Archive
Day 2b Of The 30 Day Football Challenge – My Least Favourite Town Games
Huddersfield Town 0 – 0 Southend Utd – 19th Oct 1997– Least Favourite For ‘Utterly Shite Match’
There’s been a few bore draws at the McAlpine in the years I’ve been attending, but this stands out as the worst. It was that first season after the Playoff win, and there was a couple of 0 – 0s (one against Oldham) but I can actually remember incidents from them – a shot against the crossbar that knocked some snow off, for example – but Southend, I remember being pretty flat about at the time, and I’m not viewing it any more favourably now, 15 years later.
Huddersfield Town 1 – 2 Birmingham City – 6th May 2001 – Least Favourite For ‘Painful Reasons’
3.06pm. That’s when this game ended, and when Town were relegated ‘back’ to Division 2. I was in Norwich, and I just went wandering round the Wensum, round and round, and ended just sat with my feet over the edge near where I lived then. I was just empty. I said that night it’d take me six or seven years to get over it, and I’m not even sure it was that quick. I used to have the exact date and time stuck on my computer, to remember it, to remind myself not to be so affected by football matches in future and, touch wood, I’ve been alright since, but this game, and the relegation that came with it, cut me to the core.
Huddersfield Town 6 – 0 Wycombe Wanderers – 14th Nov 2009 – Least Favourite For ‘Confusing People’
Town played well against Wycombe and deserved their 6-0 win. That was good. But this game, more than any other game, confused people about what to expect. A lot of people took their opinion of Theo Robinson from the way he performed in this game, as if each time he stepped onto the field was not independent of itself. A lot of people took their demands of Town’s performances and scorelines from this game as if six nil wins could become routine or commonplace; it was a high-water mark that happened to be on Sky, and people used it as a judgement point for all that came after which was incredibly annoying and not least a bit wrong.
Huddersfield Town 1 – 3 Mansfield Town – 1st May 2004 – Least Favourite For ‘Impending Doom’
Town were absolutely mullered this game by a team who, let’s face it, were only Mansfield Town. But they tore us to shreds with the pace of Junior Mendes and the vision of Liam Lawrence. This game was bad, but we knew that Mansfield were promotion rivals and the fact they beat us so convincingly meant that, when the playoff games came around we really wanted to avoid them, just on the strength of them having done this. I can’t remember Town being smashed so badly at home ever, we were never at the races at all. Awful.
Norwich City 1 – 1 Huddersfield Town – 30th Nov 2000 – Least Favourite For ‘Good Personal Ideas Going Bad’
I moved to Norwich in 2000, under the impression I’d be able to see Town a few times in places like Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester…. And took full advantage of it by going to see Town at Carrow Road in my first year there. I missed about 70 minutes of the game under the stand with a massive nose-bleed, which was, personally, quite a problem. This was followed by relegation (see Game 2) and Town failed to play in East Anglia again for the duration of my time in Norwich. I loved Norwich, but this aspect didn’t work out for me.
Day 2a Of The 30 Day Football Challenge – My Least Favourite Non-Town Games
Again, these are split into 5 Town and 5 Non-Town. I’ve (also again) tried to stick with games I saw ‘live’, either in person, or on the telly-ma-vision, so the friendly Il Grande Torino played against Benfica doesn’t feature, although that game was disastrous for obvious reasons.
Bury 1 – 1 Oxford Utd – 21st Mar 2006– Least Favourite For ‘Matchday Experience’.
No surprise this is in here; anyone who was there would attest how bad it was. Ice-cold February night, £18 to get in (to Bury!), and absolutely no football played at all except for a 3 minute spell during which Bury scored a penalty and Oxford, as if offended by the two teams appearing at different levels of appalling, equalised immediately, before both reverted to doing absolutely nothing for the remainder of the game. It was meant to be the return of Jim Smith to Oxford (which was one of the reasons I was there) but that wasn’t announced until the following day, which meant the already tenuous reason for being there was rendered moot. Utterly, utterly awful, and a fine example of why, sometimes, lower league football fails.
England 0 – 0 Algeria – 18th Jun 2010 – Least Favourite For ‘Football Going Bad’
Its Saturday evening. It’s the World Cup. Its England’s best chance for a generation. Its against one of the worst teams in the tournament. So, Algeria set out to frustrate England, but barely have to do anything worthy of the name, as England put in a performance so insipid that they not only get booed off the field, but a bird landing on a goal-post was the highlight of the game. International football is only exciting if people set out to make it exciting – that’s not in Fabio Capello’s nature, and against a team who were trying to remain compact, instead of watching the tide wash over a beach, it was more like watching two stagnant pools rippling next to each other.
Arsenal 2 – 3 Tottenham H – 20th Nov 2010 – Least Favourite For ‘Teams Who Stopped Trying To Win The Game’
This game was exciting. Arsenal led 2-0 at half time, but Spurs gradually reeled them in and could have nicked it late on. That’s a fair assessment of the 90 minutes. However, Arsenal could, and probably, should have led five or six nil at half time had they not stopped playing when they’d got two, as if they’d declared – I vividly remember Marouane Chamakh receiving the ball in the Spurs’ area a few minutes before half-time, controlling it, and then just giving it to the Spurs defence as if he couldn’t be bothered to actually do anything with it. I was annoyed by this. So it was good to see Spurs start coming back in – but then when they’d got their goals, they stopped trying to get more; running the ball into the corners, wasting time, and generally negating their good work. I was livid at this. Its started my mental campaign of ‘all teams trying to win every game by as higher score as they can’.
Italy 0 – 0p Brazil – July 17th 1994 – Least Favourite For ‘Fallen Heroes’
I love Roberto Baggio. I make no bones about that. I could watch him play football for hours on end, and have done. Never have I seen anyone play the game quite like he did. 1994 was his finest hour. Even after being removed against Ireland, and largely being injured throughout the tournament, he was good enough to guide Italy to the final, wherein, really, the football stopped. It was, again, an appalling game of football – both teams were shot from the demands of the tournament and neither looked like winning it. Then the inevitable penalties made their heroes and villains and I was on the wrong side. Franco Baresi – a hero; disaster. Roberto Baggio – the hero; disaster. So we ended where we started – the biggest star on the field missing a penalty. Gutted.
Wycombe 3 – 0 Gillingham – 8th May 2010 – Least Favourite For ‘Depressing People That I Like’
I’m not a Gillingham fan, despite geography, and I haven’t yet connected with them the way I did Norwich – but that’s by the by. Last season for the Gills wasn’t a particularly good one; there was highs (they beat a lot of big teams…. Huddersfield, Southampton…) but far more lows (they lost to some minnows…. Huddersfield, Southampton….) so it all came down to the last game of the season, a visit to already relegated Wycombe, having won no games away from home all season. As such, the defeat wasn’t a surprise, but such a capitulation was pretty crushing, and, in football terms, it took the Gillingham fans a pretty long time to get over it – maybe until Christmas time this season. Truly depressing stuff it was, though it didn’t help that Town lost at Exeter at the same time to make the inevitable inevitable.
Day 1b Of The 30 Day Football Challenge – My Favourite Town Games
Crewe 2-5 Huddersfield T – 6th Dec 1997 – Favourite For ‘Making Me Believe’
This was the game that I think I ever first believed in Town as an entity. They did that to me. I remember the 1994/95 promotion season, quite well, but I didn’t feel involved in it – it felt like they were doing it for us, not with us. The Great Escape was different; the Great Escape was something where everyone was pulling together – in desperation – for Town – if you look back on that (now) cringeworthy video, if you see some of those goal celebrations, and the faces on some of the players; this meant everything to them. That’s Peter Jackson’s gift as a manager. He gets people to care. This was just an amazing day; it was Town’s second win on the bounce, and the away end was rocking. So yes, when I think back to the Great Escape season (1997/98) I think back to this day; I think back to Marcus Stewart celebrating his goal in front of the Town fans, I think of David Phillips, I think of the red and black away shirt that gave me my nickname; this was its finest hour.
Bradford 2-3 Huddersfield T – 17th April 1999 – Favourite For ‘Excitement’
For Bradford fans, this game is a small subscript in their triumphant rise to the Premiership. For us, we thought it might be the bubble bursting. I recorded this game from Goals On Sunday and must have watched it fifty times or so. I can see it all so vividly now; Steve Jenkins being ‘unhappy’ at being dismissed; Nico elbowing Dean Windass when the comeback was ‘on’; even Wayne Allison’s delicate flick. It was such a good day to be a Town fan, that was, and the game had everything.
Huddersfield T 2-3 Sunderland – 24th Feb 1998 – Favourite For ‘Best Performance Needed To Beat Town’
Allan Johnston was absolutely amazing that night, and that Sunderland team were amazing, too – Quinn, Phillips, Gray a certain Lee Clark – but they had to work every inch to get the victory against a really stubborn Town performance. The atmosphere was buzzing – 14,000 and odd – on a cold Tuesday night, and the football was slick, quick and incisive. Sunderland were going places and it felt for all the world like Town might follow them. Alas.
Huddersfield 2-1 Bradford – 21st Nov 1998 – Favourite For ‘Upsetting The Apple Cart’
Bradford were in great form coming into this, and played really well early doors – Lee Mills and perennial Town nemeses Robbie Blake and Peter Beagrie were buzzing, and they took a deserved lead. Second half, though, we managed to get a foothold and the momentum, and the momentum of the fans took us past Bradford which was a bloody surprise to everyone from before the match, but from during it, too. It was awesome. The form book was thrown out of the window, truly. Next week, this happened.
Huddersfield Town 2-1 Bristol Rovers – 28th May 1995 – Favourite For ‘Just Because’.
A goal, Chris Billy, Huddersfield Town.
Day 1a Of The 30 Day Football Challenge – My Favourite Non-Town Games
Arsenal 1-3 Tottenham – 14th April 1991 – Favourite for ‘Performance Of My Hero’.
I was a massive Paul Gascoigne fan as a boy, and we seemed to see a lot of this cup run. I remember Spurs beating Notts County; I remember Gazza scoring against Portsmouth, and then we got to the semi-final – Arsenal. I was concerned for Spurs, because I knew Arsenal were a good team. That concern dissipated pretty quickly. Spurs got off to a flyer, and then that goal… that beautiful beautiful goal. Whenever I see Paul Gascoigne now, I think back to that goal, to that freekick, and to that celebration sprinting towards the Spurs fans. I don’t he’ll ever have been happier in his life than in that exact moment – everything came together and he was… he was the star of the show. My main memory of the match – as so many times since – is that Spurs had raced into a lead, and I spent the rest of the game panicking that Arsenal might pull it back, which they came close to, but never did. Had the 9 year old me enthralled. I didn’t watch the final, and the beginning of the end for Gazza, I went to Jodrell Bank instead.
Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid – 29th November 2010 – Favourite For ‘Quality of Football Played’
I’d seen Barcelona a few times in the build-up to this, and knew how well they were playing – but I didn’t see this coming. I can barely remember a Real player touching the ball, though I know there were some hairy moments for Barca before they went ahead. It was quite thrilling to see not just a team playing well, but every component part excelling – truly we saw the best of Xavi, of Iniesta, of Villa, of Messi and any watching must have put in mind of Pele’s ‘beautiful game’ statement; football at its very, very best. As I recall, I was gasping at various things (the ball that released David Villa for the second goal, for certain) like I was watching theatre. The flip side of this was how anonymous a certain Cristiano Ronaldo was, which was a delight to see, also.
Argentina 0-1 Cameroon – June 8th 1990 – Favourite For ‘Not Quite Changing Of The World Order’
The game that started my love affair with African football. This Cameroon team played with such freedom, such joy and such disregard for what people expected they should do. They had two men sent off in this game – including Benjamin Massing for a foul on Claudio Caniggia so bad that its given a certain type of foul his name. Admittedly, Omam Biyik’s goal was as a result of a goalkeeping error, but that only added to the drama (and Argentina benefited, fielding Goycochea in goal for the rest of the tournament) and Argentina were world champions at the time, let’s not forget. This tore the rule book of international football up – anyone could beat anyone. I loved it.
Marseille 3-1 Rennes – 5th May 2010 – Favourite for ‘Silent Jubilation’
I stayed up for this. In the kitchen. Listening. On headphones. To the radio. On a laptop. That’s how much this meant. I didn’t know it was going to until the evening started unfolding, and Lyon won at Auxerre, in a shocking ‘Doing what I wanted them to do’ moment that OL seem to have a distinct aversion to. Which just meant listening to 90 minutes that felt like 900, even at 3-1 up, before OM finally reclaimed the Ligue 1 trophy that had been absent from the Velodrome since the early 90s. I bit my fingers to shreds that night. I couldn’t move far, being as I was stuck with headphones a maximum of two feet away from the computer. I couldn’t do anything else. Kept the videprinter up. Kept refreshing Livescore – anything to get hold of information before the radio put it through. It was simply amazing, that night, but it was all… on my own. Happy days. Sad days.
England 1-1p Germany – 26th June 1996 – Favourite For ‘Unceasing Breathless Drama’
This game, despite the fact England lost it, gave those of us who were too young, a view at what it might have been like had England won the World Cup. It wasn’t just the Wembley crowd who were gasping and sighing, and burying heads in hands as goals were disallowed, and Gazza failed to stretch quite far enough, and we ticked, almost inevitably, towards a penalty shoot-out, it was every man-jack of the country – you could feel the intakes of breath, you could hear the yelps of the dogs being kicked as the deflated nation came down to earth with a bump. You could feel all those people together in disappointment and you could sort of realise how it would be if they came together in triumph.
Huddersfield Town In Numbers 