[HerefordBull]

Love the dog against Brazil ..........should have put a white shirt on it and used the extra player up front!

Remember Lee Fowler playing for Kidderminster Harriers, one of our local rivals. Just checked and he had a fair few clubs but the most games played for anyone in the Leagues was for Forest Green Rovers.....40.

[Lord Snooty]

June 11:

Another marmite player has a birthday today. Love him or loathe him, it's a happy birthday today to Phillip Billing, formerly of this parish, but now residing in that quiet little seaside town of Boscombe.

He was born in Copenhagen on this date in 1996 and is 26 today. He left his Danish home at the age of 17 to come and play for us, well our youth team and I remember watching him in an FA Youth Cup match and thinking "Wow"!

He showed glimpses of Wow when he made our first team, including some spectacular goals. He was Young Player of the Season on three occasions. But since moving to Bornmuff, he has really hit the Wowzers button. Especially last season, adding regular goal contributions to his game as well.

He burnt his bridges with many Town fans though and a lot were glad to see him go. This was after a fall out with Jan Siewert, which saw the gangly twerp throw his toys out of the pram.

He was though, an important member of the back up squad for the promotion season, who became a regular in the Premier League and David Wagner certainly loved him. I definitely don't blame him for what happened and wish he was still a Town player. I don't think man management was one of Jan's strong points.

So what are your thoughts on young Billabong?

Goalkeeper Ray Wood was born on this date in 1931. His birthplace was Hebburn in South Tyneside and it was at Newcastle where he first tried to make it as a professional footballer. He didn't quite make it and went to Darlington. However, he was soon back in the big league when still only 18 years old, he was signed on by Manchester United.

He had nine seasons at Old Trafford, winning the league title twice and getting an FA Cup runners up medal. That FA Cup Final was in 1957 against Aston Villa. Ray was on the losing side, with Villa winning 2-1, but Ray didn't concede. That's because he had his jaw broken by a challenge in the 6th minute, in the days before keepers were over protected. He went off with Jackie Blanchflower going in goal, but came back on and played on the wing, with his broken jaw. No substitutes back then. But with United two goals down, Ray went back in goal for the final seven minutes, in which time they pulled one back.

And then things got worse. Firstly, he lost his place in the side when Matt Busby signed Harry Gregg, but then half the team got killed in a plane crash in Munich, that you may have heard about. Harry and Ray both survived, Ray with just minor injuries and was sold later on that year to Huddersfield Town, signed by Busby's mate Bill Shankly.

Ray stayed at Leeds Road for seven unspectacular seasons, playing 223 games for the Town, sharing the goalkeeper's gloves with Harry Fearnley and then John Oldfield. He then went off to play in Canada, came back to play for Bradford City and Barnsley before going into management. Not in England though. All his managerial roles were abroad, in places such as United States, Ireland, Zambia, Canada, Greece, Kenya, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates.

On retirement, he came back to England and died in Bexhill-on-Sea in 2002, aged 71.

[theo_luddite]

Martin from Wakefield was hardly the brightest or sharpest pin in the box was he? Not really sure (other than the German connection) what our lot were thinking when they made him coach - other than the writing was already on the wall and somebody needed to be the scapegoat when we got relegated. He's now a youth team coach at Mainz - 'nuff said. No surprise that somebody had a better idea of how to play football than him. Several thousand of us sat in the stands had better ideas than him.

[HerefordBull]

Forgot about "Martin from Wakefield"  connection to Siewert...........absolutely priceless

Don't expect we'll ever see a football manager staying as long in a job at one club as Bill Shankly in these days of "sack em quick" football.  His brother Bob was manager up here at Hibernian for 4 years in the 60's.

[Lord Snooty]

June 12:

Edwin Watson only played six matches for Huddersfield Town, but one of them was an FA Cup semi final. He arrived in 1937 from Partick Thistle, a Scotsman born in Pitenweem, a fishing village on the coast of Fife, in 1914.

He made his first team debut in January 1938, a home defeat to the mob from Beeston, playing centre forward when the regular Willie MacFadyen, a fellow Scotsman who'd come from Motherwell, was unavailable. Edwin wasn't in the next line up, manager Clem Stephenson played Lewis Brook at number 9 instead.

He was back in the side in March though, playing three consecutive matches. The first was the FA Cup quarter final match at Bootham Crescent against giant killing Third Division side, York City. He replaced Frank Chivers at inside left as First Division Town kept the minnows at bay by playing out a nil nil draw.

The replay was four days later and Edwin kept his place, but was moved to centre forward again, once more taking MacFadyen's shirt, with Chivers back in his usual position, instead of the midfield role he had at York. This was a famous occasion in the histories of both clubs with a massive crowd of 58,066 turning out on a Tuesday afternoon to see Town win 2-1 to go through to the Cup semis. And Edwin scored the first Town goal, his only goal for the club, with Chivers getting the winner.

Edwin kept the number 9 shirt for the trip to the Valley on the following Saturday, but Town got stuffed 4-0 against Charlton Athletic and he was dropped for the next one. But he wasn't out of the picture for long and came back into the side for another momentous match, one of the great occasions in our history, the Cup semi against Sunderland at Ewood Park in Blackburn.

Sunderland were the Cup holders and favourites to win this one, but Town won it with George Wienand destroying them on the wing. Edwin played inside left again for this one, alongside Bobby Barclay at inside right and MacFadyen at number 9. Wienand was on the right wing with Pat Beasley on the left. And it was Beasley who gave Town the lead, with Barclay and MacFadyen adding the others in a famous 3-1 win.

Edwin kept his place for the next game, a home defeat to Liverpool, but was then transferred to Bradford Park Avenue in the Second Division.

Wikipedia has no record of his time at Park Avenue and the next entry for him is when he became a flight sergeant in No. 201 Squadron RAF of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War. He was a gunner on one of these planes, known as a Short Sunderland, a flying boat patrol bomber built by Short Brothers in the north east town.

Edwin was aboard the plane, attacking German U-boats in the Bay of Biscay on the Spanish coast on this date in 1944 when they were shot down by flak from German submarine U-333, killing everyone on board, including our Edwin.

He was 30 years old and his body was never recovered. He is recognised on the RAF Runnymede Memorial in Surrey, as well as the Huddersfield Town Roll of Honour. His team mate Frank Chivers is on there as well.

[HerefordBull]

Nice bit of military history, thanks.

There is a bit of dispute to the day of his death but from the military history source I use ( mainly for the american civil war and 1st World War admittedly) , it looks like Edwin was shot down on the 11th with U333 having been hit by an Australian Sunderland on the 10th . The allies had their revenge on U333 the following month, when it was sunk using a "squid" anti submarine weapon.

[Lord Snooty]

June 13:

This was indeed a momentous day in the history of Huddersfield Town Football Club. Two years after being founded in 1908, the club were elected into the Football League on this date in 1910 and would start the 1910/11 season in Division Two.

They were elected in at a meeting at the Imperial Hotel, in Russell Square, London (pictured below). The unfortunate team to make way for the new entrants was Grimsby Town, who came straight back in after one season in the Midland League.

The Midland League was where Town had been in the previous season, after starting out in the North-Eastern League. The Mariners hadn't finished bottom of Division Two. They had finished above Birmingham, who got the highest vote at the re-election meeting. Town finished second in the vote, nine votes better off than Grimsby. The election system was so absurd that it only lasted another 77 years after this.

Darlington, Hartlepools United, Chesterfield and Rochdale were the other clubs bidding for a place in the League, who failed........ miserably!

Charlie Sykes, the president of the Huddersfield Cricket and Athletic Club gave a speech congratulating the Town and Amos Brook Hirst announced that £5,000 had been set aside for ground improvements, which would involve turning the pitch at Leeds Road around ninety degrees to the position we all knew.

Albert Bateman was born on this date in 1924. He was born in Stocksbridge and played for three seasons at Leeds Road just after the second world war. He played 78 times, scoring 16 goals.

That's his official total. He had a few more during the wartime league, scoring on his debut in 1944 against Barnsley. His official debut came in the opening game of 46/47 at home to Blackpool, alongside most of the rest of the team. Only Eddie Boot and Billy Price were in the last game in 1939 before yond pillock Hitler started being a prick and causing the FL to abandon the 39/40 season.

Another player making his debut in that game was Graham Bailey. Albert died in 2020 and at the time, it was thought that at the age of 95 before his death that he was the oldest living Town player. That was until it emerged that Graham was still alive and kicking and living in Bridlington. As far as I know, he still is and will be 102 now, if I'm correct. Go on, lad.

Anyway, injury forced Albert into early retirement at 25 and his last game for Town was at Sheffield United in January 1949. He died in April 2020, during the Covid lockdown, although it wasn't said at the time whether or not he was a victim of it.

[WakeyTerrier]

Forgot about "Martin from Wakefield"  connection to Siewert...........absolutely priceless 

Don't expect we'll ever see a football manager staying as long in a job at one club as Bill Shankly in these days of "sack em quick" football.  His brother Bob was manager up here at Hibernian for 4 years in the 60's.

I went to School with Martin from Wakefield

---

One year ago today

England 1 v 0 Croatia
Raheem Stirling with the only goal

We're on our way ladies and gentleman!!!

[Lord Snooty]

June 14:

The year is 1908. A piece of land opposite Canker Lane has been purchased, the land which Huddersfield Technical College had been using as a football pitch. A stand had been built and the area fenced off. Five football matches have been played there, the latest being the Huddersfield & District championship decider between Skelmanthorpe and Meltham. And now the area next to this piece of land has also been acquired.

So everything was in place for the foundation of a Huddersfield football club. Things were going so fast though that on this date in 1908, the proposed club was elected into the North-Eastern League, before the club had actually been founded or even a name decided on. That was all sorted out a few days later at a meeting at the Albert Hotel in Victoria Lane. More on that later........

[WakeyTerrier]

I've got nothing at all for today, not 1 single international fixture although that will change tonight with my visit to Wolverhampton for the England game where our local England fan has recommended the following sights

The Man on the Oss

and

First ever automated traffic lights.

Sadly Fred the ring road tramp has died along with Welly Women.

I can hardly wait