the same day as league games. No international breaks back then.

[Lord Snooty]

February 13th:

We had a magnificent 6-1 victory at home to Reading on this date in 1981. And I have to say that this one was a bit out of the blue to be honest. We were on a bit of a poor run, having lost four on the trot, including an FA cup defeat at Orient and in the league against Burnley, Wimbledon and Preston. This was a re-arranged match, played in midweek due to our Cup run and the bad weather and our brave boys came back to form in spectacular style.

Goals that night came from Peter Fletcher, who scored twice, Mark Lillis, David Cowling and Brian Stanton. That's only five. Yes, the other was an own goal from Martin Hicks, his second own goal for us in that season.

In 1999, we reached the 5th round of the FA Cup and played Premier League side Derby County. The draw had given us a home match and was played on this date. We had beaten QPR and Wrexham in the previous rounds and 21,629 turned up to see this, the biggest crowd of the season. Again, we were on a poor run of form, not having won a game since beating Grimsby Town on Boxing Day and manager Peter Jackson must've been worried about his job following the recent takeover of the club by television set top box manufacturing millionaire Barry Rubery.

It was a magnificent performance from the boys and we were unlucky not to win and goals from Chris Beech and Marcus Stewart almost did it but the game ended 2-2.

The replay is set for Pride Park on the 24th. How will we get on?

And finally, it's that man Dave Mangnall again. He continued his run of scoring in consecutive matches in 1932 with two in a 4-0 5th round FA Cup win against Preston at Leeds Road. That took his tally to 17 goals in 9 straight games. The other two goals in the win were from Charlie Luke and an own goal from the Preston full back Frank Ward.

So having beaten PNE, we drew Arsenal, managed by Herbert Chapman of course, at home in the next round, the quarter finals. How will this one go? it's scheduled for the 27th.

U

[Lord Snooty]

February 14th:


Born on this day in 1994 and so celebrating his 28th birthday today is Terence Kongolo. He was born in Fribourg, Switzerland, to Congolese parents and moved to the Netherlands when he was 4 years old.

He moved to Huddersfield when he was 23 years old and was absolute class. On loan from Monaco to start with, he signed on permanently in the summer of 2018 after helping us avoid relegation. It was for a club record fee of seventeen and a half million pounds. And it turned out to be a massive waste. Not just of money but of talent as well. The soft pillock took his bat and ball home and when we had been relegated, he was shipped out on loan to Fulham in the January window.

His career at Fulham has been injury prone and he's only turned out in two games for them, an FA cup match against QPR and one in the PL against Wolves. What's the betting that he makes his comeback against us on Saturday and scores the winner?

What did you think of young Terence then? Quality player too good for the likes of us? Or overpaid prick?

We have had a few happy Valentine's Days over the years, none more so than when we beat Leeds United in 2009. This was on the back of a magnificent 2-1 win at Bellend Road earlier in the season and so gave us our first league double over the old enemy since 1930/31.

Anyway, this love in down Leeds Road was settled in the 16th minute with a towering header from a corner by Nathan Clarke. And didn't we just love it? Oh yeah, baby!

The most recent match on this day was another thing of beauty. Valentine's Day 2017......

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Huddersfield three
Rotherham two

           

Goals from Joe Lolley and Elias Kachunga, followed by a last minute winner from Tommy Smith. Absolute limbs! And you can re-live it all now.....

Town have a good overall record of matches on Valentine's Day with a 57.89% win rate. Or 11 wins from 19 games if you prefer. One that really stands out is from 1925 when Herbert Chapman took his league champions down to Highbury to play Arsenal. There must've been something about this visit that made the Arsenal directors sit up and think; we need to get this man for ourselves. They did in the summer and Chapman replaced former Town employee Leslie Knighton (he had been assistant to Arthur Fairclough) as manager.

The Valentine's Day Massacre took place in 1929. This massacre preceded it by four years. Town won 5-0 with goals from George Brown, Clem Stephenson and a hat trick from Charlie Wilson.

[WakeyTerrier]

Kongolo is probably the best defender ever to play for Town. He was superb while on loan at the club. Just a shame things went sour in our second Premier League season

[Amelia Chaffinch]

I could look this up but CBA. Did we acquire Simon Grayson after a Valentine's Day massacre / sacking?