[Lord Snooty]

October 15:

Town were playing in their first ever Football League season in 1910/11, but were playing in their second FA Cup campaign. Last season, after beating Heckmondwike 11-0 in a record score that has never been beaten, we played and beat Mirfield United, Rothwell White Rose, South Kirkby Colliery and then lost in a replay against Rotherham Town. That defeat came in the 4th Qualifying round.

In the second campaign, we beat Horsforth 6-0 in the first Qualifying round and then on this date in 1910, we once again played Mirfield United in the 2nd Qualifying round. And we won again.

Last season we beat them 6-0. This season, not such a big win, just 2-0. We were a Football League Second Division side, whilst they had just joined the Yorkshire Combination. More history repeated itself, beating South Kirkby Colliery again and then going out in a replay in the 4th Qualifying round, this time against fellow 2nd Division side, Lincoln City.

The 3rd and 4th Qualifying rounds though were what nowadays would be the 1st and 2nd rounds. In the next season, we came straight in at the 1st round stage in January, which is nowadays the 3rd round. That was an away game at Manchester United which we lost.

Anyway, back to today's game against Mirfield, a match I'm only mentioning because that's where I was born.

It was a 2-0 win and the scorers were Fred Fayers and Joe Jee. Fred was a centre half who played for us up to the start of the war, having earlier signed from Watford. He was playing as a guest for Stockport County though when in April 1916 he was called to a tribunal, in Stockport, to answer questions as to why he had registered as a conscientious objector.

Now Fred was known as Tiny, due to his small stature for a centre back, but he was no coward, as was suggested. He was born a Quaker in Kings Lynn in 1890 and so his strong religious beliefs prevented him from ever killing another human being. Fortunately for him, the tribunal accepted his word and so unlike some other "conchies", he wasn't thrown into prison, but was given the task of working on farmland in Cheshire, which he did for the rest of the conflict.

He never came back to Leeds Road though, preferring to stay at Stockport. He then signed for Manchester City, before finishing his career with Halifax Town.

Mirfield United though, had a man in their team who won the Victoria Cross. Donald Simpson Bell was his name. Although I don't know if he played in this Cup match against the Town, reading about him, it was around this time of his career that he was playing there. He was an amateur who later played for Crystal Palace and Newcastle Utd, turning professional in 1912 when signing for Bradford Park Avenue and he is listed as the only professional footballer to be awarded the VC.

He was awarded it for most conspicuous bravery on July 5th 1916, but was killed just five days later. His medal was bought by the PFA in 2010 and is now on display at the National Football Museum in Manchester.

One hundred and one years after the Cup game with Mirfield, on this date in 2011, Jordan Rhodes was in scoring action.

Two years previously, he had scored an all headed hat trick against Exeter City at home. Today, he scored another hat trick against the same opponents, this time away.

This was the season when he scored 40 goals in all competitions and this was the first of his five hat tricks in the season. One of the criticisms of young Jordan was that he scored too many goals in individual games rather than spreading his goals out and making more game winning contributions. He scored in 20 of the 54 games that season, so the point can be appreciated, but WTF? Complaining about a bloke scoring 40 goals in 54 matches.   

So this match played at Exeter's St James' Park was a 4-0 win. Alan Alan Lee scored first for Town in the 8th minute. Jordan took his time over his three goals. The hat trick two years previous was scored in 8 minutes from the first to the third. This time, he took an absolute age, scoring in the 26th, 65th and 89th minutes.

[HerefordBull]

Aye, the PFA paid circa £210,000 for the VC.

He died near Contalmaison which on the first day of the Somme, McCraes batallion ( 16th Royal Scots .....The Sporting Battalion including the Hearts first team) as part of the 34th division, got within 180 metres of capturing it before being forced back.  It would take another 11 days before it actually fell with Donald Bell falling on the 10th undertaking a similar act of bravery, charging a machine gun just outside the village, that won him the VC 5 days earlier.

Went to that Exeter City game with some Grecian mates.................they weren't too happy .

[Lord Snooty]

October 16:

A couple of birthdays to start with today. Phil Wilson was born on this date in 1960 in Hemsworth and so is 62 today. He came from Bolton in 1981, signed by Mick Buxton to partner Micky Kennedy in midfield, but then formed a solid partnership with Steve Doyle after Kennedy left, as Town won promotion from the 3rd to the 2nd Division.

He was a Jonathan Hogg style tough tackling machine but with more of an eye for goal. He chipped in with a few vital goals, including the winner at Maine Road in a 3-2 win against Man City in 1984.

By the time he left for York City in 1987 he'd scored 16 goals but was in the all time appearances chart and now stands in 31st with 271. He's the third Wilson in there, behind Ray Wilson in 27th with 283 and Tom Wilson in 2nd with 500.

Phil is in the middle row on the left in this picture.......

Wayne Allison is 54 today. He was born in Huddersfield in 1968 and celebrated his 28th birthday by scoring in a Huddersfield Town match. Sadly for us, it was for Swindon Town, not Huddersfield Town. It wasn't an own goal either. This was on this date in 1996, a year before he signed for us.

It was an away game for us and the Chief was leading their attack in a second tier game on a Wednesday night, just a week after the magnificent win we had at home against Birmingham City, which I wrote about last week. He scored in the 33rd minute and that made the score at the time, 3-0 to Swindon. That was the third goal in four minutes of madness.

Ex Liverpool striker Mark Walters had got the first in the 29th and then Peter Thorne got the second after 32. That wasn't the end of the first half scoring as Kevin Horlock added a fourth to make it 4-0 at the interval. Thorne got a couple in the second half to complete his hat trick after only 48 minutes and then they declared at 6-0, leaving us to see out an embarrassing night by keeping a clean sheet for the final 42 minutes.

Wayne came to us a year later and played a big part in the Great Escape season.

A few years earlier, on this date in 1993, we had our first ever meeting with Barnet. It was a 3rd Division match and we had Neil Warnock in his first season and it wasn't going well. We were 19th in the league and our opponents were rock bottom without a win all season.

The football being served up was utter garbage and I couldn't wait to get this berk out of our club. He was only taking us one way and that was down to the 4th Division.

We were humiliated by Barnet. Mark Wells scored for us, but two late goals from Tony Finnigan and Kelly Haag gave them the win. Surely Warnock will be sacked in the morning!

Well, no he wasn't. The Board gave him more time and even though we were in the bottom four at Christmas, he still held on. No way would he have held his job with such a record nowadays. But hold on he did and the rest is history, getting a run in the Autoglass Trophy and winning matches at the end of the season which kept us up. And then winning the Play Offs next season.

Then? Then! After all the loyalty the Board had shown him, he walked out and took a job at Plymouth Argyle.

It's not all bad results on this date though. Finish with a win. On this date in 2010, we beat Southampton at home after they had been relegated to League One after a points deduction saw them down in League One.

It was a 2-0 win with Anthony Pilkington and Joey Guðjónsson scoring. They had the last laugh though, pipping us to the final automatic promotion spot, whilst we cocked up in the Play Offs.

[Lord Snooty]

October 17:

We had some bad defeats yesterday. Today's all about winning and we start with a big win over them lot down the other end of the A62, the Leeds Urinals.

On this date in 1925, the new so called Leeds United had the privilege of playing at Leeds Road, Huddersfield, the home of the double league champions, Huddersfield Town, who were in pursuit of a third league title in a row. A crowd of 33,008 came out to see the minnows of Beeston humbled by the northern powerhouse side by a scoreline of four goals to nil.

George Cook got two of the goals, Joey Williams and George Brown got one each.

That win moved us up into 2nd in the First Division in pursuit of another league title. On this date in 1953, we were chasing it again for the first time in ages. Luckily  today, we had the team we always used to beat coming to Leeds Road. No not Leeds again, this time it's Liverpool.

And did we beat them again? Oh yes. Only 2-0 this time, but a win's a win. And it was the old one two of Jimmy Glazzard and Vic Metcalfe scoring the goals. There were 30,115 there to see this one as the mighty blue n whites moved up to 3rd in the table.

That's where we finished in the final table, behind Wolves and West Brom. Liverpool got relegated.

Back to the not so long past for the next one. On this date in 2020, the football season had just got going again after the Covid break. We still were not allowed in and so watched on i-player as Town went down to Swansea and came away with a surprise 2-1 win.

We had that Spanish lad in charge, you know, Carlos Corberán. And they had old droopy eyes himself Steve Cooper prowling the touchline like a comatose clown. Always good to get one over that prick and so we did on this day, in the two of them's first managerial showdown.

Harry Toffolo opened the scoring with a neat back heel from a Juninho Bacuna shot after a short corner routine. Swansea were level again though just ten minutes later when Cooper called in another favour from his dad's refereeing buddies. This time it was Tony Harrington giving the most softest of penalties after Ben Hamer had saved a shot, sent it over the bar and then one of the Swans did a swan dive over his trailing leg.

But all's well that ends well. Josh Koroma scored a beauty from the edge of the box to give us a 2-1 win.

A couple of wins for the old country now, in the Home Championships against Ireland. The first one was on this date in 1931 when England went over to Windsor Park, Belfast to play the Irish. There was no Republic or Northern teams then, just Ireland.

It turned out to be a good day for the English, who had two Huddersfield Town players in the line up, Roy Goodall and Austen Campbell, known by everyone as Aussie. Also in the team was future Town player Ernie Hine (pictured below), then of Leicester City, but would go on to be Barnsley's all time leading scorer after a short spell with the Town and then Man Utd.

Jack Smith of Pompey opened the scoring in the 10th minute and the brilliantly named Pongo Waring of the Villa made it two a minute later. Hine then got the third for England before the Irish pulled one back just before half time. Pongo got the 4th and his Villa team mate Eric Houghton added numbers 5 and 6 before a late consolation made the final score 6-2 to England.

Twelve months later, the two teams met again, this time at Bloomfield Road, Blackpool on a Monday afternoon against Ireland, on this date in 1932. A 25,000 crowd went to this one by the seaside and Goodall of Huddersfield Town was playing again at right back for England. It was his 18th cap of the 25 he got in total. Aussie didn't play in this one though.

It was just a 1-0 win for the English boys this time, with another future Town star, Bobby Barclay getting the winner in the 30th minute. He was a Sheffield United player at the time.

Finally today, a win for Town on this date in 1914. It was down at Craven Cottage and a 3-2 win over Fulham. Ralph Shields scored twice, one from the penalty spot and Ernie Islip got the other.

The win moved Town up to second in the table. Could we be at last, about to stage a proper promotion push in our fifth season in the Football League?

So a good win, but the next day would be one of tragedy for everybody associated with the club. More of that tomorrow.........

[HerefordBull]

Eric Houghton was my Dads favorite ever Villa player from when he was a regular in the Holte during the 30's.

He was another player of those times who also played first class cricket..........for Warwickshire........just after the Second World War.

[Lord Snooty]

October 18:

Another first for Huddersfield Town on this date. Sadly it's the first Football League player to be killed in the First World War. That was Larrett Roebuck and he died on this date in 1914. He was 25 years old.

Larrett was born in Jump, near Barnsley in 1889, but had a rotten childhood. His dad died when Larrett was only 13 and being the eldest of three siblings, he was forced to leave school and go work in the local mines. It is thought that he would be looking after the pit ponies.

When he was 15, he was sentenced to a month in prison, in Rotherham, for stealing a watch. For some odd reason, he'd lied about his age, saying he was 17. He lied again when he got out of nick and went to Pontefract and joined the Yorkshire & Lancashire Regiment, telling them he was 18. He was sent to India where he served for a couple of years. It was here though that he first got into playing football.

Back home in 1908, he got married to Frances, known as Fanny and they had a son named John. Larrett had done well in the army and worked his way up to Lance-Corporal. However he was busted back down to Private in 1910 for misconduct.

By 1912, the family had extended with John getting three sisters. They were in Limerick now, serving with the army reserve, but Larrett decided to leave and go back home to Yorkshire. The family returned to Rotherham and he got a job working at Silverwood Colliery, joining their football team as a pastime.

They were a good amateur side and had played in the qualifying rounds of the FA Cup, which is when the scouts of Huddersfield Town got to notice him. He signed for the Town in 1913 and the club went back and signed his team mate Harry Linley, who stayed with the club long enough to play in the promotion season and the subsequent First Division season.

Larrett made his Town debut in a home game against Fulham in January 1914, a 3-1 win, which came on the back of seven straight defeats. He kept his place in the side, playing at left back and kept that position for the rest of the season. Initially replacing Fred Bullock, who had to move to right back.

His last game for the club was the last game of that 13/14 season, a 1-0 win at Filbert Street against Leicester Fosse.

But then, as an army reservist, he was called back to his regiment in Pontefract as the First World War got underway. They traveled south where they were joined by the rest from Limerick and put on a boat to France.

Larrett had been reinstated as Lance-Corporal and arrived at the front on September the 20th. However, on October the 18th, whilst trying to capture Menin, he and 40 of his colleagues were reported missing presumed dead after coming across heavy machine gun fire. His body was never found.

Meanwhile, Huddersfield Town had been paying his wife, Fanny, a pound a week in his absence. The Football League season had continued for 1914/15, but on hearing the sad news, manager Arthur Fairclough was tasked with the job of informing her that the club could no longer honour this agreement due to itself being in a poor financial state.

She received ten shillings for the next four weeks before getting an army pension. She'd had to wait quite some time though before getting this. In the meantime, the Town players had had whip rounds to send money to her and the kids.

Larrett and his comrades are commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing. One hundred years later, in 2014, fifteen bodies were found and were identified as men from Larrett's regiment. He wasn't one of them though and so he's still unaccounted for.

If you want to read more, click here https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/...t-roebuck/


On a happier note, 18 year old Denis Law of Huddersfield Town, made his international debut for Scotland in a British Championship match against Wales at Ninian Park, Cardiff on this date in 1958. He scored as well. Graham Leggat of Fulham scored the first, Denis got the second and then future Town manager Bobby Collins, got the third in a 3-0 win for the Scots.

[Lord Snooty]

October 19:

Today's birthday boy was born on this date in 1971 and so is 51 today. He was born in Frankfurt and his mother is German. She was married to an American, but our birthday boy's biological father is from Thailand. Have you got him yet?

Of course it's David Wagner. Do I need to say anymore?

It's also a happy birthday today to the only Town player to go on to manage England. Not only manage England, but the only man to have a 100% winning record in charge of the national team. He's 68 today, having been born in Dudley in 1954. Who the chuff am I talking about?

It's Sam Allardyce of course.

He managed England for one game only, a 1-0 win against Slovakia in a World Cup qualification match, in which Adam Lallana scored the goal. That was in 2016, but before his next game he was caught up in some kind of scam and resigned after only 67 days in the job.

Before all that, he played one season at Town, the 84/85 season. The one where we got beaten 5-1 twice by Shrewsbury Town. His time with us is most fondly remembered by him getting sent off after punching a Fulham player.

On this date in 1971, the Texaco Cup campaign reached the 2nd round. Having beaten Morton over two legs, we welcomed Airdrieonians to Leeds Road on a Tuesday night for the first leg. They had beaten Manchester City 4-2 on aggregate in the first round.

This match arrived in the middle of a terrible run of form in which we lost four league games on the trot without even scoring a goal. We lost this one as well, but at least we scored a goal. It was a 2-1 loss and Trevor Cherry scored the Town goal.

The second leg will be in a couple of weeks time up at Broomfield Park.

[Lord Snooty]

October 20:

We're back on the international break again today.

As I mentioned the other day, Mike O'Grady played one international match for England whilst at Huddersfield Town. Today's the day, nine days after his 20th birthday, on this date in 1962.

It was played against Northern Ireland in Belfast at Windsor Park in the Home Internationals and England won it 3-1 in front of a 55,000 crowd. Mike wasn't the only Town player in the side, picked by Walter Winterbottom, because Ray Wilson was in as well. Ray played left back and Mike played left wing. Don't forget, we were still in the Second Division then.

On the right wing was a future Town player, Mike Hellawell, then of Birmingham City. You want more? You got more. In the Nornirn team, Jimmy Nicholson, future Town captain, then of Manchester United.

So to the game itself and it was England who scored first through Jimmy Greaves and led 1-0 at the break. NI drew level though with some reports giving it to Coventry City's Hugh Barr, but others saying it was an own goal from the skipper, Jimmy Armfield.

Then it became the O'Grady show. First he had a shot blocked on the line. But then in the 71st minute, our Mike scored on his international debut, with a shot that Bobby Irvine the Irish keeper, really should've stopped. But there was no stopping him two minutes later when Huddersfield Town's left winger scored his second goal on the day to make the final score 3-1 to England.

And we have it on Pathe News......

On this date in 1926, we also had two Huddersfield Town players playing for England. They were Sam Wadsworth (pictured below), who skippered the side and George Brown at centre forward. Unlike the match in 62 though, we weren't Second Division, we were the Thrice Champions.

This one was also against Ireland, before they were split into two different associations. The game was played in Liverpool at Anfield and a crowd of 20,000 came out to see this one. I reckon they'd get more than that for an international at Anfield nowadays.

Our boy George scored first, in the 8th minute. But then the Irish hit back with three goals to make it 3-1 at half time. Sheffield Utd's Billy Gillespie got the first. Bobby Irvine of Everton got the second (not the same one who played in goal in the match above). Hugh Davey got the third.

Wadsworth rallied the boys after the break and Joe Spence of Manchester United pulled a goal back straight after the interval. Game on!

And it was game level in the 80th minute as Norman Bullock of Bury equalised to save the day. Yes, Bury.

The game finished at 3-3.

On this date in 1930, we had two Huddersfield Town players in the England team again. Again, one of our players was the captain, this time, Roy Goodall. Also in the side was Austen Campbell, known by all as Aussie. And yet again, the Irish were the opponents in a British Championship match.

This one was played at Bramall Lane, with an attendance of 25,000. A big win for England this time. Five-one was the score, all the goals going in the same net. Wednesday's Harry Burgess scored first after a quarter of an hour and Jimmy Hampson of Blackpool made it two, ten minutes later. Derby's Sammy Crookes got the third on the half hour before Burgess got his second and then Villa's Eric Houghton made it 5-0 at half time.

The Irish won the second half though as Jimmy Dunne scored late on to finish the game at 5-1 to Eng-er-lund.

Here's a picture of our Roy.

[Lord Snooty]

October 21:

Well this is the one, folks. The return of a fixture that hadn't been played for 45 years. Huddersfield Town v Manchester United, played on this date in 2017.

The last time Man Utd came to Huddersfield, George Best, Bobby Charlton and Denis Law all scored. That was 3-0 to them. All the pundits thought it would be a similar score in this one as Jose Mourinho brought his mega bucks Mancs to the John Smith's Stadium.

They were well wrong. Romelu Lukaku had the first chanceof the game, but from the moment that Aaron Mooy robbed the ball off Juan Mata in the 28th minute, there was only gonna be one winner. The brilliant baldy raced forward with the ball before passing to Tom Ince, who's shot was saved by David de Gea, only for it to drop back at the feet of Mooy, who smacked it into the net and went off on a knee slide in front of the fans in the Riverside Stand.

Just five minutes later, whilst the record crowd for the stadium were still singing Smile Awhile in triumph of the first goal, we only went and gone 2-0 up. A long ball by Jonas Lossl was completely missed and messed up by Victor Lindelof, leaving the Belgian tank Laurent Depoitre to round de Gea and stick it in the back of the net, causing pandemonium. Chaffers chafed her shin she jumped so high, landing on the back of the seat in front. Ouch!

So two-nil at half time, Mourinho brought on future national treasure, Marcus Rashford. He pulled a goal back in the 78th minute after some good work by Lukaku, chasing down a ball that held up on the soddened turf and sending in a perfect cross.

It was a nervy last few minutes when the stadium clock started going backwards. Eventually the ref blew his whistle, but that was after a match winning block by Zanka on a Chris Smalling shot in the fourth minute of injury time.

David Wagner led the celebrations, like the tinpot club we are with our clappers and our embarrassing wave celebrations that no club in the league were ever jealous of at all. Anybody would think we'd just beaten the most famous football club in the world.

'Ere, give your eyes a treat and watch this......

Also today, it's a happy 40th birthday to Antony Kay. He was born on this date in 1982 in Barnsley and scored a famous header for us in the Play Off semi final in 2011 against AFC Bournemouth that brought the match to a penalty shoot out. He then went and scored the winning penalty in that shoot out to cause a bit more pandemonium in the stadium. Good lad.

Happy birthday, Antony without an H.

We also have an international debut today. This was goalkeeper Ted Taylor, who at the age of 35, was gaining the first of his eight caps for England. It was in a British Championships match against Ireland at the Hawthorns on this date in 1922.

Ted, who had taken over from Sandy Mutch in goal at the start of the season, came to us from Oldham and would go on to win two league championships with us and another one with Everton. He would've won three with us, but a broken leg meant he missed most of the second Championship winning season.

Anyway, he kept a clean sheet on his England debut in a 2-0 win, in which Henry Chambers of Liverpool scored both the goals.

[HerefordBull]

Quite like the "wave" celebration..........................  

Always like that despite all the silky build up passing plays that leads to a goal that the pundits fawn over there is still a place for a route one score as your second goal demonstrates.