[Lord Snooty]

Huddersfield Town v Coventry City
The Sky Bet Championship
Good Friday March 29th - 15:00 ko
at the John McAlpharm Stadium

AND

Stoke City v Huddersfield Town
The Sky Bet Championship
Easter Monday April 1st - 15:00 ko
down on Stanley Matthews Way

Huddersfield Town welcome Coventry City to Leeds Road on Friday afternoon for the first match in this traditional Eastertime double header. This is closely followed on Monday afternoon with a trip to Smoke-on-Stench for what could be a massive 6 pointer. At the moment, Stoke are two points better off than us. They play away at Hull on Friday afternoon. The Stoke game is also going to be shown live on Sky Sports Football.

Coventry are the talk of the football world at the moment, having reached the FA Cup semi finals by beating Wolves at Molineux with an injury time winner when their charmless nerk of a manager, Mark Robins celebrated in the face of a ball boy.

Stoke on the other hand, have just continued to struggle since they poached Steven Schumacher from Plymouth and have been one of the teams alongside ourselves, QPR and Birmingham, who have been flirting with that third from bottom, relegation slot.

Town will have Sorba Thomas missing for the Coventry game after he was given two quick yellow cards in the second half of the Rotherham away game last week. Surely, the obvious choice would be to bring Pat Jones in. But knowing how modern Head Coaches work, he won't be considered because he hasn't shown much in training this week. The fact that he's been away with the Cymru u21s will have no bearing on the issue. I do wish we would pick our best players, regardless of what's been going on down at Canalside.

Talking of internationals, our Brodie Spencer has two more full Northern Ireland caps to his name and Radinio Balker made it into the Suriname squad for the first time, following in the footsteps of Dean Gorre and Ken Monkou in representing that country as Huddersfield Town players. He was on the bench for their friendly against Martinique.

And talking of Town internationals brings us to today's first question. Who the hell have Poland got that's better than Michal Helik?




Head to Head



Town lead the head to head with 9 wins to Coventry's 7, with 6 draws.

Only 22 fixtures between these two famous old clubs. They were formed in the 1880s and Town in 1908, so for us to have avoided each other for so many seasons is quite unusual and I can't think of another team of similar status that we have played so few times. This, the fourth consecutive season we have shared a league season together, is the longest time together. The longest before was three seasons in the mid 1960s.

The most recent fixture was a crap game, a Monday night Sky game at Highfield Road, which was the first game of the new Darren Moore era. It was a baffling game to watch, coming so soon after Neil Warnock had left and it looked like the new manager had just told the lads to forget everything that Colin had taught them. It was such a disjointed performance.

Coventry took the lead with a lucky rebound. It was a fantastic shot from Ellis Simms that deserved a goal, but hit the bar, then hit Yasin Ayari on the way down and ended up in the back of the net. But super Michal Helik equalised in injury time, controlling the ball brilliantly from a Sorba Thomas cross and finishing with the coolness of a top class striker, which had the Sky commentators crowing about what a magical manager their mate Moore was. None of us were convinced though, but happy to get away with a point.

Stoke lead the head to head with 32 wins to Town's 23, with 28 draws.

By contrast, we have played Stoke 83 times. The last time was the game before that Coventry game, the last match with old Mr Warnock in charge. Matty Pearson opened the scoring from a Sorba free kick in this 2-2 draw on a warm September Wednesday night in Huddersfield, as Town looked to be getting their act together. We had just won away at West Brom and beat Rotherham at home and the decision to relieve Warnock of the role that we had all begged him to keep at the end of last season, was just baffling. I still can't understand it now. But let's not dwell on that now.

The lead didn't last long. Two minutes later, Tyreese Campbell, who's always had a good game against us, had a shot saved by Lee Nicholls, only for ex Preston midfielder Daniel Johnson to follow up and slot home the rebound. Ben Wilmot gave the Potters the lead in the 62nd minute, but six minutes later, Jack Rudoni fired home from a Ben Jackson corner, to shut the pervert Potters fans up and get this reaction in their direction from the man, the myth, the legend, Neil Warnock.

Coventry in popular culture: It is most famous these days for getting bombed in the Second World War, with the Cathedral the focal point of that. Me and AmChaff visited there recently, after the West Brom away game, during the mini heat wave we were having. Coventry looked a beautiful place on that sunny Sunday afternoon, but I suppose it may look a bit bleak like any other town/city centre in the winter. Whatever, it doesn't look as depressing as Huddersfield does.

Apart from the bombing or possibly why the bombing happened in the first place, Coventry is a huge place on the British motor industry map. Alvis, Armstrong Siddeley, Daimler, Humber, Jaguar, Riley, Rootes, Rover, Singer, Standard, Swift and Triumph have all had factories there over the years.

The famous Lady Godiva story is synonymous with Coventry, but over recent years (40 odd years ago) the Two Tone music scene began there, giving us bands The Specials, The Selector and Lieutenent Pigeon.

Here's a video of them there Specials for all you Death In Paradise fans......



Stoke in popular culture: Since the 17th century, the area has been almost exclusively known for its industrial-scale pottery manufacturing. Companies such as Royal Doulton, Dudson, Spode (founded by Josiah Spode), Wedgwood (founded by Josiah Wedgwood), Minton (founded by Thomas Minton) and Baker & Co. (founded by William Baker) were established and based there. The Great Pottery Throw Down on Channel 4 is made in Stoke.

No members of the Who came from Stoke, so how are we going to get a Who track on this time? Well, the title music for the first two series of the pottery throwdown was this classic from the fab four, Roger, Pete, John and Keith.......





Recent form - last 6 matches:

Rotherham 0-0 Town
Town 1-4 WBA
Cardiff 1-0 Town
Town 1-1 Leeds
Watford 1-2 Town
Town 1-2 Hull

Wolves 2-3 Coventry (FA Cup)
Watford 1-2 Coventry
Coventry 5-0 Rotherham
WBA 2-1 Coventry
Coventry 5-0 Maidstone (FA Cup)
Coventry 0-3 PNE

Stoke 0-3 Norwich
PNE 1-2 Stoke
Leeds 1-0 Stoke
Stoke 2-0 Boro
Cardiff 2-1 Stoke
Stoke 0-1 Coventry

Town are 22nd in the Championship table with 39 points. Coventry are 8th with 57. Stoke are 19th with 41.


Leading scorers:

Terriers:
Michal Helik (9)
Delano Burgzorg (7)

Sky Blues:
Haji Wright (15)
Ellis Simms (14)

Potties:
André Vidigal (6)
Ryan Mmaee (4)



Anagrams: Some Coventry, some Stoke, some football related, some not. All mentioned in the article.

1. Seventh Scrum Ache
   
2. Slime Slims
   
3. A Jewish Dogwood
   
4. Chelsea Spit
   
5. Morris Bank
   
6. Fidel Highroad
   
7. Calley September
   
8. Remolded Stingrays
   
9. Alan Tweets Myths
   
10. Tin Womble
    

[jjamez]

5 mark robins.


Pat Jones apparently unavailable for Friday.

Personally I'd bring koroma and ward in, stick with the same formation.

Nicholls in goal

Pearson balker helik in defence. Kasumu and Spencer at wing back. Hogg and matos in the middle. Burgzorg and koroma flanking ward. Think rudoni needs dropping. He squanders so many chances it's unbelievable, yet he's the golden child for some reason

---

2 Ellis simms

---

1 Steven schumacher

[ritchiebaby]

Very concise for you, Snooty.

3 - Josiah Wedgwood
4 - The Specials

[Lord Snooty]

Bojan and Healey both available for Friday.

[WakeyTerrier]

Last Saturday morning I said to Mitzi that we had three games to attend in 6 days. Brazil, Belgium and Coventry, I remarked that come 5pm Friday we may not have seen our team win any of them. Fast forward to now and that’s true although I’m hoping the sequence of defeat (Brazil) draw (Belgium) is going in the right direction for a win (Coventry) but that sadly is the only hope I’m clinging onto. I just don’t see us getting anything other than another defeat

[Lord Snooty]

As predicted, Pat Jones won't be considered because he hasn't been in any of this week's training sessions.

He's not been on a bloody stag weekend, Andre lad.

FFS!

[ritchiebaby]

6 - Highfield Road
10 - Ben Wilmot

[theo_luddite]

You forgot to mention the legendary Yorkshire Potter Snoots (though he had moved to London by then). Take a bow, Thorne's finest, Thomas Crapper. I think you can work out what magic he worked on his erm, potters wheels? He and his contemporaries, George Jennings, Thomas Twyford, Edward Johns & Henry Doulton, began producing toilets much as we know them today to bring an end to Great Stink and improve the health of the nation as erm, night soil, could then be removed in those new fangled sewers, rather than being tipped into the local streets and rivers. As if anyone would let that happen these days eh?
Oh!
However, going to The Crapper was also done by Royal Appointment, as in 1861, Thomas Crapper was hired by Prince Edward (later King Edward VII) to construct lavatories in several royal palaces. The Armitage part of what became Armitage Shanks of Smoke-on-Stench came along 10 years later, but is still hanging around though now owned by American Standards Company ...... like the Yanks know owt about standards.

Now be honest, how many would have linked Royal Doulton with the output end of the food chain/digestive system?

[Amelia Chaffinch]

George Clarke visited Ideal Standard on this week's episode of his Remarkable Renovations series. They were saying they took over Armitage Shanks. The kiln was immense. They actually tap each one with a stone for quality checking. I like a bit of pottery, even when it's toilets!

[ritchiebaby]

If nobody else wants him, I'll take Tyreese Campbell for No7.