[Lord Snooty]

Here's some more about Robert Gordon, who I mentioned on Sept 18th. The one who died in 1940 during the war. It's by Lee Morris on the HTAFC Heritage site and it's very good. He met with Robert's niece and she shared his diaries, which was nice of her. It's quite a long read, but if you've got the time, it's very interesting.

https://htafc-heritage.com/posts/71/war-...bob-gordon

[HerefordBull]

Fascinating insight into the game from those days from the training methods through to no involvement in the game if you weren't in the chosen 11, as no substitutes were allowed.......how would Klopp cope lol. He'd be bleating as usual.

Even his death was of its era as in the modern world, certainly in the UK , Tuberculosos doesn't strike fear into people as it did then..........Streptomycin as an effective agent against the bacterium didn't appear till after the War.

Having been in the trade , I loved the dentistry story.........again in a time prior to the NHS, so you had to pay - 15 shillings was quite a lot of money in those days.

Thanks for posting.

[Lord Snooty]

September 23:

Three League Cup ties against teams from higher divisions to write about today.

Having beaten 2nd Division Sunderland in a two legged first round of the League Cup, 3rd Division Town played Premier League Blackburn Rovers at Leeds Road in the 2nd round 1st leg on this date in 1992. They had star names in their line up, the likes of Alan Shearer, Roy Wegerle, Tim Sherwood, Colin Hendry and a young lad called Lee Makel on the bench. We had Tony Elliott in goal, Neil Parsley at right back, Peter Jackson was the skipper and Iwan Roberts and Iffy Onuora were up top.

In the dugouts, two Liverpool legends. Kenny Dalglish for them and Ian Ross for us. The game finished 1-1 with Iffy scoring ours and Shearer getting theirs against the run of play.

The second leg at Ewood is in a couple of weeks time. Has the potential to be a classic that one. In the meantime, if you've 20 minutes to spare, have a watch of the highlights of the first leg, where the commentator says the classic line; it's hard to tell which is the Premier League team here.

Moving on six years, skipper Jacko was now manager Jacko and after a 1-1 draw in the 2nd round 1st leg with Everton, we traveled to Goodison Park for the 2nd leg, on this date in 1998.

We were bang in form and top of the 2nd tier, which was known as Division One at that time and a huge following went to watch this. That huge following went potty as Marcus Stewart opened the scoring in the first minute.

It was a cracking game, but the Toffees, with young Danny Cadamarteri up front alongside big Duncan Ferguson, came back into it and were ahead at the break through goals form Olivier Dacourt and Marco Materazzi.

Materazzi got red carded in the 70th minute and so we played against ten men for the last twenty, pushing for the equaliser, which sadly didn't come.

Here's Stewy's goal.

Moving on five years, Jacko was still there as manager, but only after he'd been sacked by numpty new owner Barry Rubery and returned to the club as saviour once again after the club had been in administration. We were in Division Three, the 4th tier, playing Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on this date in 2003, in a 2nd round match, which by now were just one legged games.

They were in the 2nd tier and were good enough to reach the Play Offs that season.

It started well for Town with Tony Carss scoring a brilliant free kick in the 2nd minute. It was 2-0 in the 20th minute, again a brilliant goal, this time from the tricky feet of young Jon Stead, who would go on to play for Sunderland without adding to this goal at the Stadium of Light.

Kevin Kyle, who we had had on loan, pulled one back five minutes later, a header from a corner. That was the score at half time, 2-1 to the Terriers.

In the 54th minute, confusion. Good work from Danny Schofield and Jon Worthington gave Andy Booth a headed chance which was blocked on the line by Ben Clark. Andy Holdsworth followed in though and scored from six inches. What was the ref doing though? He never signaled for a goal, just got his red card out to send Clark off. The Town players were baffled. Goal or penalty, what's it to be ref?

GOAL! 3-1.

Unbelievably it went 4-1 three minutes from the end, when Boothy charged down a clearance to put himself in the clear and blast the ball past the keeper. Absolute limbs!

Kyle made it 4-2 in injury time and didn't bother to celebrate. Up next? We've beaten Derby and Sunderland. A glamour tie? Oh, Reading away.

Anyway, another video to watch. Better on mute though, there's a horrible musical soundtrack for some strange reason. Enjoy!

[HerefordBull]

I mentioned before that Marcus Stewart has been diagnosed with MND. He finished his career, by me at the time, with Exeter City and in tribute this Saturday when they are at Forest Green in a Div 1 televised game the team are wearing special T shirts in the warm up supporting Marcus and highlighting the MND society.

Former clubs Yeovil and Sunderland will be doing the same.

[Lord Snooty]

September 24:

On this date in 1910, Huddersfield Town had their first ever Football League home win. Having won the first FL game away at Bradford Park Avenue, the Town followed that with a home defeat against Burnley and then an away loss at Gainsborough Trinity. The opponents for this momentous occasion were our near neighbours, Leeds City.

It was a 3-2 win and the scorers were Sandy McCubbin, Henry Hamilton and William Bartlett.

Moving on a few years to a League Cup tie in the 1970s. A couple of weeks ago, we had a 2nd round match at Leeds Road against Leeds Utd, which was drawn and saw the sacking of Brian Clough in the following day. On this date in 1974, we had the replay at Bellend Road.

We had Leeds legend Bobby Collins as manager, they had Maurice Lindley in as caretaker. Collins made one team change, dropping Billy McGinley to the bench and bringing Phil Summerill in. Leeds were still full of internationals and brought in Duncan McKenzie into the line up in attack.

It was England's Allan Clarke who scored for the WhiteShite, but our leading scorer Alan Gowling equalised, just as he had in the first game. Full time came with the score at one each and so went to extra time. No more goals were scored and so the rules of the competition at the time meant that we went to another replay. Instead of a neutral venue though, the captains flipped a coin for home advantage, which Leeds won. And so we shall meet again at the Skip in another two weeks time on the Monday night of the week that the 3rd round matches will be played.

Yesterday we had the win away at Sunderland in 2003, today we did the same in 1991. This one was at Roker Park in the second round first leg and they were in the 2nd Division, whereas we were in the 3rd.

It was another famous win, in an era of not a great deal of success. It was a 2-1 win with goals from Simon Charlton and Phil Starbuck.

The second leg will be back at Leeds Road in a couple of weeks time.

On this date in 1994, we went to Valley Parade with a six match unbeaten run, for a 3rd tier encounter. It was 1-0 to Town at half time with a goal from Paul Reid, who we had just signed from them.

City equalised through Paul Jewell, but then Ronnie Jepson restored the lead. Chris Kamara then went and equalised again for the Bants. Up stepped Andy Booth to make it 3-2 and then did it again to make it 4-2. John Taylor scored to make it 4-3, but there was no cash in the attic for City. Unbelievable!

This win moved us up to 2nd in the table.

[Lord Snooty]

September 25:

Having had a reasonably successful season in 1970/71 back in Division One after 14 years in Div 2, Huddersfield Town had a slow start to the new season. We were in 21st place when on this date in 1971, our neighbours from down the road, Leeds Urinals came to visit.

They had finished the previous season as runners up to Arsenal and were managed by the odious Don Revie. They were a team loathed throughout the country, known as Dirty Leeds for their style of play. Dirty, but within the rules of the game at the time. They wouldn't last two minutes in the modern game.

Not just on the field either. They had already played twice at our ground this season, as they were forced to play four league matches away from Bellend Road following trouble in the last season when West Brom went to Beeston and beat them 2-1 with a highly controversial winner from Jeff Astle, that cost them the title.

They'd played Wolves and Crystal Palace at ours as well as Spurs at Boothferry Park in Hull and Newcastle at Hillsborough and would've come here expecting to win. Our brave boys had other ideas.

A crowd of 26,340 came out to see this one, with Jack Charlton scoring for Leeds after Jimmy Lawson had given Town the lead. It was an unlikely hero who got the winner as Roy Ellam, who went on to play for the BellEnders next season, popped up to bag the winner from a corner. The win moved us up to 16th with the hope of kicking on again, but sadly, we only won two more matches in the season and sleepwalked into relegation.

One of the teams we did beat in that season was Derby County, managed by Brian Clough, who went on to pip Revie's rabble to the title. The team that came down with us at the end of the season was Nottingham Forest. Unlike us, they came back strongly, having taken on Clough after he'd been rejected by Derby and Leeds.

But the Florist left the Premier League in 1999 and never got back again until recently, so when we met each other on this date in 2020, they were a pale shadow of the all conquering club they used to be. Such was the apathy towards them, no supporters turned up to watch this one, everybody instead deciding to stay at home and watch the match on i-player.

It was the season that started late, following the late finish of the previous season, due to government failures in preparing for and preventing the spread of a pandemic. So although this was the back end of September, it was only game 3 of the new season.

Town won it 1-0 for the first win under the new leadership of Carlos Corberán and it was a stunner that won it. A smart move involving a one two with Harry Toffolo and Josh Koroma saw Toffs deliver a perfect cross for Fraizer Campbell to volley the ball past Brice Samba in the TreeStumps' goal.

It was a crap game though, played with no crowd and a dead atmosphere. Who would believe that these two terrible teams would meet at Wembley in the Play Offs at the end of the next season?

[HerefordBull]

So true about the Leeds of the 70's.........horrible side

[Lord Snooty]

September 26:

It's a happy birthday to one of our 2017 heroes today. Martin Cranie was born on this date in 1986, in Yeovil, making him 36.

He made 21 appearances in our promotion winning season, including a sub app at Wembley. Only three games in the Premier League though, his final match was in a 5-0 loss down at Arsenal and so was moved on in the January transfer window.

His next three clubs all did well. He must be some kind of lucky charm. He got to the Play Offs with Middlesbrough, got promotred with Sheffield Utd and last season made it to the Play Offs again with Luton.

He's unemployed at the moment though.

On this date in 1953, Town were second in the First Division and played Middlesbrough at Leeds Road in Division One in front of a crowd of 37,054.

We would finish the season in 3rd, our highest placing since the glory days between the wars. We won this game 2-0 and the scorer was Jimmy Glazzard, scoring them both. They were the 9th and 10th goals out of 29 he scored in the season.


During those twixt wars glory days, another of our prolific goal scorers was in form on this date in 1931. No, not Dave Mangnall, but Bob Kelly our veteran England international.

He scored twice, one from the penalty spot, in this 2-0 win at home to Bolton Wanderers. Only 12,901 came to see this though. Well, times were hard.

Bob was 37 by now and would leave the club in the summer, heading over to Preston after scoring nine goals in the season to help us finish in 4th in the First Division. Despite his ageing legs, he played in 40 of the 42 league games and all five of the FA Cup matches and so must've contributed a few assists for Mangnall's club record 42 goals in the season.

Bob's on the second row, sat in front of the goalie and Dave is sat next to him on the right as we look at it.

[Lord Snooty]

September 27:

Charles Randall was an inside forward who was born in a village called Bearpark, in County Durham in 1884. He had three seasons playing in the First Division with Newcastle United, but came on loan to us in his third season there. We were in our first ever season and playing in the North Eastern League and Charles made his Town debut in an away game at Wallsend Park Villa.

He made nine appearances that season, scoring four goals. His first two goals were against Seaham White Star in a 3-2 win at Leeds Road. He also scored against Middlesbrough and West Stanley.

Manager Fred Walker must've liked what he saw with Charles and so signed him on for another season long loan, in time for our new venture into the Midland League. Charles only played seven times though, with his last Town match being a 1-1 draw at home to Doncaster.

He then had a loan with Castleford Town before joining Woolwich Arsenal in the First Division, where his playing career got going with some regular games. He played there for three seasons, two in the First Division and then in the Second Division after they were relegated. Whilst he was there in 1913, the stand at their Plumstead stadium was burnt down in an arson attack by some suffragettes, leading to the club relocating to Highbury. Charles only played one game that season and whether it was at Plumstead or Higbury, I don't know.

His next move took him back up to the north-east, signing for North Shields Athletic, but then the war broke out. Charles was married and he and his wife had had one son, who tragically died in infancy. He signed up for the war effort in 1915, becoming a Private in the Coldstream Guards.

In November 1915 he arrived in the trenches of the Western Front and by September of the next year he was at the Somme. You know where this one's going, don't you.

On this date in 1916, Charles was killed in action, aged 32. He is buried in the Dantzig Alley British Cemetery.

During the First World War, Leeds City committed a series of serious offences which led to their expulsion from the Football League shortly after football got back underway when the war was finished. A new club called Leeds United was formed and they tried to take over Huddersfield Town and move the whole lot across to their Beeston base on Bellend Road. Long story, short version, they failed.

So on this date in 1924 after the BellEnders had been promoted to Division One, we met for the first time. Against Leeds City, we'd had a 4 win, 5 loss and 1 draw record and it was a draw in this first match with United.

Jack Swann, who had joined Leeds in the previous season from us, was their top scorer in their promotion season and it was he who scored against his old club in this match at Bellend Road. But it was the brilliant Billy Smith who scored for the Town as a crowd of 41,800 turned out to see Herbert Chapman and his Champions of England.

A few years later, we met again on this date. This time it was 1930, again at Leeds and we won this time by a score of 2-1. Jimmy Smailes got both of the Town goals.

On this date in 1971, Huddersfield Town traveled to Scotland to play Morton at Cappielow Park in the second leg of the first round of the Texaco Cup.

Town had won the 1st leg at Leeds Road a fortnight earlier by a Bobby Hoy goal to nil and we won the 2nd leg as well. Manager Ian Greaves made just one change from that game, bringing in Steve Smith for Mick Barry in midfield. But it was the same starting XI who had just had the magnificent win two days before (this one was on a Monday night) at home to Leeds when we beat them 2-1 in a First Division match.

Frank Worthington scored both goals in a 2-1 win to give us a 3-1 aggregate victory.

Next up for the Texaco Cup? It's Airdrieonians, who will come down to Huddersfield on October the 19th.

[HerefordBull]

Interested in the Charles Randall story. Having survived the worst day in British military history on the  first day of the Somme on July 1st, I suspect he was involved in the attack on Delville Wood earlier in this month and died in the aftermath of holding the ground taken. He was fighting just along the line from the 16th Royal Scots, McCraes Battalion which was known as the Sporting Battalion as it was made up of many different sportsmen but most notably the First team of perhaps the best team in Scotland at that time, Heart of Midlothian.............unfortunately they took a lot of casualties on July 1st in their quest to take Contalmaison where a cairn has been erected in their memory. There were inter regiment football games played so you never know perhaps he played against the Hearts players before July 1916?

Interestingly Dantzig cemetery is the British and Allies spelling of the area. Originally on the maps it was a German communication trench termed Danzig Alley with no "t". It is thought the change happened as in German , the "z" is pronounced "tz" and even during the Second World War there is some spelling of na*i as natzi.


Mortons ground has hardly changed since your Texaco Cup game