[Lord Snooty]

Not so much hard work, theo. More of a labour of love.

---

And I'm still forgetting to pose a question each day.

[theo_luddite]

I barely do one per match thread so don't sweat the small stuff Snoots

[Lord Snooty]

September 1:

Two birthdays today, both centre backs, one a club legend, one not so sure about. It's Michael Hefele, who is 32 today and Will Boyle is 27.

The Hef was born in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, in Bavaria, in 1990. He played for SpVgg Unterhaching, a Bavarian team. Then he went to another Bavarian team in SpVgg Greuther Fürth. They were in the Bundesliga, but got relegated to Bundesliga 2 while Hef was there and he only made one appearance in the top tier.

From there he went to Saxony and played for Dynamo Dresden, who had slipped down to the third tier of German football. Hef became captain of the club and got them promoted as champions in the season before his career went big time by signing for English sleeping giant, Huddersfield Town.

He made 35 starts for us with another 13 sub appearances, scoring five goals. But all five goals were memorable. The first one came within ten seconds of coming on as a sub on his debut, famously scoring from 40 yards with his arse at Villa Park. That was coming off the bench as an emergency striker. His next two came in the same circumstance, coming off the bench at half time to play up front in an FA Cup game at Rochdale.

He got another league goal, away at Barnsley, a bullet header from a corner. And then came the Heffing Dream goal, when he scored a late winner at home to the Champions of Europe and swore live on Sky Sports in the after match interview.

He also took a brilliantly struck penalty at Hillsborough in the semis of the Play Offs and one not so well at Wembley.

Sadly, he spent most of the Premier League debut season injured and only played once in the PL and even more sadly, went off to play for the Tree Stumps. He had three years there, stealing a wage off the unworthy shitehawks by spending his entire time there on the treatment table.

And then, on the 26th of July last year, the Heffing dream re-emerged when he came back to Huddersfield and although not in the team, his mere presence in the stadium inspired the Town to reach Wembley.

Will Boyle was born in Garforth in 1995 and is 27 today.

After leaving Town in 2017, after loan spells away at Kidderminster, Macclesfield, York and Kilmarnock, he signed for Cheltenham in January 2017, a couple of days after the Hef had just scored twice at Spotland.

He had six seasons at Waddon Road, winning promotion with them in 2021. At the end of his contract, he was surprisingly signed on back at Huddersfield.

Still unsure on whether this was a good signing. Time will tell. In the mean time.......

[Lord Snooty]

September 2:

Legendary football manager Bill Shankly was born in Glenbuck, East Ayrshire on this date in 1913.

He grew up in the small coal mining community, one of five brothers who all went on to be professional footballers. When he left school, he worked down the pit for two years before in 1932 he was taken on at Carlisle United. He had one season there before Preston North End signed him up.

Bill helped them win promotion to the First Division after a couple of years and then in 1938 achieved the pinnacle of his career when Preston won the FA Cup at Wembley, beating the mighty Huddersfield Town 1-0 (it was never a penalty!). A few weeks before this, also at Wembley, he made his Scottish international debut against England.

The war interrupted his playing career just at his prime and he joined the RAF. By the time hostilities had ended, he was 33 years old. He stayed on at Preston, becoming club captain, until 1949 when he took up coaching and then his first managerial role when he returned to Brunton Park to manage Carlisle.

After that, he had spells in charge of Grimsby and Workington before in 1955 he got the job coaching Huddersfield Town's reserves. That became first team coach and then manager when Andy Beattie resigned soon after. He stayed at Town until 1959, bringing through young players like Denis Law, Ray Wilson and Les Massie.

He was approached by the Liverpool chairman (then in Div 2) and asked how would he like to join the best club in the country, to which he replied: "Why, is Matt Busby packing in?" Of course he went there and became a football legend, let alone a Liverpool legend. He has his own dedicated gates at Anfield and became a media personality often coming out with some of the best quotes on Match of the Day.

At Liverpool he won them promotion from Division 2 and then three First Division titles, two FA Cups and the UEFA Cup. No trophies for Town, but he did win more games than we lost.

Whilst manager of Town, he lived in Oakes and here he is on the Cowrakes Road football pitch having a kick around with the local kids in a famous picture of the time.......

When Shanks shuffled off to Liverpool in 1959, after his Town team had just beaten them 1-0 at Leeds Road, the Town directors put ex player Eddie Boot in as caretaker manager. He had nine games in December and January in charge, winning four of them. That included a 6-1 win at home to Bristol City. But when his team went down to West Ham and hammered the bubble blowing cockneys 5-1 in an FA Cup replay, they really had no option but to offer him the job full time.

He did alright, but the club never looked like going up in the three and a half seasons in charge and Eddie was clearly showing signs of strain. On this date in 1964, after drawing the first three games of the season, Town played Plymouth Argyle at home. Town lost the game 2-1, but it is said that Eddie resigned at half time, walked out and never entered another football stadium for the rest of his life.

How much of that is true, I don't know. According to the book Where Are They Now, by Lee Morris, he and ex team mate John Battye started their own business North Star Tyre Remoulds.

Going back a bit, on this date in 1908, the brand new stadium at Leeds Road was officially opened with a friendly match against Bradford Park Avenue. I say stadium, it was nowt of the sort at this time, just an enclosure, but this was it's first Town game. We won the game 2-1, with Richard Morris scoring as well as an own goal. Ideal preparation for the first North Eastern League match in three days time.

That game didn't count as an official fixture. Another one that didn't was played on this date in 1939 when Town went down to Griffin Park to play Brentford in a First Division match. Eddie Boot played in this one, but it and the previous two games were expunged from the record books as the 1939/40 season was officially suspended. The day after this match, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gave his famous speech declaring that this country was now at war with Germany.

So today's poser. Was Chamberlain right to declare war?

[Lord Snooty]

September 3:

On this date in 1910, having been elected into the Football League a few weeks earlier, Huddersfield Town played their first ever Football League match. It was an away game and a derby game at Bradford Park Avenue. They were in their third season in the League, having finished 16th and 10th previously.

A crowd of 16,000 turned up to see this one and they saw the League's new boys leave with the points in a 1-0 win. Henry Hamilton won the honour of scoring Huddersfield Town's first ever League goal. The team wore an all white kit, with blue bands around the neckline and were skippered by Welsh international defender Charlie Morris. There were ten Town debutants in the line up with just Joe Jee surviving from the last season in the Midland League.

The line up was......

1. Sandy Mutch - Signed from Aberdeen, stayed for 12 years.
2. Archie Taylor - Left for Barnsley and captained them to FA Cup glory in 1912.
3. Charlie Morris - Soon to become our first international.
4. Simon Beaton - 22 year old defender signed from Newcastle.
5. Ellis Hall - 21 year old defender signed from Stoke.
6. William Bartlett - 32 year old defender signed from The Wednesday.
7. George Blackburn - Playing against the team we signed him from.
8. John Wood - Striker who signed from Plymouth. Died in 1916 at the Somme.*
9. Henry Hamilton - Forward signed from The Wednesday. Left for Southampton.
10. Sandy McCubbin - 24 year old forward signed from Morton.
11. Joe Jee - 27 year old winger signed from Brighton.

*Still awaiting confirmation about this. He's still missing from the Club's Roll of Honour.

George Stephenson never played for Town, unlike his brother Clem who played through the glory years of the 1920s. George played in the same position as Clem for Villa, Derby, Wednesday, Preston and Charlton, as well as gaining three caps for England.

He was born on this date in 1900 in Seaton Delaval, a village in Northumberland, ten years after Clem was born. Just before his 47th birthday in 1947, he was appointed as manager of Huddersfield Town after David Steele had resigned.

George had four and a half seasons in charge, but they weren't successful as the Town struggled to adapt to life after the war. He left the job in 1952 to be replaced by Andy Beattie.

He later became a coach at Derby and then a pub landlord. He died in 1971 aged 70.

Finally today, a 0-0 draw. I only mention it because on this date in 1968, my dad took me to my first ever night match at Leeds Road. It was a League Cup 2nd round match, Town's first game in this competition since reaching the semis in the previous season and I was part of a crowd of 23,426. If I remember correctly, it wasn't a dull game and we sat in the wing stand, Cowshed side.

City were the current League champions and they put out a team full of regulars. We had John Oldfield in goal. The recently deceased Billy Legg played at left back. Jimmy Nicholson was captain, but Frank Worthington was missing, with Paul Aimson wearing his shirt number. They had star names like Mike Summerbee, Colin Bell and Franny Lee in theirs

So no goals in this one. No extra time or penalty shoot out either, so the game went to a replay. That was a week later at Maine Road and we got beat 4-0.

City, under the management team of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison, would get knocked out in the next round, but did go on to win the FA Cup that season.

[talkSAFT]

Can't believe that I've only just realised that UK's War with Germany started on 3.9.39. (Bloke of my age* and I've only today noticed).

* Without giving my age away, I remember cheering Terriers' Triple in 1926 (Radio 5 down the pub).

[Lord Snooty]

We didn't have the radiogram. Had to rely on the pigeons bringing the news.

[Lord Snooty]

September 4:

The club record for consecutive league wins currently stands at eleven. That record has stood since it was set on this date in 1920. It includes eight straight wins in the previous season, the promotion from Div 2, and the three wins from the start of our first First Division season.

The game that brought us to the figure of eleven was a 1-0 win against Preston North End at Leeds Road and it was Frank Mann with the goal, scoring from the penalty spot, putting the Town top of Division One.

The eleven games were a double over Stoke (1-0 away and 3-0 at home), 4-1 at home to Barnsley, a 5-1 win at home to Stockport, a 2-0 win at home to Wolves, a double over Nottingham Forest (both 2-1 away then at home), a 4-2 home win against Lincoln City. Then in the new season, three 1-0 wins, away at Preston, home to Burnley, then home to Preston to complete the sequence which came to an end with a defeat at Burnley.

On this date in 1933, ex Town assistant manager Leslie Knighton was manager of Chelsea and he brought his team up north to face Huddersfield Town at Leeds Road. Town were managed by Clem Stephenson and finished the previous season in 6th. Chelsea had had a season of turmoil, with Knighton publicly falling out with former Town star Alex Jackson, who by this time had departed Stamford Bridge.

Some things never change and Chelsea even back then were the big spenders. As well as the huge wages they had been paying Jackson, they also had his fellow Scottish internationals Hughie Gallacher, Alec Cheyne, Willie Ferguson and Tommy Law. Despite all this, they struggled, finishing the last season in 18th, just avoiding relegation.

And when they came up here, that turmoil just got worse as our lads sent them packing with a 6-1 spanking! Dave Mangnall opened the scoring, Charlie Luke got our second, Wilf Bott one, George McLean got two and Austen Campbell scored the sixth. It was a quite low crowd to watch what ought to have been a high profile game, but it was played on a Monday afternoon with a one o'clock kick off and only 7,523 were there to see it, as Town moved up to 5th.

[Lord Snooty]

September 5:

On this date in 1908, Huddersfield Town played their first ever official match. It was in the North-Eastern League away at South Shields Adelaide Athletic. Their name came from the fact that those who founded the club in 1899, lived in Adelaide Street. The match was their first game in this league and they had just moved to a new ground at Horsley Hill in the town. The only place to spectate from was a pavilion behind one of the goals, but they did get more facilities by the time they were elected into the Football League in 1919.

Town wore salmon pink shirts for this first game and were led by player/manager Fred Walker. We lost 2-0, in front of a 5,000 crowd, so either Wikipedia got it wrong about the small stature of Horsley Hill or that pavilion was quite massive.

Town's first ever line up was as follows:-

1. Billy Crinson - Goalie signed from The Wednesday.
2. Dick Ray - Came from Leeds City, later managed Leeds Utd.
3. Robert Trenham - Came from Leeds City.
4. John Morris - Another one from Leeds.
5. Fred Walker - Player/manager, came from Leeds City. (pictured below)
6. William Hooton - Another one.
7. J. Shackleton - Ex Bury and Spurs.
8. Harry Wallace - Another from Leeds.
9. Sam McAllister - From West Ham, this was his only game.
10. Dickie Morris - Welsh international striker, signed from Reading.
11. Charles Flowitt - Ex Donny Rovers.

That was Match 1. Fast forward to Match four thousand an' odd (just guessing, I'm not counting 'em) and we played the first game of the new season after the Covid lockdown on this date in 2020. It was played behind closed doors and was the first game under Carlos Corberán.

And it was dreadful!

A League Cup tie at home to Rochdale and we got beat 1-0. It wasn't really an under strength team either. We had Ben Hamer in goal, Christopher Schindler, Jonathan Hogg, Josh Koroma, Alex Pritchard, Harry Toffolo, Danny Ward, Juninho Bacuna all playing. Only Aaron Rowe, Romoney Crichlow and Ben Jackson could be called reserves.

Eoghan O'Connell scored the goal, a header from a corner.

Not all bad news though. On this date in 1962, we won at Carrow Road. Norwich had won the League Cup in the previous season, beating Rochdale in a two legged final.

This was a league game, a Division Two match and we beat them 3-2 to go top of the league. We had an awesome front line, with Kevin McHale, Len White, Derek Stokes, Les Massie and Mike O'Grady. It was O'Grady who scored all three Town goals.

Somebody must've been impressed with his performance. Walter Winterbottom picked him for England next month.

[Lord Snooty]

September 6:

Huddersfield Town, under the leadership of Mick Buxton, had won the 4th Division title in 1979/80, but had struggled to get going in the next season. After an early League Cup exit to Blackburn and a league defeat at Chesterfield, we had got draws at home to Carlisle and Blackpool followed by a 0-0 at Rotherham. But on this date in 1980, we really got our act together and hammered Reading 4-1 at Leeds Road.

And I missed it. 

I was on my way back from a holiday in Cornwall. I ought to take more holidays. We always seem to win when I do.

Anyway, despite the exciting season just gone, this was still only Division Three and crowds weren't averaging five figures yet. Only 7,312 turned up for this. But those of us who missed it, got to see it the next day on Yorkshire TV's Sunday Soccer programme.

The first goal was a calamitous cock up by the aptly named Steve Death in the Reading goal. Pronounced dee-ath, he dropped the ball, unchallenged, into his own goal from a corner. I can't remember in what place Reading scored but our second was scored by Micky Kennedy from the penalty spot. The third was a volley from a corner clearance, by Micky Laverick. And the fourth was a near post header from a left wing David Cowling cross, by Brian Stanton.

The third and fourth goals are on YouTube. Couldn't find the full YTV highlights.......

Back in 52/53, the season after our first ever relegation, we were top of the 2nd Division and unbeaten after the first four games when our neighbours from Barnsley came to Leeds Road on this date in 1952.

Andy Beattie had joined the club as manager in the dying embers of the last season and he was to get our fantastic football club back up to Division One again. He did it with only using 15 players throughout the season and this was the fifth game without any team changes.

Poor Barnsley left with a great big 6-0 walloping! Jimmy Glazzard scored his fifth and sixth goals of the season. Vic Metcalfe also scored a couple, including a penalty. Willie Davie and Len Quested got the others. A bumper crowd of 33,157 came out to see this one.