[Lord Snooty]

Huddersfield Town v Leeds United 
The Sky Bet Championship
Saturday November 7th - 12:30 ko
at The John Smith's Stadium

Huddersfield Town welcome Leeds United to the John Smith's Stadium on Saturday afternoon for a lunchtime Sky Sports TV match. Town will have Mark Lillis in charge again, following the shock departure of Chris Powell on Wednesday morning. So given his previous record as caretaker manager, it's a good bet that there could be a few of the under 21s in the team. Philip Billing made his full debut on Tuesday night. He could well be joined by the likes of William Boyle, Flo Bojaj, Sondre Tronstat and Jake Charles in the matchday squad.

There will be enforced changes to the starting XI on Saturday as Joel Lynch picked up his 5th yellow card and a one match ban. Given that Lillis said not so long ago that Murray Wallace will one day be captain of Huddersfield Town, he will probably be Lynch's replacement. We welcome back Dean Whitehead who missed Reading due to the 5 card ban. Another big name missing at Reading was big Ishmael Miller who called in sick on Tuesday, but hopefully will be available again. Leeds defenders will be quaking at the thought of that.

Town go into the match on the back of a well earned point down at Reading, whereas Leeds come here full of confidence having won at home for the first time since March, having beaten Cardiff 1-0.

It's the first time Sky have chosen the West Yorkshire derby for live coverage, which is quite surprising as they are usually high tempo, high scoring matches. They instead try to manufacture derby games like the recent "Severnside derby", Bristol City v Cardiff. But at last, here we are.

How much? 
It's £20 for home fans in all areas apart from the Riverside upper tier. For seniors it's £15 in all stands and £5 for under 18s.
For Leeds fans, it's an unreasonable, rip off price of £31.


A brief history of Leeds United: They tried to steal our club in 1919, a la MK Dons and Wimbledon, after Leeds City were kicked out of the Football League for corruption. Unlike those wimpy Wombles, the people of Huddersfield were made of sterner stuff and fought off the unwanted advances and within 7 years we were thrice champions.
Leeds United, who were formed anyway with some of the traitorous Huddersfield board on board as well as former Town manager Arthur Fairclough, went on to become, and have been ever since, Champions of Europe, lol!

The new club moved into Elland Road and were elected into the FL in 1920, winning the 2nd division in 1924. They had a bit of a yoyo existence between the wars and afterwards too up until a certain Don Revie took over in 1961. Under his guidance, Leeds United won their proudest accolade, the World's Most Hated Football Club and the mantle of Champions of Europe when they stole Real Madrid's all white kit.
Revie left them after 13 years in charge to go and manage England. He was without doubt the worst England manager ever, failing even to qualify for the 1978 World Cup when Scotland did. Leeds, meanwhile, had replaced Revie with Brian Clough and in a strange future echo of what happens today, he was sacked after only 44 days in charge. 

Clough (centre) with Revie (right) on Calendar in 1974

They kept appointing their former star players as manager until in 1982 Allan Clarke finally got them relegated. A few more seasons of ups and downs until Simon Grayson got them back into the Championship in 2010 where they have struggled to hold their place as ownership wrangles have beset this once famous club.

Head to head




Town lead in the overall head to head with 29 wins to Leeds's 26, with 19 draws. That's in all competitions. In league matches it's 26 Town wins to Leeds's 21, with 17 draws.


Last season, Leeds did the double over us for the first time since the 1938/39 season. The home match at the end of January ended with Town's Tommy Smith being flown off in the air ambulance after he got injured attempting to stop Billy Sharp scoring the last minute winner. earlier, Harry Bunn had equalised Sam Byram's 7th minute opener. 


So what's new at Bellend Road? 
Well at the time of writing, Steve Evans was still manager, but that could easily have changed by kick off time on Saturday. He took the job when Uwe Rosler was sacked last month. 

Notable players in their squad are Liam Cooper, a one time loanee at Town from Hull City. A player who some Town fans once wanted us to sign from WBA, Chris Plankofwood. And Bradford City reject, Tom Adeyemi.

Liam Cooper in JPT action for Town during his loan spell here

Recent Form: Town are 18th in the league with 15 points and Leeds are 17th with 16.

(Last 6 matches)

Reading 2-2 Town

Burnley 2-1 Town

Town 1-2 Derby

Town 2-0 MK Dons

Ipswich 0-0 Town

Wolves 3-0 Town

Leeds 1-0 Cardiff

Leeds 0-2 Blackburn

Bolton 1-1 Leeds

Fulham 1-1 Leeds

Leeds 1-2 Brighton

Leeds 0-2 Birmingham

We must beat Leeds, Gromit!

[theo_luddite]

Is Evans attending a funeral with that black Leeds scarf in his hand?

It makes a (nice?) change for us to sack a manager just before we play them for once, but shouldn't we have waited until Friday surely? The Happy Sacky Chappy can now still play his usual ace card yet again.

[MNTerrier]

we started with a similar team on tuesday and when they went for it they played reading off the park so i'd line em up like this


Use this11.com for tactics for football

[St Charles Owl]

Snoots, quick question. You mention in the article that tickets for the home fans is 20 quid in all areas yet the away fans are being charged 31 quid, I though there was a rule that the away fans can be charged no more than the home fans for a game (excluding any membership discounts)?? I ask this as ticket prices have become a hot topic at Wednesday this season and I have seen this rule mentioned a few times in relation to the price we are charging away fans.

Aside from that I really hope you guys can stuff them in this one. Aside from all the joy they seem to give us with their managerial merry go round and their lunatic of an owner, they are still the club hated by most other fans, so seeing them also lose games just adds to our fun and merriment!!!!

[theo_luddite]

http://www.htafc.com/news/article/hudder...33923.aspx to answer your ticket price query SCO.

[Jeebers]

We'd better batter these Yid bastards, I'm getting angry now just thinking about them AARRRGGGHHH my heads gonna explode

[sloppyattheback]

Jeebers
Dont use the Y word it's so 70 & 80's Amend your post before ELT sees it.

[Jeebers]

Perhaps you're right Sloppy, instead of Yid I'll call them Fli...... hmmm, better not

[EastLondonTerrier]

Glad I don't have to be the one correcting Sloppy, I will accept most other insults towards them though!

[WakeyTerrier]

How about Chest Wankers!