[Lord Snooty]

December 18:

Another great win for Carlos Corberan and his boys one year ago today, as Town went down to Ashton Gate to play Bristol City and won 3-2.

It didn't start well when Levi Colwill was robbed by Alex Scott who strode into the area and gave the ball to Andreas Weimann for a tap in. We were almost level straight away when we actually got awarded a penalty. However, Danny Ward didn't make the most of his opportunity and David Bentley saved it to keep the home side in the lead.

We did get level just before the interval though, with Duane Holmes scoring after being set up by Harry Toffolo. And in the first minute after the break, we were ahead. Danel Sinani slotting home after Wardy had set him up nicely.

Wardy made up for his penalty miss in the 55th minute by nodding in a cross from Sorba Thomas, which led to our young Welshman being racially abused by a section of knobheads in the home crowd.

Weimann scored his second in the 7th minute of injury time, much too late for a comeback.

Jon Dyson was born on this date in Mirfield in 1971 and is 51 today. He really came good when Peter Jackson was manager, first time around, winning Player of the Season in 1998.

He arrived at Leeds Road in 1990 whilst still attending Huddersfield University, where he graduated with a Business Studies degree. Something that he's put to use in his post footy life by becoming a financial adviser.

[Lord Snooty]

December 19:

Twelve months and six days after our record league victory, 10-1 at home to Blackpool, the Tangerines returned to Leeds Road for another First Division fixture on this date in 1931. Having been rock bottom of the league and looking certainties to go down, they managed to escape the drop by one point, relegating Leeds United and Manchester United instead.

So here they were again. And once more, they left with an absolute walloping. Only 5-0 this time. Well at least we managed a clean sheet.

Town had four team changes from the side that got that record win a year earlier. Billy Smith was back in the team, now aged 36, in place of Jimmy Smailes, who had been transferred to Second Division Tottenham Hotspur shortly after the game in which his left wing trickery had destroyed the Blackpool defence.

George McLean, who scored four times in the 10-1 win, was missing for this one. He was still at the club, but it was Charlie Luke on the right wing this time, a 22 year old signing from Bishop Aukland, who would go on to have a prolific scoring record for the club having made his debut in the draw down at Arsenal in the previous week.

Billy Carr replaced Levi Redfern in defence. Inside forward Harry Davies had returned to his old club Stoke City and his place was taken in this line up by George Crownshaw. And it was the Crownshaw boy who opened the scoring in this game, played in front of 11,072 spectators.

Fifth placed Town went two-nil up with Luke getting the first of his 47 goals for the club. Joe Robson, scored a hat trick in the game last season and he scored twice in this one. This was only one of six games that he played in this season. He was in for Dave Mangnall, who would clock up a record total of 42 goals for the season, including the record run of scoring in eleven consecutive matches, which I wrote about a lot in the earlier part of the year.

Bob Kelly, the England international got the last goal of the game to finish off an accomplished 5-0 victory. That took us up a place to 4th in the table, which is where we finished.

Five years on from that, we had a visit from Liverpool on this date in 1936. Only two players remained from the side that beat Blackpool 5-0 and they were the England defenders, Roy Goodall and Alf Young.

They had both played in the game two years previously when we hammered the Reds 8-0. Just like the second Blackpool match, we only managed to score half as many goals this time against Liverpool, having to settle for just a 4-0 win. 

Len Butt, an inside forward we had signed from Macclesfield Town, grabbed his fifth goal of the season to open the scoring. Ex Newcastle striker Jimmy Richardson, who had scored twice in the 8-0 win, scored twice again. And Motherwell legend, Willie MacFadyen, rounded off the victory, scoring on his debut. He had scored 235 goals in 378 league games for Motherwell and was inducted into their Hall Of Fame earlier this year.

Whatever happened to the Huddersfield Town Hall of Fame? We had a vote on the top ten players a couple of years ago, but that seems to have gone all quiet.

[Lord Snooty]

December 20:

Simon Trevitt was born on this date in Dewsbury in 1967 and is 55 today. He is one of the club's greatest strikers, having taken up the job of postman after retiring. Oy Oy! A bit of political humour there. Satire is not dead yet!

He wasn't a striker at all really. An accomplished right back who eventually replaced the ageing legs of Malcolm Brown, young Trev was given his debut by Mick Buxton in a home win against Derby in 1986 as a 19 year old. The following season saw him become our youngest Player of the Season and looking at the list of winners, I think he could still have that honour.

That was a relegation season though, so he spent the bulk of his Town career in the 3rd tier. One of his last games for us was the Play Off Final at Wembley against Bristol Rovers. New manager Brian Horton, replaced him with Steve Jenkins early on in the next season and so Simon was sold to Hull City.

Horton had been and gone, replaced by Peter Jackson by the time Town went to play West Bromwich Albion on this date in 1997. It had been a disastrous start to the season, which saw Horton sacked with the team way below everybody else, but by now, Jacko had got things to turn around.

A famous first win, against Stoke, was followed by wins at Man City, home to Reading and Bury, away at Crewe and now a win at the Hawthorns got us out of the bottom three for the first time in the whole season, up to 20th. It was Paul Dalton with both goals, in the second half, to give us a 2-0 win, with debutant keeper Steve Harper, on loan from Newcastle, getting himself a clean sheet.

Up next, the league leaders, Middlesbrough on Boxing Day, who had been relegated from the Premier League, but still had some of their big money signings. Twats like Paul Merson, Andy Townsend and Craig Hignett coming to the McAlpine. I'm not gonna write about that though. We lost 1-0 with a Kevin Gray own goal after outplaying them for most of the game.

But the season had a happy ending when we completed the double over the Baggies in April to complete the Great Escape.

[Lord Snooty]

December 21:

What's the biggest lead you've ever seen Town blow? How about a 5-1 lead? My old friend Joe (now long gone), who I mentioned a few weeks ago, always used to go on about the match on this date in 1957, the day we lost 7-6 away at Charlton.

Bill Shankly was in his first full season as Town boss, after we had been relegated a couple of seasons ago, taking over from Andy Beattie. Charlton also had a relatively new manager in. They had been relegated at the end of the previous season, when Jimmy Seed resigned after 23 years in charge to be replaced by Jimmy Trotter.

This was the second meeting of the two teams in the season after they met at Leeds Road in the opening fixture of the 57/58 season. In another extraordinary match, it was Charlton who cocked up as Town came back from 3-0 down to draw 3-3.

Town had one team change to the one that had drawn away at Lincoln City on the previous Saturday and that was Stan Howard coming in to take the place of the wonderkid, Denis Law.

We were 11th in the table at the start of play whereas Athletic had been involved with the promotion race from the outset. They missed out at the end of the season by one place and one point, losing the final match of the season against Blackburn, who went up instead.

The hero of the day for Charlton was Johnny Summers. He became the only player to score five goals in a game against the Town. He still is. He scored another five, three years later in a game against Portsmouth. Sadly, he died of cancer in 1962, aged just 34.

A crowd of 12,535 turned out for the match at the Valley on a cold and wet Saturday afternoon. For a match with 13 (thirteen) goals in it, it was a slow start to the scoring with only two in the first half, both of them for us. The most significant part came in the 17th minute when Charlton's skipper, centre half Derek Ufton went off with a dislocated shoulder. No subs back then of course.

It wasn't until ten minutes later that Town took the lead through Les Massie and doubled it in the 35th minute when Alex Bain scored. So, two-nil to Town at half time.

During the break, Summers changed his boots and Trotter changed tactics, moving Summers from the left wing to play alongside John Ryan at centre forward. He had played there for his last club Millwall, but had preferred playing out wide. The plan worked a treat as Summers bagged his first just two minutes after referee Ron Warnke (Colin's dad?) had restarted the match.

However, Town were 4-1 up four minutes later. Bain got his second of the day and then Bill McGarry, the England international, scored from the penalty spot. Bob Ledger then made it 5-1 in the 62nd minute and this is where old Joe's tale got really unbelievable. He used to tell us that with Town 5-1 up and with just under half an hour of the game still to go, he decided to leave the ground, with the game well and truly won and go get the train back home.

Why would you do that? Was he dragged along with all the Charlton fans storming out?

By the time he would've got to the exit, Charlton had pulled back a couple of goals. Summers set up Ryan for their second and within a minute, he'd grabbed his own second to make it 5-3. He completed his hat trick in the 73rd minute and then scored his fourth and fifth goals in the 78th and 81st minutes and all of a sudden, Charlton were in the lead, 6-5 up with nine minutes to go.

Town's defence which included the likes of Ray Wilson, McGarry and Ken Taylor had conceded five goals in 18 minutes, against a team down to ten men. WTF, Shankly?

Well the thought of a bollocking from the mild mannered Scotsman must've rallied the Town team because they only went and equalised with four minutes left. Stan Howard getting a goal which took a deflection off John Hewie to leave keeper Willie Duff wrong footed.

Phew! Rescued a draw from the jaws of defeat. Hold on. This is Huddersfield Town. We ain't done yet.

With almost the last action of the game, Summers who had gone back out on the wing, crossed for Ryan to head home the winner past Town's South African goalkeeper Sandy Kennon, to send those of the Charlton persusasion still left in the ground, into unconfined joy and when Mr Warnke blew the final whistle, they ran onto the muddy pitch and carried young Johnny Summers and his pals off shoulder high.

The two teams knew they would meet again shortly after this one. They had been drawn together in the FA Cup, which Charlton won after a replay. The crowd for that replay was more than double of the league game. They won it 1-0.

This was and still is, the only occassion a team has scored six goals in a Football League match and lost. Just typical Huddersfield Town.

Moving forward to the 79/80 season, Town had been top of the 4th Division at the start of November following a brilliant 5-0 win at home to Northampton Town. Since then though, the team had struggled, drawing with Bradford City and Tranmere Rovers, losing at home to Hereford United, losing away at Torquay United and most alarmingly getting beaten at home in an FA Cup replay against bottom of the league Darlington.

So manager Mick Buxton had tried, in vain, to sign Steve Kindon from Burnley. He'd played for the Claret Jugheads in the First Division, as well as Wolves, but was now back at Turf Moor. They were still in the 2nd Division and Kindon didn't fancy moving down to the Fourth.

On this date in 1979, Town played Rochdale on a Friday night at Leeds Road. Don't know why it was on Friday. I think it was to do with not wanting such a huge crowd interfering with all the Christmas shopping going on. Something that had never bothered anybody before or since, but it turned out to be a great move.

It was a blummin' cold night and only 4,550 came out to see it. One of those there that night was a certain Mr Kindon from Burnley, who took advantage of his own team not playing until the next afternoon, to come to Huddersfield and have a word with Mr Buxton. Not that he went in the main stand with the Town dignitaries. No, he didn't even tell Buxton he was coming. He stood on the terraces with the Town fans and saw Buxton's boys hammer the Dale 5-1.

Dave Sutton, David Cowling, Peter Fletcher, Malcolm Brown and Ian Robins all scored in the game and Kindon was really impressed with what he saw. So much so, he went over the other side of the ground at full time, asked to see Buxton and asked him; "I suppose you don't need me now?"

Mick had the contract there, ready for him to sign. Steve took the pen out of Mick's hand, signed and made his debut on Boxing Day against Halifax Town at The Shay.

What a Christmas present that turned out to be. 

[theo_luddite]

I'd swear The Valley was dug into a far, far deeper 'ole than that photo appears to depict.

[Lord Snooty]

Only been there once and all I can remember was it being a crumbling old dump. Don't think I noticed how deep the actual valley was.

Anyway, sixty five years on, they've had another famous win tonight in the Carabooboo.

[Lord Snooty]

December 22:

On this date in 1990, a huge crowd of 4,841 crammed into the Leeds Road stadium for a 3rd Division match against Bury on a cold Saturday afternoon. It was dark not long after kick off as we'd just passed the shortest day and the floodlights were on from the start. Town's players weren't awake from the start though and the Shakers took an early lead.

They almost went two-nil up from a breakaway, but their attack was abruptly ended by Town keeper Lee Martin, running out of his area to make a tackle. He got it badly wrong, leaving the ref no option but to send him off. Town down to ten men and a goal down, doesn't usually make good reading.

Here's what happened next in the words of Kieran O'Regan via the Examiner website; "Everyone was looking around to see who might go in goal (there were just two subs in those days) and only myself and Iffy Onuora fancied it. It came down to me because I'd played a lot of Gaelic football in the juniors with Nemo Rangers, who are one of the most famous clubs in Ireland, although I'd never practised in goal during any football training.

I remember the back-four starting to play superbly that night, with Ken O'Doherty outstanding, and I didn't really have an awful lot of keeping to do. What threw a spanner in the works, though, was that we got a penalty, and I was the penalty taker!

I remember walking up the pitch thinking, for goodness sake score, or at least don't hit it near the keeper so that he can boot it back down the field before I can get back. Thankfully, I hit it low into the corner, the whole of the ground lifted because of it and we went on to get a great win with a Iwan Roberts header.

Someone asked me afterwards what I'd have done if I'd hit the post with the penalty and my reply was, a new world record for the 100m!"

In the 1923/24 season, the Football League fixtures computer was still doing back to back games. That is, we were playing teams home one week and then away the next. As such, we had just played Arsenal away and so on this date in 1923, we played them at home.

I wrote about the away game at Highbury last week when we won 3-0 with a Charlie Wilson hat trick. Well, he only went and did it again as Town beat the Gunners 6-1 in a magnificent display at Leeds Road, which really made the Arsenal directors sit up and wonder how they could persuade Herbert Chapman to go manage them instead.

Of course, they eventually did, but not until he'd seen his Town team win the Football League title twice in succession.

Clem Stephenson scored twice in this one after George Cook had opened the goal floodgates. Charlie's three goals took his tally to nine in the last four games. He top scored in the season that we went on to win our first league title with 18 in the league and a couple in the FA Cup as well.

Huddersfield Town famously won the league three times in a row. Then finished as runners up twice. That's 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd and 2nd in five seasons. Not bad, eh?

That was followed by a 16th. Why that happened, I don't know. The season got off to a poor start with only three wins in the first ten games. Then another bad sequence of five defeats in six games. For some reason, our lads with Jack Chaplin now in charge, were struggling.

Then came big wins against Burnley (7-1) and Sheffield United (6-1) and we were up and running at last.

On this date in 1928, West Ham United came up to Leeds Road and those big wins continued with a 4-0 hammering of the Hammers. It was another hat trick occassion, with Alex Jackson, the brilliant Scottish international getting the threesome this time.

Billy Smith got the other as Town rose to 12th in the table. This win started an unbeaten run of eight games which had us back up to 6th, but a poor second half of the campaign saw this roller coaster of a season ending with us in a lowly 16th, with only an FA Cup run to the semi finals as compensation.

It's a former Town manager's birthday today. I won't wish him a happy one, because I'm talking about the much loathed Mark Robins, the man who turned us from an exciting, fast paced, free scoring team under Lee Clark and Simon Grayson, to the tippy tappy, pass around the back four, slow paced garbage football we still have to endure to this day.

He was born in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1969 and is 53 today.

[Lord Snooty]

December 23:

'Twas two days before Christmas and the directors of Huddersfield Town made the most despicable and disgraceful decision in the history of this great club. For this was the day, on this date in 1986, that they sacked Mick Buxton.

We had just gone bottom of the Second Division after four straight league defeats, but this was the manager who had taken us from the depths of Division 4, next to the bottom of the entire Football League when he took the job on.

He's the only man to have won two promotions for the club. He masterminded our last two automatic promotions, we haven't won automatic since 1983. His team holds the club record for the most league goals in a season. He is second, behind Clem Stephenson, as our longest serving manager taking charge of 438 matches.

And yet chairman Keith Longbottom, who appointed Mick in the first place in 1978, thought it was time to sack him. Just before Christmas. Almost as heartless as the c*** who made me redundant last week. At least I've got my pay off and a new job already. Poor Mick ended up at Scunthorpe.

Despite all this, Mick came back to rescue us from relegation in 1993, as assistant to Ian Ross, after Longbottom had been replaced by Graham Leslie as chairman. That was a massive success. Only three defeats in the last sixteen games saw us escape from certain relegation to comfortable mid table obscurity.

But then typical Town let them both go and took Neil Warnock on instead. And we all remember how badly that went. 

Have you noticed how we seem to be playing Watford and Arsenal a lot in December? Here's another couple of occasions.

On this date in 1922, one hundred years ago today, we beat the Gunners at Leeds Road in front of a massive 10,000 crowd. It was our third season in Division One and we ended the campaign in 3rd place, our highest finish so far.

We won this game 4-0 against an Arsenal team that would end the season in 11th. Goals came from a penalty by England international Sam Wadsworth, one from Joe Walter (who lived to the age of 99), and two from future Town managers. David Steele got his only league goal for the club and Clem Stephenson, our longest serving manager, got the fourth.

The Watford game comes from a relegation season. We'd made a bad start. Steve Bruce had been sacked and replaced by Lou Macari. Peter Ndlovu had arrived on loan and we'd started winning some matches.

On this date in 2000, Peter the Zimbabwean international on loan from Birmingham City, scored again. It was a 2-1 win down at Vicarage Road, he'd scored our first and Delroy Facey got the winner as we moved off the foot of the table, to 23rd.

Macari ended the month with the Manager of the Month award, but Birmingham recalled Ndlovu and he ended up at Sheffield United. And Town went down.

[Lord Snooty]

December 24:

Not many games played on this date over the years, as the tendancy was to play back to back games on Christmas Day and Boxing Day back in the olden days. Then it became just Boxing Day with the Christmas Day fixture getting phased out in the 1950's. The last game on Christmas Eve for Huddersfield Town was in 1960, a 2-2 draw at Stoke City's Victoria Ground, with Mike O'Grady and Les Massie scoring for us.

The next to last game came on this date in 1956 and though people who were there probably didn't realise at the time, but they were witnessing the debut of one of the greatest players ever to grace the grass of not just Leeds Road but the entire footballing world.

Who dat? Why, Denis Law of course.

It was the first of fourteen seasons in the 2nd Division following relegation at the end of 55/56. Andy Beattie had resigned and his buddy, Bill Shankly had taken over. This was Bill's 8th match as manager, a trip to Meadow Lane to play Notts County and came on the back of four straight defeats.

Denis was the youngest player to play for the club at sixteen years and ten months old, only Peter Hart has debuted younger since. He came into the side to replace the 21 year old Les Massie. Laurie Kelly played at left back in place of Ray Wilson and Dave Hickson came in at centre forward ahead of Jimmy Watson.

It was the inside left, Ron Simpson who scored both of our goals in a 2-1 win that got Shankly's boys back to winning ways. And Denis got his first Town goal two days later when County came to Leeds Road for the return fixture on Boxing Day, in a 3-0 win.

[theo_luddite]

Good luck with the new job Snoots. You seem to have been moved from pillar to post in recent years.
Strange how they like to shuffle us old'uns with years of experience out of the way and bring young'uns baht a clue about what they are doing in, but they are cheaper on the books. Until they fook up a whole days worth of production.