[HerefordBull]

I was at St James Park earlier in the year.............certainly looks a little different now!

A mention for a former Hereford United player today who you thought had scored against you in 2019 for Charlton............that is Lyle Taylor who joined us on loan from Bournmouth at the end of the 2011 /2012 season. He then joined Falkirk for a season and I saw him play again at Hampden Park against Hibs in the semi final of The Scottish Cup helping them to a 3 . 0 halftime lead. However a fired up Hibs side came out for the second half who eventually won it 4 . 3 in extra time following a stunning strike from Leigh Griffiths.  Lyle Taylor certainly has scored goals wherever he has gone ( scored a bucket load for Falkirk whilst he was there) and has seemed to be able to have remained fairly injury free which with the modern day footballer is a huge bonus.

[Lord Snooty]

December 11:

The forgotten man of Huddersfield Town is 23 today. He's played 35 times for Town, but I had to look up where he is now because quite frankly, I'd forgotten. He's on loan at Hibs, for whom he hasn't made one appearance. Is he injured?

Who am I on abart? It's the goalkeeper Ryan Schofield. Remember him? Well he was born on this date in 1999 in Huddersfield and made his Town debut in a game against Middlesbrough. With first choice Kamil Grabara unavailable, manager Danny Cowley chose the 19 year old local lad ahead of Joel Coleman. And he kept a clean sheet in a 0-0 draw.

Since then, he's become notorious for a few calamaties and despite having a few absolutely brilliant games, notably against Watford at home, he has now become forgotten. Which is a big shame for the lad, as we all know, Town fans love one of our own.

Another birthday. Jimmy Lawson was born in Middlesbrough on this date in 1947 and is 75 today. He was a crucial member of our 69/70 Second Division title winning team, playing in 40 of the 42 matches that season. He chipped in with six goals in that campaign.

He'd signed for us from his home town club in 1968 and stayed on until 1976, by which time we had sunk all the way down to Division 4. Jimmy, along with Geoff Hutt, Terry Dolan, Terry Poole and Steve Smith, played for Town in all four divisions.

After he'd finished at Leeds Road, he was in both our apps and goals charts, in 35th now with 266 appearances and he's 31st equal in the goals chart with 46, level with Alf Lythgoe, George McLean and Danny Schofield.

He then popped down the road to play for Halifax Town, later as player/manager. He hung up his boots in 1979 and became a salesman.

Here he is playing against Pompey at Fratton Park in March 1970 in the iconic away kit with the red terrier emblem.

A few years before that and a few years before Jimmy arrived in Huddersfield, we played Coventry City away on this date in 1965. It was only the fourth time we'd played at Coventry and in this one we kept up our 100% record at Highfield Road.

This was a Second Division match with Tom Johnston as Town manager and following back to back wins, we had gone top of the table. The Sky Blues, with future MOTD presenter Jimmy Hill as manager, weren't far behind. We stayed top after this one, a 3-0 win, and we stayed in the top two, when only two went up, right up until the final fixture of the season, when Coventry came up to Leeds Road and beat us 2-0, knocking us down to 4th. They too missed out on promotion, finishing 3rd.

Anyway, 3-0 in this one, with Jimmy Nicholson, Allan Gilliver and Kevn McHale scoring.

Here's that red terrier again......

[HerefordBull]

Ryan is not injured. He was brought in as back up when their second keeper Dabrowski got a serious injury. He was on the bench whilst the injury healed but now finds himself down the pecking order again. Unfortunately for both back up keepers. Hibs brought in David Marshall in the Summer who is still playing well and with his experience is Club captain, so unless he gets hurt cannot see him being dislodged anytime soon.

At least at Livingstone in 2020? he got a few games!

Ryan will be back at the Terriers soon ...........don't know how long he has on his present contract?

[Lord Snooty]

December 12:

On this date in 1999, we were on one helluva run in the league. Steve Bruce was the manager and he had assembled a bit of an awesome looking squad and we were playing some great football. What's more, last week's win over QPR had taken us to the top of the Nationwide League Division One (2nd tier). We had beaten Chelsea in the League Cup at Stamford Bridge and now we had drawn Liverpool in the FA Cup 3rd round, to be played live on the telly today, a Sunday afternoon.

Hold on a minute. FA Cup 3rd round in December? Aye. PL title holders, Man Utd had been invited to play in Brazil on the date of the usual 3rd round, in the FIFA World Club Championship. To allow them to go, the FA moved all the dates of the early rounds to accomodate Fergie and his Prima Donnas.

So everything was in place, the third round draw was made and United withdrew anyway, meaning the FA had to draw out of a hat, a lucky loser to take their place in the 3rd round. That lucky losing team was Darlington, who went to play Villa away and lost 2-1.

Banging on a bit now, Snoots. Get back to today's match.

So. On this date in 1999, Town welcomed the mighty Liverpool to the McAlpine Stadium for a match that attracted a stadium record football crowd of 23,678 (there'd been a RL international that had more there). That record was beaten in 2018 when the Reds came back for a Premier League game.

Unlike today's competition, the early rounds of the FA Cup weren't yet an excuse to leave out the entire first team squad and play a team of kids. Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier, picked a team that could've played in the league, including the likes of Michael Owen, Jamie Carragher, Steve Staunton, Vladimir Smicer, Dietmar Hamann and Sander Westerveld in goal.

Town had two changes from the team that played against Wimbledon in last week's League Cup game, with Craig Armstrong and Scott Sellars replacing the injured Ken Monkou and Chris Beech. Everton legend Barry Horne, was on the bench.

We absolutely battered them. But as usual with Town, fluffed so many clear cut chances and they scored with their only two, to win it 2-0.

We had nine shots on target in the first half. Nine! Against Liverpool. Westerveld was in outstanding form. As were Ben Thornley and ex Leeds numpty Sellars, having easily his best game for us. Michael Owen, still only 19 years old but the star player of the previous World Cup for England, never got a look in. Kevin Gray had him in his back pocket.

Houllier was panicking. So much so that he made an early substitution, bringing on Dominic Matteo for the ageing Staunton who was being humiliated by Thornley. It paid dividends immediately as Matteo set up Smicer who's run into the box was finished off by Titi Camara in the 36th minute.

Westerveld then saved a Thornley header and Dean Gorre had one blocked on the line and we went in to the break one nil down.

We were all over them in the opening minutes of the second half, but then got hit by a lightning quick break. Camara and Hamman combined to set up Matteo and he passed the ball under the advancing Nico Vaesen and we were 2-0 down on the hour mark. Plenty of time to come back.

Clyde Wijnhard and Marcus Stewart were running riot through their defence. Houllier had to go to a back five, bringing on Rigobert Song. Bruce brought on Giorgos Donis and he warmed Westerveld's palms once more before the end, but the Reds held on for the win.

I taped the match off the telly and watched it back when I got home. The studio experts (can't remember who) were all praising Bruce and his magnificent team, but this match was the watershed. We beat Grimsby in the following week to make it 10 wins out of 11 in the league, but that was it. Injuries came, the great form faded. Bruce, instead of trying to recruit players to replace the long term injuries, took time off to write his stupid novels and actually went off to commentate on the Man Utd matches in Brazil, leaving John Deehan in charge for a couple of league matches. And by the time the season finished, we had missed the Play Offs.

In 1967/68, we were in the League Cup 5th round for the first and only time in our history. Having beaten Wolves, Norwich and West Ham, we went down to Fulham and earned a 1-1 draw. On this date in 1967, we had the replay back at Leeds Road.

And we won it 2-1. Jimmy Nicholson and David Shaw with our goals, to give us our one and only League Cup semi final. The opponents would be the Arsenal and if you were reading this back in February, you'll know we lost on aggregate.

We had a crowd of 23,801 on a Tuesday night for this replay, which was around 15,000 up on the previous Saturday home game with Cardiff.

Despite the cup success, the league season was disappointing and manager Tom Johnston resigned at the end of the campaign, to be replaced by his number two, Ian Greaves.

[SHEP_HTAFC]

I was at that Liverpool game....we really were all over them for large parts of the game.
I also recorded it and watched it back later - I think Ron Atkinson was one of the pundits that day.

[Lord Snooty]

December 13:

On this date in 1930, we had our record league win when we beat Blackpool 10-1 at Leeds Road in a First Division match. They had just been promoted as Second Division champions, but were struggling with only 11 points from the first 18 games. Town weren't exactly bang in form and were on a run of nine games without a win, so this scoreline must've come as a bit of a shock.

A crowd of 11,932 turned up and saw our lads get off to the best possible start when Joe Robson scored in the first minute. Blackpool equalised soon after though in the 18th minute with Bill Upton scoring, but Town forged ahead with two more before half time through George McLean and Bob Kelly.

In the 2nd half, Scotsman McLean made it 4-1 and completed his hat trick in the 59th minute for Town's fifth. Jimmy Smailes made it six, six minutes later and it was 7-1 when Harry Davies slotted home from a Smailes cross. And it was Smailes again who laid on the chance for McLean to get his fourth and Town's 8th in the 79th.

These were McLean's first goals in a Town shirt following his transfer in the previous month from Bradford Park Avenue. He had scored well over a hundred goals for them and would finish with 46 for us before returning north of the border to his first club, Forfar Athletic.

Our rampant forwards weren't finished yet and in the last ten minutes, Robson added two more to complete his own hat trick and make it a 10-1 win for the Town.

Another landmark occasion happened on this date in 1988. We played our first ever game in the Football League Trophy (known then as the Associate Members Cup and also known as the Sherpa Van Trophy, but nowadays known as the Papa Johns Pizza Pisspot Trophy ).

In those days the first round of the competition was a group stage with three teams per group, with the top two going through. We had Scunthorpe United and Halifax Town in ours, both from the 4th Division, so we were favourites to get through.

A bumper crowd of 2,216 came out on a cold Tuesday evening to see Town, managed by ex Republic of Ireland boss Eoin Hand, play at home to Scunny. They had played the Shaymen already in the first group game and lost, so a defeat for them tonight would see them eliminated. And that's just what happened. Another Irishman, Mick Byrne, recently signed from Shamrock Rovers, scored for us in a 1-0 win and so both us and Halifax went through.

This was ample revenge for them beating us 5-4 on aggregate in the first round of the League Cup earlier in the season.

The game aginst Halifax in the following week still went ahead even though we both had qualified and was a feast of free flowing football in a 1-1 draw at the Shay. We then beat Grimsby in the next round before going out to Scarborough.

Town legend Malcolm Brown played his next to last game for Huddersfield Town in the second leg of the aforementioned Scunthorpe League Cup encounter, before bowing out in a 3-0 defeat to Cardiff at Ninian Park on the following Saturday afternoon. That brought an end to his Town career over two spells, with an unfortunate stint up at Newcastle in between.

And today, Malcolm is celebrating his 66th birthday having been born on this date in 1956 in Salford. He was without question, the best wing back we ever had at the club. And that was before wing backs were an actual thing. He was just known as a right back, but watching him flying down that right wing in front of the large Leeds Road terrace, was a magnificent sight to see.

He chipped in with a lot of goals for a full back as well, 23 in total. He won promotion twice under the leadership of Mick Buxton, before earning himself a crack at the big time by signing for that great Newcastle United team of the mid 80s, the one with Kevin Keegan and all that lot. Sadly, he did his cruciate ligament in during pre season and missed the whole of his first season there. He did get some games in the second season, but he wasn't the same player.

He came back to us and was unfortunate enough to play in that match at Maine Road. Shh, we don't mention that. 

Malcolm holds some Town records. He has the record for most consecutive games, playing in 259 games on the trot, a figure which will never be beaten given the modern tactic of squad rotation. That figure includes the record of consecutive league appearances as well, obviously. That figure is 226. He also played in an era when we did alright in the League Cup so he and David Cowling are level at the top of the list of League Cup appearances with 27 each. By contast to how we perform in that competition now, Jonathan Hogg only has 6 League Cup apps.

Mally's total appearances stopped at 403 and has only since been overtaken by Andy Booth, he's in 6th in the chart.

A great player. One of my all time favourites. Happy birthday, Mally.

[Lord Snooty]

December 14:

On this date in 1935, Town played Sunderland at home in Division One. We were third in the table at the time, which is where we still were at the end of the season. Sunderland were up there as well and by the end of the season, they'd only gone and won it, finishing as champions a whole 8 points ahead of  Derby County.

So when they came to Leeds Road, there was a massive crowd of 30,690 in the ground, around about double the average attendance at the time. If any of them missed the kick off, they would've missed a little piece of history. For this be the game when our 23 year old right half and future England international Ken Willingham, scored after only ten seconds.

And 1-0 to Town was the final score. I remember going to a match with my dad when I was a kid, he was always getting us there late for the kick off and the same thing happened. It was against Carlisle in the 69/70 season and Steve Smith scored in the first minute and we missed it going in. Hearing the cheer from outside was quite annoying. Since going under my own steam, I've never missed a kick off and often get there an hour before, just to be sure.

Ken's ten second goal was unusual in that it was his only goal of the season and one of only five he scored in a fourteen year career at Leeds Road. He did score on his England debut though, which I mentioned the other day.

How does that goal rank in fastest goals? Well, looking at Wikipedia, he doesn't even register on their fastest goals chart. There are 61 goals registered on there quicker than ten seconds, but most of them are recorded from modern times when we have had replays and fancy timing mechanisms. When I was young, I remember that the quickest goal ever recorded was four seconds by Jim Fryatt of Bradford Park Avenue in 1964 against Tranmere.

However, Ken's goal is the quickest goal in Huddersfield Town history. And that's all that really matters.

[Lord Snooty]

December 15:

On this date in 2008, Huddersfield Town appointed one of it's greatest managers of recent times, Lee Clark.

He never achieved the greatness that that opening statement suggests, but his win rate of 48.59% is only bettered by the 1920s thrice champions managers, Herbert Chapman and Cecil Potter. Not even David Wagner or Mick Buxton come anywhere near that.

What was also great about Clark's managerial reign was the fast, attacking style of play he brought to the club, along with finishers who could find the net on the end of those attacks. The likes of Jordan Rhodes the younger, Lee Novak, Gary Roberts, Anthony Pilkington and Theo Robinson, an electric paced frontline.

Every manager since, though some have achieved greater things than Lee did, have all mostly bored us to death with slow paced, negative football. His team made it to three Play Offs in a row, even though Simon Grayson had taken the reigns by the time of the third one, it was his team.

And of course, in that time we had the brilliant unbeaten league run that set a new Football League record.

What do you think of Clark's time in charge? Great times or great mistake?

On this date in 1923, Huddersfield Town hadn't yet won a single Football League championship. But now with Herbert Chapman in charge, that was all about to change. Today, he took his Town team down to Highbury to play Arsenal, a team he would also win the league with.

The Gunners were managed by Leslie Knighton, the former Town caretaker manager and it was Chapman's current team that won this one. It was a 3-0 win, with Charlie Wilson scoring a hat trick, making it six goals in three games for him. He finished the season as top scorer with 20.

The win moved us up to 2nd in the league. Exciting times down Leeds Road. Next week, Arsenal come up north to see if we can do the double over them.

[Lord Snooty]

December 16:

Two great wins from the David Wagner era today. One from the promotion season, one from the Premier League.

On this date in 2016, Town traveled down to Norwich for a Friday night Sky Sports match. And I missed it. Had to go to a works Christmas party at the Capri in Wakefield. Luckily, I don't have to endure that this year because the twat made me redundant last week, but that's got nothing at all to do with this match. 

Anyway, no sooner had I got my soup for starters, my phone's chiming with a text from Chaffers. Elias Kachunga has scored for Town. Whoo-hoo!

No sooner had I told the lad next to me, who wasn't interested at all, she sent me another. Norwich have equalised.

Typical Town. And it was an ex Leeds tosser who got it. Jonny Howson.

My loudmouth boss was Lording it over everybody from the other side of the table. One of my colleagues almost choked on his meat. Not like that. Stop making up your own jokes. 

The service was really slow and a couple of lasses were were singing at the far side of the room. It was far too loud and I missed the next text that she sent me. When I did see it, Town had gone 2-1 up, with another from Kachunga. Get in!

The evening dragged on. I kept checking my phone. No more updates. The music got louder. The service got slower. I want my Christmas pudding. And I want a ful time whistle.

Can't remember which came first, but when it did come, Town had won 2-1. Rather unexpectedly, as this was the place we never win at. I couldn't think of the last time it happened, but happen it did. Maybe, just maybe, this Wagner Revolution is real after all.

Here's what I missed that night........

Twelve months later, we had a Saturday afternoon game away at Watford in the Premier League on this date in 2017. Me and Chaffers weren't at Vicarage Road. No. We were at the theatre, darlings. Oh yes we were. At a panto at Wakefield Theatre Royal, watching Aladdin.

Phone switched off. Didn't see the score til half time or the interval as it's called in theatre world. Hey up. Two nil up. 

That boy Kachunga had scored again and Aaron Mooy had the second. Get in. What else had happened in that first half?

He's behind you! He was as well. Troy Deeney with a shocking foul from behind on Collin Quaner. Straight red and the Hornets were down to ten men. Town went 3-0 up when Laurent Depoitre scored after some very weak Watford defending, before that idiot of a referee, Michael Oliver gave Jonathan Hogg a very soft second yellow to level the line ups at ten men each.

And then Watford made it 3-1 through a belter of a shot from Abdoulaye Doucoure and all of a sudden we looked a bit shaky again. Back in Wakey though, the panto was over and we got back in the car to hear the worst referee in the world award Town a penalty. I don't usually comment on penalties we do get awarded, but this one was absolutely wrong, just wrong! How does this bloke referee in the Premier League? He even refereed at the World Cup!

What happened? Depoitre fell over. Just fell over. Nobody claimed penalty. Not even the Town fans behind the goal. But Blind Pew gave it and the boy Mooy scored it.

Final score, 4-1 to the Terriers. Oh yes it is. 

John Coddington, a dominant centre half for Town in the 50s and 60s, was born in Worksop on this date in 1937. And he's still with us. According to the book Where Are They Now by Lee Morris, living in retirement in Middlesbrough, celebrating his 85th birthday today.

He went to school with Ray Wilson and signed on for Town in 1953, straight from school before going off to do his National Service. When he returned, he and Ray became team mates at Town in the Second Division and eventually John became club captain.

John left for Blackburn in 1967 with 356 matches for Town under his belt and that has him in 13th position in our all time appearances chart.

He later played for Stockport County and then Drogheda Utd in the League of Ireland. After his playing days were over, he coached Bradford City and the the Boro.

Goalkeeper Terry Poole was born on this date in Chesterfield in 1949 and is 73 today. According to the aforementioned book, he returned to the twisty spirey place after retiring to run his own taxi firm.

He started his playing career at Manchester United, but never made the first team and so signed for Town in 1968. He soon established himself in the first team and was an ever present in the 69/70 2nd Division championship winning team. He was ever present in the First Division until Bob Latchford of Birmingham City broke his leg for him in an FA Cup match. By the time he came back, we were in Division Two, heading for Division Three.

Terence was still with us when we got relegated to Division Four, though he was out with another broken leg. He did play in all four divisions for us.

After 231 games in a Town shirt, he went and joined up again with Ian Greaves, at Bolton.

Having written a glowing review on Lee Clark yesterday, today is the birthday of the bloke who stole his promotion, Simon Grayson. He was born in Ripon in 1969 and is 53 today.

I'm not going to say much else apart from....Where Are They Now?

Well, he is now in India, working as Head Coach for Indian Super League club Bengaluru.

Happy birthday, Larry.

[Lord Snooty]

December 17:

On this date in 2011, Town went down to Hillsborough for a League One match against t'Owls. We still had Lee Clark in charge and they had Gary Megson.

We raced into a two goal lead with young Jordan Rhodes scoring two headed goals in the 12th and 16th minutes, both down the other end from where we were sat. He almost had a hat trick with a shot from outside the area going just wide.

But then twelve minutes after scoring our second, Wendy was level with goals from ex Hibs defender Rob Jones, another header, and the French defender Réda Johnson poking home following a goalmouth scramble.

Clark was pulling his hair out in the second half as first Ben Marshall weaved his way in and shot past Ian Bennett to give the home side the lead. Then Chris O'Grady, who always seemed to score against us, scored again from a hopeful long punt into the box when the Town defence decided to just leave him with a free header. Four-two to the Wendies.

Loads of Town fans walked out, some of them breaking seats as they went (dickheads!). But then Rhodes completed his hat trick in the 77th minute, as they were wandering down Leppings Lane and were back on the A629 by the time he scored his 4th to equalise in the 7th minute of injury time to send us all barmy who had bothered to stay.

We have a couple of legends with birthdays today, one of them sadly no longer with us. That one is Ray Wilson who died in 2018. He was born in Shirebrook, Derbyshire in 1934. Like his old school pal John Coddington, who's birthday I mentioned yesterday, Ray did his National Service shortly after coming to Leeds Road when he'd left school. It was Bill Shankly who had him playing as an overlapping left back and so good was he that even though he was a 2nd Division player, he was selected to play for England.

He made his England debut in April 1960 against Scotland and by the time he left us to go to Everton, he was our most capped player with 30. That figure was later beaten by Jimmy Nicholson who got 31 caps for Northern Ireland as a Town player. One of those caps that Ramon got as an Everton player was the 1966 World Cup Final at Wembley when England actually won it against West Germany and thus setting the bar so high for future England teams that none of them have ever got near to since.

Here's our Ray in probably the most famous picture ever of a football match, he and Geoff Hurst lifting Bobby Moore and the Jules Rimet Trophy on their shoulders.

The other birthday today is that of Steve Kindon. He was born in 1950 on this date in Warrington and is 72 today.

Steve's a big barrel chested bloke with deceptive pace. To look at him, one would think he looked a bit of a carthoss, but he really was a thoroughbred. He actually won the fastest footballer in Britain title seven times (according to Wikipedia) and when he first joined Town, I was amazed when he started running at the opposition defence.

He was signed for Town from Burnley by Mick Buxton in 1979 and joined the formidable pairing of Ian Robins and Peter Fletcher in a brilliant front line that fired us to the 4th Division championship. He scored 14 goals in that half season and continued that form in the next one, top scoring with 19 as we just missed out on promotion.

Sadly he got a knee injury in the next season which eventually ended his career, with 37 goals from 82 games.