[HerefordBull]

Steve Bull aptly finished his playing days at "The Bulls" as a player coach with Graham Turner in the Conference. Only made a handful of appearances for us in 2001, scored a couple but couldn't get us promoted. It would be a couple more seasons before this happened.

[Lord Snooty]

September 20:

Born on this date in 1930, in Huddersfield, was Jeff Taylor. He was the elder brother of Ken Taylor, who also played for Town.

He made his Town debut in November 1949 at centre forward, in a struggling Town team, who had just lost 6-0 at Man Utd. It was another defeat, 2-1 at home to Chelsea, but he was the one who scored for us. He scored four goals in his first five matches and finished that season as joint top scorer with Vic Metcalfe on 11.

He scored 13 in the next one, but Harold Hassall beat him to the top scorer's slot with 18. And in the next season, after scoring 29 goals in 71 games for the Town, he was transferred to Second Division Fulham. Not before he had the bad luck to play in our record home defeat, when we were beaten 7-1 at Leeds Road by Wolverhampton Wanderers.

This move to London, he later played for Brentford as well, heralded a change in direction for Jeff as he enrolled in at the Royal Academy of Music. There he studied piano and singing and performed in opera as a bass baritone. He also studied geography at London University.

Having dropped down to Division Three (South) with the Bees, Jeff decided to jack in the footy career at the age of 27 to become a full time opera singer, starting with a move back home to join the Yorkshire Opera Company.

But then his international career took off in 1962, when he was transferred to Paris, teaming up with Michel Roux in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. He had big gigs at Glyndebourne, before setting off around the world. He starred in Australia, Italy, Rotterdam and then the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

Jeff then turned his back on fame and went into the teaching profession, becoming Professor of Singing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow. He stayed there for 18 years.

In his football career he played 210 games, scoring 78 goals. He died in Holmfirth in 2010 aged 80.

Jeff left Leeds Road in the 51/52 season. That was the season we got relegated. At the back end of the season, George Stephenson resigned as manager to be replaced by Andy Beattie.

I've written a fair bit about Mr Beattie this year. Just doing it again because on this date in 1983 he died in Nottingham, aged 70.

He played for Preston and Scotland. Managed Barrow and Stockport before coming to Huddersfield and winning us promotion and a 3rd placed finish in Division One. He also managed Scotland at the 1954 World Cup (pictured below), Carlisle, Nottingham Forest, Wolves and Notts County.

On the pitch, we had a high scoring match at Leeds Road on this date in 1986. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of home games I missed when Mick Buxton was manager, all of them seem to have been high scoring. I missed the 7-1 Port Vale game, the 4-1 Reading game, the 4-3 win over Millwall and I missed this one today, a 5-4 win against Oldham Athletic.

Busy at work was the excuse for this one. Don't remember what was that important that I'd miss a Town game. Anyway, what I missed was two goals for Paul Raynor, two for Duncan Shearer and a Malcolm Brown penalty.

[HerefordBull]

Loved the story re Jeff Taylor returning to the Yorkshire Opera.............the game has certainly changed!

[Lord Snooty]

September 21:

I've written quite a lot about Dave Mangnall in this here daily thread, today I'm gonna do some more. For on this date in 1905, he was born in Wigan.

He signed for Town from Leeds Urinals in December 1929 as a replacement for George Brown, who had departed for Aston Villa in the summer. It was a case of replacing Huddersfield Town's leading goal scorer with a man who would go on to have the Town's greatest goals to matches ratio, scoring 73 goals in 90 matches.

He was another who had come from working darn t' pit. As the saying used to go, Huddersfield Town just went and shouted down the nearest pit shaft when they needed a new striker. Dave had gone darn t' pit in t' first place because he was rejected after a trial at Town and went to play as an amateur for Doncaster Rovers.

He was given another chance by Leeds and scored ten goals for their reserves in one match, a 13-0 win against Stockport County reserves. This led to him being picked for their first XI and his 6 goals in 9 matches for the BellEnders impressed Clem Stephenson enough to persuade the directors of Huddersfield Town to fork out the princely sum of £3,000 for him.

He made his Town debut in a 0-2 defeat down at the Arsenal, but scored his first Town goals, two of them, in a 3-2 win at West Ham on Christmas Day 1929 and scored again on Boxing Day as West Ham came up north and were beaten 3-0 with Bob Kelly and Harry Raw getting the others. He scored 8 goals in 14 matches that season, but didn't get selected for the FA Cup Final when we lost 0-1 to the Arsenal, Harry Davies getting the nod ahead of him.

In the following season he scored 9 goals in 12 games as Town finished 5th in the First Division. But the next season, 1931/32, Mangnall set his name in stone in the Huddersfield Town record books. We finished 4th in the league, but that was mainly down to Dave's 42 goals in 39 matches (33 from 34 in the league), which is still a club record he shares with Sammy Taylor, only Jordan Rhodes has come anywhere near since.

He scored 5 goals in a 6-0 win over Derby County, which young Jordan did manage to match against Wycombe Wanderers. Alf Lythgoe is the only other Town player to have done this. Dave did get another record that nobody has come anywhere near matching though and that is the club record for scoring in consecutive matches. He scored in 11 straight matches (7 league, 4 FA Cup, 19 goals). He did score in 9 straight league matches, but in between those was another famous match in which Town failed to score. That was the FA Cup quarter final match at Leeds Road against the Arsenal, which was attended by 67,037 people, another club record that will definitely never be beaten. Arsenal won 1-0.

Town finished 6th next season, but without the Mangnall boy who only played three times due to a serious injury. He was back in 33/34, playing in 16 games and scoring 10 goals as Town finished as runners up to Arsenal, who were completing their hat trick of titles, but without Herbert Chapman who had died earlier in the year.

His last game for Town was in a 0-3 defeat at Stoke in January 1934 and his last goal for Town was in the previous game, a 1-1 draw against Leeds Utd at Bellend Road. Injury ruled him out for the rest of the season and in the summer he was sold to Birmingham City, where he scored 14 goals in one season, before going down to London to play for West Ham.

He scored 28 times in his one season for the Hammers before leaving to become a legend at their neighbours Millwall. During the 36/37 season his goals led the Lions to the FA Cup semi finals, the first 3rd division team to reach that stage. On the way they beat Aldershot, Gateshead, Fulham, Chelsea, Derby and then in the quarter finals they beat Manchester City, who were, as now, the star studded team of the day.

Mangnall scored the first goal in the match at the Den, in which Millwall won 2-0 to earn a semi spot, to be played against Sunderland at one of Dave's old stamping grounds, the wonderful Leeds Road stadium in Huddersfield. There must have been a fair few Town supporters cheering him on in another big crowd of 62,813 as he opened the scoring in the semi final, but Sunderland came back to win 2-1 and go on to win the cup against Preston at Wembley.

Dave was famous now and as such went and asked for a pay rise from the Millwall management. This was long before players had any power at all and so he jacked the job in to go run a grocers shop in Sutton Coldfield. As the second world war was just kicking off, he returned to London and signed for QPR. Scored 3 times in three games for Rangers, which were crossed off as the fledgling season was abandoned. He stayed in London for the Blitz, playing for the QPR team in the Wartime League and becoming manager in 1944.

He must've been some kind of celebrity because he became friends with the American singer/comedian/film star Sophie Tucker, who became Godmother to his son. He stayed at Loftus Road as boss after the war, winning their first FL promotion as Div 3(S) champions in 1948 and remained in the post until 1952.

It was his only managers job as he left football to go live in Cornwall as landlord of the Navy Inn in Penzance. It was here that he died in 1962, aged 57.

On this date in 1999, under the fantabulous leadership of Man Utd legend Steve Bruce, we got through to the 3rd round of the League Cup.

It was a 2nd round 2nd leg on this night against Notts County at Meadow Lane. We had won the first leg, down at the Mac, by two goals to one. On this date we drew the second leg 2-2 to go through 4-3 on aggregate.

Kenny Irons and Dean Gorré scored the goals.

And when the draw was made, we got the big one. Chelsea away. That's due on October the 13th. Get your tickets sorted. This could be a classic.

And finishing on a bum note today. On this date in 1993, we had our record League Cup defeat.

After beating Scarborough in the first round, this second round first leg game at home to Arsenal, came during a rubbish run of form under new manager Neil Warnock. By today's standards, he would probably have been sacked after this one.

We were third bottom of the 3rd Division and Arsenal were Arsenal. Full of internationals, they had David Seaman in goal, a defence with Tony Adams and Martin Keown. Their attack was scary. Ian Wright scored a hat trick, Kevin Campbell scored one and muppet Paul Merson got the other, to beat us 5-0.

So it's down to Highbury for the second leg in a fortnight. Get your tickets sorted. This could be a classic. 

[talkSAFT]

I'm guessing your Local Paper publishes these dailies, Snooty (??)
They'd pay you bloody good money for a Year's supply.
Brilliant 

[WakeyTerrier]

I'm guessing that match at Notts County was the night that we all got to see the magical feet of Kwame Hodouto

[HerefordBull]

Second what TalkSAFT said...........brilliant Snoots , especially keeping it going during (the generally) non playing days of the Summer.

[SHEP_HTAFC]

That bloody 5-0 beating at home to Arsenal still haunts me.
Not for football reasons, but I had my car stolen just off Leeds Rd during that game.
Had to walk 5 miles to drop off the current girlfriend, and then walk 5 miles back to mine. Had no money left for a taxi. We split up shortly after that.

[Lord Snooty]

Aw thanks guys.

---

Yes Wakey. Hodouto came on against County. Bruce must've been impressed. He started him in the next game.

And hauled him off after about half an hour. 

---

Happened to us as well Shep. Not nicked but had the car broken into three times and my mate had all his tyres slashed.

Not all at the Arsenal game. 

We always go in proper car parks now.

---

Even then it's not totally safe. Once had our back window smashed in the St Andrews car park by some dickhead firing golf balls over from the driving range.

[Lord Snooty]

September 22:

Huddersfield Town were in their fifth consecutive season in the 4th Division in 1979/80, just ten seasons on from the one where we won promotion to the 1st Division. Fortune had started to turn our way again and this was the season we came back up again, doing it in style, scoring 101 league goals.

On this date in 1979, we had the biggest win of the season, a 7-1 win at Leeds Road against Port Vale. And I missed this one as well.

On a stupid, lad's jolly to Spain. Had a crap time, spent most of the holiday stuck in an airport as the French air traffic controllers were on strike. And missed a 7-1 win.

Ah well. Crowds were picking up. Just over 3,000 turned up for the first match of the season, 4,299 came out for this one. Peter Fletcher opened the scoring, then Bob Delgado scored an own goal. Peter Hart scored twice, Ian Robins scored twice and Brian Stanton scored the last one on his home debut, having scored on his Town debut last week at Scunthorpe, having just arrived from Bury.

This win had us up to fourth in the table with the chance to go top if we win at Stockport on Friday night as we get to play before everybody else.

Fifty one years earlier, on this date in 1928, we were 4th in the First Division and playing at home to Everton. We won 3-1 with goals from George Brown, Billy Smith and Bob Kelly.

I only mention this one because on this date in 1969, Bob Kelly died, in Fylde, aged 75. He was 33 when he scored this one against Everton and had come to us having had a stellar career already with Burnley, Sunderland and England.

He scored 42 goals for us and won another couple of England caps whilst with us. He kept playing into his 40s, finishing off with Carlisle, where he was manager as well.