[Lord Snooty]

Rotherham United v Huddersfield Town
The Sky Bet Championship
Tuesday February 14th - 19:45 ko
at The New York Stadium

Huddersfield Town travel to Rotherham on Tuesday night to the New York Stadium for a romantic Valentine's Day get together with the team at the foot of the Championship table.
Romantic? Why aye! Getting crooned at by Frank Sinatra. Can't beat that, petal.



So we should expect a few team changes. We're playing the team at the bottom of the table. They've been there all season. They are seemingly doomed and have been for a long time. So eleven changes? Or do we put the first choice out and then save their legs against Man City on Saturday, knowing that the really big match of the week is on the following Tuesday at home to Reading?
I reckon there'll definitely be changes in defence with Mark Hudson, Jon Gorenc Stanković and Tareiq Holmes-Dennis coming in. Jonathan Hogg got injured on Saturday and he shouldn't be risked in a should win easy match, especially when we have Dean Whitehead ready and willing to step in.
Also likely to feature somewhere in the squad are Harry Bunn and Jack Payne, maybe both from the start. And big Collin Quaner up front.
Izzy Brown, of course, had been on loan at Rotherham earlier this season, playing 17 times for them, including our 2-1 win against them in September. He scored three goals for them, against Bristol City, Cardiff and QPR.

A brief history of Rotherham United: They were formed in 1925 when the two professional clubs in the town, Rotherham Town and Rotherham County were merged and elected to the Football League. They never won anything until 1951 when they became champions of Division 3 (North).
In 1955 they achieved their highest ever league position when finishing 3rd, level on points but behind Birmingham City and Luton Town, missing out on goal average of a first ever promotion to the top flight.
In 1961, they made it to the final of the first ever League Cup. This was played over two legs back then and they beat Aston Villa 1-0 at Millmoor in the first. The second, unbelievably by today's standards, wasn't played until the next season and Villa won it 3-0.
Since then, it's been up and down between the divisions, winning the 3rd division title in 1981 and the 4th division  title in 89. Those are their only champions titles, but they have had another six promotions, including the latest to the Championship, by winning the Play Offs in 2014, beating Preston and then Leyton Orient in the final.
The biggest day in the club's history though was back in 1996 when they won the Auto Windscreens Shields Trophy at Wembley, under the joint managership of Archie Gemmill and John McGovern, they beat Shrewsbury Town 2-1 with both goals coming from Nigel Jemson.

Head to Head




Town lead in the overall head to head with 29 wins to Rotherham's 10, with 15 draws.

Rotherham, I think, is the only team I've seen Town play at three different home grounds. My first visit there was to Millmoor in 1980/81 when we drew 0-0. Don't remember much of the match apart from being stood on a packed terrace behind the goal where Rotherham had been awarded a penalty. And as Andy Rankin saved it, the crowd surged forward and my glasses got knocked off my head and trampled under foot. Couldn't see much then!  
I didn't return to Millmoor and by the time I did go see Rotherham away, they had left and moved in to their temporary home at the Don Valley Stadium. It was for a JPT match in 2009 and we won 2-1, with goals from Peter Clarke and Robbie Simpson. And I returned the season after when we beat them in the same competition, this time by a more convincing 5-2. Goals that night from legends Jordan Rhodes (2), Benik Afobe (2) and Scott Arfield.
And then last season, a first trip to New York New York. It was a 1-1 draw, Nahki Wells equalising after Greg Halford had opened the scoring after 10 minutes.

Millmoor

So what's new at the New York Stadium? 

Managed nowadays by Paul Warne, on an interim basis. He took over when Kenny Jackett resigned after a short spell in charge. He had followed Alan Stubbs in the hot seat after he was sacked after another short but unsuccessful spell in the hot seat. And he got the job in the summer, surprisingly leaving Hibs who he won the Scottish Cup with, this coming after Neil Warnock had left after successfully avoiding relegation.

Notable players in their squad:- The most notable name is Danny Ward. He's the Millers top scorer this season with ten. He came to them in January 2015 after four seasons at Town. Those 4 seasons included that brilliant promotion at Wembley against Sheffield Utd and that dismal defeat at Old Trafford.
His first goal for us was down at the Withdean, a late winner in a 3-2 win over Brighton. He then scored in the play off semi 3-3 draw with Bournemouth.
By the end of the 13/14 season, his contract was running out and he was struggling to hold down a first team place. He would've probably been released at the end of the season had Nahki Wells not gone off injured after 30 minutes in the last game of the season down at Watford. On came Danny and scored a hattrick in a superb 4-1 win, which earned him another year, which ended up with a transfer to Rotherham Utd.
Bizarrely, the press had us down to re-sign him in this latest transfer window for around £2m.

Worth how much???  

Line up for match v Blackburn:

18 O'Donnell
2 Kelly
15 Ajayi
6 Wood
30 Purrington
33 Smallwood
11 Taylor
24 Adeyemi
22 Newell
7 Forde
9 D Ward

Substitutes
3 Mattock
4 Vaulks
20 Blackstock
27 Bray
29 Ekstrand
39 Yates
45 Bilboe

Celebrity Rotherham Supporters:

There's actor Dean Andrews, who you may remember as DS Ray Carling in Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes.
Chris Wolstenholme, bass player with the rock band Muse.
World Cup referee, Howard Webb. Can you believe that he was once voted as Yorkshire Sports Personality of the Year? When you think of all the nominations we have now, with all our Olympians and such like, we actually had a referee as our top sports person!
Anybody else? Oh yeah, these two.





Recent Form: Town are 3rd in the league with 58 points and Rotherham are 24th with 17.

Last 6 matches:

QPR 1-2 Town
Town 2-1 Leeds
Town 3-1 Brighton
Rochdale 0-4 Town (FA Cup)
Town 2-0 Ipswich
Sheff Weds 2-0 Town

Rotherham 1-1 Blackburn
Bristol City 1-0 Rotherham
Nottm Forest 2-0 Rotherham
Rotherham 0-1 Barnsley
Newcastle 4-0 Rotherham
Rotherham 2-1 Norwich

Nahki scores last season

[theo_luddite]

Strange one that with Kenny Jackett but I reckon a few promises might not have been delivered or were not showing any signs of being delivered there. Think they over performed to get promoted and though they pushed the boat out relatively speaking for some players and with Warnock as Manager last season to stay up as long as they have, the lack of a decent budget has eventually found them out. They must have made some of the right noises somewhere though to get Izzy on loan for the first half of the season.

At this moment in time, there's 16 clubs in with a shout of winning the cup and half of them are in the division above us. OK, it's only 4 more wins to win it (only 2 to get to Wembley semi), but they will mostly have to be against teams that are far better than us at this time. It's a lot more games to get to the Prima Donna League from where we are now, but there's at the most 10 teams of a similar performance level to us in with a shout. Even if we've got the smallest budget of the lot of them, that's where I'd lay my priority right now and that's where I'd be putting out the stronger of my sides. Rotherham might be mainly playing for pride, but as pro's they'll take any win bonus's that are offered up on a plate. A 1 goal win will give us 3 points, but really we should be looking to improve our goal difference at every opportunity. Other than the top 2, only L666s, Norwich and Fulham have a positive goal difference in double figures. Bristol City and Forest, neither of who will get near the play-off's this season, have both scored more than us. That said, i'd expect the side that played at Rochdale to beat Rotherham this season.

[EastLondonTerrier]

With the way we're playing, I expect to win tomorrow but NOTHING is guaranteed in this league and I'm sure DW will be drilling it into them to not take this game lightly. I expect rotation. Deano and Billing in for Mooy & Hogg and probably a combination of THD, Stankovic, Hudson or Crainie to all play. Izzy got kicked from pillar to post by those nasty QPR players so maybe Payne could get a run out but I expect VLP & Kach to play. Quaner up top.

[Lord Snooty]

I think Mooy will play in this one seeing as he's unavailable for the City game on Saturday.

[theo_luddite]

On the Danny Ward thing, maybe the press got a whisper that we were sniffing around a Rotherham forward, then couldn't or were too lazy to pursue it properly and decided it would be Ward we were after, when in fact it was Izzy Brown. Or maybe I'm just giving the dumb lazy buggers too much credit.

[SHEP_HTAFC]

Aye we need to win this one. On paper it looks easy......but nothing is that easy in this league.
Keep Ward quiet, and pass our way through them to a comfortable 3-0 win.
Great thread btw Snoots

[WakeyTerrier]

IF we win this then Rovrum can't pass us, top 23 spot guaranteed

[theo_luddite]

Top 20 spot was guaranteed by last Saturday with the way the fixures work out. 8 of the top 11 have a home fixture Tuesday night. Only the Newcy Broons (at Norwich), Barnsalee (at Vanilla) and us have away fixtures.

[SHEP_HTAFC]

Top 20 spot was guaranteed by last Saturday with the way the fixures work out. 8 of the top 11 have a home fixture Tuesday night. Only the Newcy Broons (at Norwich), Barnsalee (at Vanilla) and us have away fixtures.

Why wasn't this more widely reported at the time?
Town safe for another year. We should get the bunting out!!!

[theo_luddite]

Heard Wagner say it on a Radio L666s interview that I replayed, might have been the preview to the QPR game - I'll see if I can find it and post it.

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http://bbc.in/2kKifep

At the end of the interview, 6:28 in.
Shorter versions are on the Unexamined pages.