[Lord Snooty]

Yes indeed. It's all in tomorrow's piece. We got beat at home by the Blunts on Valentine's night and it was a bit too much for Deano.
He'd fallen out of love with Leak Lark.

[Lord Snooty]

February 15th:

First of all, happy birthday to our young midfielder Scottish Highlands. Born in Dewsbury in 2001, making him 21 today, Scotty has a bright future ahead of him at Huddersfield Town, but may struggle to hold down a first team place if we go up again this season and bring in a load of top class, expensive midfielders.

Still to score his first goal for the Terriers, he has scored whilst out on loan. One at Concord Rangers and twice for Shrewsbury Town, one of them in the League Cup at Middlesbrough.

On this date in 2012, there were huge cheers in the offices of Radio Leeds as grumpy Town manager Lee Clark was sacked, despite having the best win rate as a Town manger since Herbert Chapman was here.

Nowadays Lee is in the Sudan Premier League, managing Al-Merrikh SC. But back then he was a highly rated manager and had been linked with many other jobs, dirty L***s included. So it was a big shock to anyone outside of the club when Dean Hoyle rang him up from his holidays to discuss last night's defeat at home to Sheffield United and instead of discussing what went wrong, he sacked him.

Was it the right thing to do? The club came in for some terrible stick from the media and people who knew nowt and should've kept their noses out. But their argument was, he took the club on a record breaking 43 match unbeaten run of "regular league games" and this decision was unfathomable. Well right or wrong, the club needs a new manager. The name of Simon Grayson has been bandied about.

Surely not.........

Do you think Dean was right to sack him?

As for matches played on this day. We beat Bradford City 2-1 at Leeds Road in the FA Cup 5th round in 1930 on our journey all the way to Wembley. Bob Kelly and Alex Jackson with the goals. Jackson keeping up his record of scoring in every round.

Not much else to write about really. The most recent game was in 2020 and a 1-1 draw at Derby County, the one with the late Harry Toffolo equaliser.

Back in 1977, a 4-1 win in the 4th Division at home to Hartlepool Utd saw us move up into 5th place. Kevin Johnson, Steve Baines and Martin Fowler scoring for us, as well as an own goal.

And in 2014, we had a good away win at Birmingham City, with Oliver Norwood and Adam Clayton grabbing the goals in this one.

[WakeyTerrier]

I've got a couple of fixtures attended on this day

15th Feb 1992
Darlington 1 v 3 Town
2 goals from Iffy Onoura and a penalty scored by OOH Phil Starbuck
Feethams(name of the ground)
Attendance 3120
That left Town 4th in Division 3

15th Feb 2003
Town 3 v 3 Cheltenham
No idea who scored for the Robins but Kenny Old Irons (54) and a Martin Smith double (56 & 59) gave Town a draw
Attendance 9309
That draw saw Town drop a spot into 23rd in the League.
Morbid Mick Wadsworth was in charge back then, basically because we couldn't afford to sack him

[Lord Snooty]

February 16th:

It's a happy 54th birthday to Graham Mitchell today, born in Shipley in 1968. He first came to Town as a youth in 1983 and it was Mick Buxton who gave him his debut in 1986 in a match away at Crystal Palace. When he left in 1995 after a dispute with Neil Warnock, he had clocked up 310 appearances for the club, which now stands him in 18= spot on our all time appearances chart, level with Jimmy Nicholson.

He was our Player of the Season in 1991/92.

After us he played for Bradford City, then went up to Scotland with Raith Rovers and Cowdenbeath. He had a couple of years with Cardiff City before coming back to West Yorkshire and became captain of Halifax Town. Whilst at the Shay, he started coaching at the Town Academy. And after spells playing at Bradford Park Avenue and Farsley Celtic, he came back and joined our Academy full time, working his way up to Reserves manager and then took a match for the first team as caretaker manager in 2008 before Lee Clark was appointed, a 1-0 win away at Southend United.

Born on this day in 1931 was Town manager of 74/75, Bobby Collins. I mistakenly shortened his Town career when I commemorated the day he died on Jan 13. We have a discrepancy on Wikipedia. His page has him managing us from June to December 74, whereas he in fact spent another whole year with us, finally resigning his post in December 1975.

Not that it matters, but anyway, he still got us relegated, but he was a nice bloke who got me the entire squad's autographs. 

Before he came to us, he had a successful playing career with Celtic, Everton and Leeds, as well as Bury and Greenock Morton. And of course Scotland for whom he gained 31 caps.

The first game on this date was back in 1920 and it would turn out to be our last defeat of the season. It was a 2-0 loss at home to Tottenham Hotspur, who would eventually win the 2nd Division championship, with Town finishing as runners up. After this game, we went 14 games unbeaten to the end of the season.

The most recent game on this day was last year, 2021, when Isaac Mbenza opened the scoring at Middlesbrough, but we went and lost 2-1. Whatever happened to young Isaac?

Before that it was a League One match back in 2010 up at Brunton Park against Carlisle United, when goals from Lee Novak and Jordan Rhodes gave us a 2-1 win.

We had an appearance in the FA Cup 5th round on this date in 2008. This was the trip down to Chelsea when we lost 3-1 and Michael Collins scored.

There was another 5th round match back in 1957. This one was at Leeds Road and following our 4th round match with Peterborough, we faced Burnley. There was a massive crowd there of 55,168, but despite Dave Hickson scoring, we lost 2-1.

But we did win a 5th round match in 1929. This was also at Leeds Road, but only 19,000 turned up for this one. The boys in bright blue n white triumphed again on another attempt to bring the cup back to Huddersfield. it was a 5-2 victory over Crystal Palace and the scorers were Billy Smith, Bob Kelly and a hat trick from George Brown.

The 6th round is set for the 2nd of March and a trip to the Hawthorns to face West Bromwich Albion. Bring it on.

[WakeyTerrier]

I've also got yet another visit to the Withdean Stadium on 16th Feb 2002
Brighton 1 v 0 Town
Carl Junior Lewis with the only goal of the game in front of 6744
Brighton went on to win the Second Division that season
Town would meanwhile qualify for the play offs against Brentord

[HerefordBull]

Remember Lee Clark as a manager from his days at Birmingham City and then for a year up here in Scotland with Kilmarnock. Started to get a bit of a reputation in keeping relegation threatened teams up.

[SHEP_HTAFC]

Snoots asked the question whether Lee Clark should have been sacked.
Abso-bloody-lutely he should have gone.....way before he did tbh.
He admitted later that he changed tactics and players to keep that 'unbeaten run' going, rather than going for wins.
Weirdly, I reckon we lost out on automatic promotion because of that 'run'.
And it never was a 'record breaking run' anyway.....that play off final defeat to Pish I still count as breaking the 'run'.

[Lord Snooty]

February 17th:

Not a great day in Huddersfield Town history. Lots more defeats than wins and three FA Cup 5th round matches that we didn't win. Firstly, in 1996, we had reached the last 16 for the first time since 1971/72 and it was all going pretty well against Wimbledon.

Wimbledon? Yes, kids. Wimbledon. They were a Premier League team back then, before they were franchised out to Milton Keynes. Anyway, as I said, it was all going pretty well for Town, who were now in the 2nd tier, calling itself Division One back then and we were 2-1 up with goals from Rodney Rowe and Tom Cowan as the game went into time added on. A place in the quarter finals was on for the first time since 71/72 as well, but instead of playing out time well and seeing out the game professionally, our naivety showed up as we went for goal instead of the corner flag. Giving the Dons the ball back, they went up the other end and won a corner.

You all know what happened next. It finished 2-2 and so it was all down to their place for the replay. Their place being Selhurst Park. The replay's set for the 28th.

The other two 5th round matches were lost at home, at the John McAlpharm Stadium. In 2013, after beating Charlton Athletic and then Leicester City after a replay, we faced Wigan Athletic, another small club over achieving in the Premier League. Strange how the media hated Cruddersfield being in the Premier League, but never ever questioned the credentials of either Wimbledon or Wigan being in there.

Anyway, Wigan hammered us 4-1, with just a James Vaughan goal to show.

The next one was 2018. We were in the Premier League by now. Little Cruddersfield stinking up the elite league of world football. We had for years, dreamed of pulling ahome tie with Manchester United out of the bag and now we finally did, only 17,861 turned up for it. United had the whole of the South Stand, so only 13,000 of our fans, with around 7,000 empty seats.       

Anyway, the stay away fans didn't miss much. Our quest for that elusive quarter final place failed again as two Romelu Lukaku goals gave the Red Mancs a 2-0 win. We also got our first glimpse of this new fangled VAR system. What a polava that was. It'll never catch on.

Enough of the bad times, let's see what we did win. We beat Wolves 2-1 in 1912, Sheffield United in 1930. Torquay United in 1976 and Mansfield Town in 1990, with Craig Maskell getting the only goal of that game.

One more match to report on and it's another goal for Dave Mangnall. He scored his 18th goal in the tenth consecutive match to keep his record going. This was in a 1-1 draw against Middlesbrough at Leeds Road.

[WakeyTerrier]

Snoots asked the question whether Lee Clark should have been sacked.
Abso-bloody-lutely he should have gone.....way before he did tbh.
He admitted later that he changed tactics and players to keep that 'unbeaten run' going, rather than going for wins.
Weirdly, I reckon we lost out on automatic promotion because of that 'run'.
And it never was a 'record breaking run' anyway.....that play off final defeat to Pish I still count as breaking the 'run'.

That's the best thing about it, pisses Posh fans right off

---

I've quite a few fixtures on this day that I've attended, most of which you have covered and like you say not a good day for Town

1996
Town 2 v 2 Wimbledon

1998
Forest 3 v 0 Town

2007
Town 0 v 2 Brentford

2013
Town 1 v 4 Wigan

2018
Town 0 v 2 Man Utd

[Lord Snooty]

February 18th:

On this date in 2017, little Huddersfield of the Championship almost beat the multi millionaires of Manchester City in the FA Cup 5th round, instead drawing 0-0. To say we did well would be an understatement. We were really unlucky not to win, with Phillip Billing having a goal disallowed for a marginally offside decision. Not himself, but Rajiv van La Parra blocking the keeper in an offside position. That goalie, Claudio Bravo kept Citeh in the game, saving twice from Rajiv and then a rasping free kick from Jack Payne.

It was a record crowd for the JSS of 24,129 and the Blue Mancs had the likes of Sergio Aguero and Kevin de Bruyne on the pitch, who were outshone by the bright lights of Huddersfield in big Jon Stankovic, Collin Quaner and man of the match Billing.

The Terriers were just the sixth team to stop Citeh from scoring in all competitions in that season after Barcelona, Man United, Everton, Tottenham and Liverpool.

The replay is due on the 1st of March at the Emptihad Library. Should be good. How will we get on in this one?

Seventeen years earlier, in the year 2000, we also drew with Man City at home. This was a league match, in the 2nd tier, and against a City team that would finish the season getting promoted as runners up to Charlton Athletic. There were 18,173 in the stadium for this one and it was Clyde Wijnhard who scored for us in a 1-1 draw.

We've had some big scores on this date. In 2006 we walloped the MK Dons 5-0 at home. Martin McIntosh, Gary Taylor-Fletcher, Jon Worthington, David Mirfin and Michael Collins on target for the mighty Terriers.

There were another five players scoring in 1995 as we set a new scoring record for the new stadium by beating Cardiff City 5-1. Andy Booth, Tom Cowan, Ronnie Jepson, Paul Reid and Gary Crosby were the scorers in this one.

Back to the FA Cup and a couple of 5th round ties, both on the way to the Final. Firstly in 1922, one hundred years ago today, we played Blackburn Rovers in front of 45,068 spectators at Ewood Park and Frank Mann scored in a 1-1 draw.

And in 1928, we hammered Middlesbrough at Leeds Road 4-0 with a massive crowd of 55,200 there. Future Town manager David Steele scored the first, with more regular scorers George Brown, Alex Jackson and Billy Smith adding the others. We've got Spurs at home in the quarter finals on the 3rd of March.

Finally, it's a happy birthday to young Kieran Phillips. Born in 2000, he's 22 today and will be celebrating it down in Exeter where he is out on loan. He's been on loan at Walsall this season, but apparently he was recalled because the Saddlers ahd saddled him out on the wing, whereas our management wanted him to play as an out and out striker. Exeter have done that and he rewarded them last weekend with his first goal, the only goal of the game against the Chickens at the Utilita Energy Stadium, aka the Manningham Dump.

He played in ten matches for us last season, all of them as sub, and I reckon he's one with a future at Town, unless we get promoted and fill the side with over priced foreign mercenaries again.