[Lord Snooty]

Doncaster Rovers v Huddersfield Town
The Bristol Street Motors Trophy
Tuesday September 3rd - 19:00 ko
at the Eco-Power Stadium

Huddersfield Town travel to Doncaster to the Keepmoat on Tuesday evening for our first EFL Trophy game since 2011. It's not a good place to visit for us, having played there three times and been beaten on each occasion without even scoring a goal.

After a great start to the season, Town go into this match on the back of two clumsy defeats, throwing away leads whilst trying to cling on following a red card. Unbelievably, we've had four red cards and conceded three penalties before the end of August. Can we please have a proper ref this time?

There are more details of team selection rules at the back end of this article, but basically we have to pick at least four first teamers for the game.

Obviously Danny Ward is unavailable. David Kasumu and Brodie Spencer are injured, so which of that rabble from Saturday would you give a start in this one? I'd go for Ollie Turton and Josh Ruffels, who are both short of game time following long term injuries. I'd give the two Wolves lads, Joe Hodge and Nigel Lonwijk a start as well. The game at Rotherham was the first game of the season for both of them, so minutes on the grass needed.

As for the kids, Ward out suspended, Bojan Radulović and Rhys Healey injured, Callum Marshall on international duty, Kian Harratt sent out on loan, is it time for a first team call up for Zak Abbott? Or do we use it as another chance for the first choice XI to get some game time together seeing as we don't have a game at the weekend?

EDIT: Ward is available. The suspension doesn't count for this competition. So he will now miss Bolton (a), Northampton (h) and Reading (a).

Rovers have one name in their squad which will send shivers down the spine of most Town fans. That's 38 year old Billy Sharp, a man with a career goal tally approaching 300, with quite a high percentage of those scored against Huddersfield Town. This is his third spell at the Keepmoat, having had three seasons there from 2009 to 2012 when Rovers were in the Championship.

He was sold to Southampton towards the back end of 2011/12, the season they got relegated and we got promoted. They did come back up as champions of League One though, after a famous win at Griffin Park against Brentford, so we played them for the last time in the league in 2013/14 and even though they got relegated, we still couldn't beat them. And Sharp, who was back there on loan, scored against us.

It's now nine games since we last won against Doncaster Rovers.

Another veteran in their squad is former Wednesday, Coventry and Rotherham defender, Richard Wood. At 39 years old, he's even older than Sharp. Don't know if those two will be playing in this game though. I reckon both Michael Duff and Grant McCann will be making it a chance to revolve their squads and get some minutes in for the reserves.

This match is being broadcast live on the Sky Sports+ channel (Sky 412). It's the main game, so hopefully there'll be none of the problems with poor quality streaming.

And it's a seven o'clock kick off. Don't be late!

Tickets:

Adult - £10
Seniors (65+) - £5
14-24 years - £5
13 and under - £1

All tickets for this fixture are now on general sale, with all sales ending at 2pm on Tuesday 3 September.



A brief history of Huddersfield Town in the EFL Trophy (Part One): Starting out as the Associate Members Cup in 1983/84, Town weren't involved due to us being in the Second Division at the time. Our first entry came after relegation in 1988. We were drawn in Group 5 for the preliminary round and our first ever match in this prestigious tournament came in December of that year, at home to Scunthorpe United. Mick Byrne scored the only goal of the game in front of 2,216 eager supporters at Leeds Road.

Scunny had already lost at home to Halifax Town the week before, so in a three team group, their second defeat meant they were out and we would progress to the next round as the top two in the group went through. So our 1-0 defeat at the Shay a week later was of no significance.

It did mean however that we would have an away tie in the first round proper and when the draw was made, we had the daunting task of a trip to Blundell Park to take on Grimsby Town. Eoin Hand, the Town manager, picked a strong team to take on the Mariners and it turned out to be a magnificent result. We beat them 3-1. Mike Cecere scored in the first half, Craig Maskell in the second half and then a goal from a sub to round things off. That sub was Hand's number two, Peter Withe, rounding off a magnificent career with his last ever professional goal. Not quite as memorable as the one he got to win the European Cup for Aston Villa.

And then we embarrassed ourselves by losing 2-1 at home to Scarborough.

Some more embarrassing scorelines followed in the next couple of seasons. A 3-0 defeat at Rotherham and a 4-1 loss at home to Hartlepool, before we started to go deep into the tournament.

In 1991/92, we reached the northern semi finals. Getting through the group stage with Wigan and Scarborough as opponents, we then faced Blackpool at Leeds Road on a foggy Tuesday night. Town led 1-0 at half time through a Iwan Roberts goal, which nobody saw, because the fog was so thick, the game got abandoned.

A week later, Iwan scored again in the re-match, but the game ended in a 1-1 draw and so went to penalties. This was our first ever penalty shoot out and the first of many that we won. Goalkeeper Tim Clarke was the hero, saving twice, with Mark Wright tucking away the winner to earn us a trip to Gigg Lane to take on Bury.

Another Roberts goal, as well as one from Iffy Onuora gave us a 2-1 win, which then brought us to the area semi. That was away at Burnley, where a crowd of 10,775 turned up. Simon Charlton was dismissed early on, stopping a shot on the line with his hand and we went out 2-0 on the night.

It was another near miss in the next season, getting to the same round and losing at Wigan.

1993/94 was the year we got to Wembley for the first time since 1938. We played Swansea City in the Final of what was by this time known as the Autoglass Trophy. We had another succesful penalty shoot out along the way, beating Preston 5-3 at Leeds Road with Darren Bullock slamming home the winner.

By the time we got to the northern semi final, we had dropped into the relegation zone and there were rumblings about manager Neil Warnock and would he be sacked before the season ended. The Autoglass game at Stockport came shortly after we had been hammered there in the league and optimism wasn't high. However, this match turned out to be the season's turning point. We won 1-0 with an Iain Dunn goal, from an almighty goalmouth scramble.

Such a turning point was this that we set off on an unbeaten league run of eleven games to the end of the season and mid table security. Wily young Warnock got the team up for the best performance of the season in the Northern Final, in the first leg at home to Carlisle. We beat them 4-1, with Bullock and Dunn finding the net again as well as Peter Jackson and Phil Starbuck.

The second leg was one hell of a struggle though and we were two-nil down on the night very early on. We managed to see out the rest of the game though as the ref added on an unbelievable ten minutes of injury time. We won 4-3 on aggregate.

The Final was a bit of a damp squib. Richard Logan scored the equaliser as we drew 1-1, but then came our worst ever penalty shoot out. Only Pat Scully scored as we lost 3-1.

The following season saw a bit of history as Dunny scored the first ever Golden Goal in English football, against Lincoln. We lost at Bury in the quarter final, in what should've been our last ever game in this tinpot trophy, as we ended the season getting promoted.

Part Two to come in the Barnsley thread.......






Head to Head



Town lead the head to head with 20 wins to Donny's 13, with 10 draws.

Those figures include the four times that we have met in this competition, in it's various guises......


1989/90: Preliminary Round Group 5; Town 2-2 Rovers. Town scorers, Mark Smith and Craig Maskell.

1992/93: Round 2; Town 3-0 Rovers. Town scorers, Gary Barnett, Iain Dunn and Kieran O'Regan (pen).

1993/94: Round 1 Group 5; Town 3-1 Rovers. Town scorers, Phil Starbuck and Iain Dunn (2).

2006/07: Round 1 North East; Town 1-2 Rovers. Town scorers. Andy Booth.




Recent form - last six matches:

Rotherham 2-1 Town
Walsall 3-2 Town (EFL Cup)
Town 1-0 Shrewsbury
Town 2-1 Stevenage
Town 3-0 Morecambe (EFL Cup)
Peterborough 0-2 Town

Port Vale 2-3 Donny
Everton 3-0 Donny (EFL Cup)
Donny 1-0 Morecambe
Newport 3-1 Donny
Salford 0-2 Donny (EFL Cup)
Donny 4-1 Accrington

Town are 5th in the League One table with 9 points. Rovers similarly are 5th in League Two also with 9.

There has been one match already in our group with Barnsley losing 3-2 at home to the Manchester United u21s.


Leading scorers:

Terriers:
Ben Wiles (2)
Josh Koroma (2)
Callum Marshall (2)

Rovers:
Luke Molyneux (5)
Billy Sharp (3)


EFL Trophy rules: Who can play? A minimum of four qualifying outfield players in their starting XI. A qualifying outfield player was one who met any of the following requirements:

Any player who started the previous or following first-team fixture.

Any player who is in the top 10 players at the club who has made the most starting appearances in league and domestic cup competitions this season.

Any player with forty or more first-team starting appearances in their career, including International matches.

Any player on loan from a Premier League club or any EFL Category One Academy club.

A club can play any eligible goalkeeper in the competition.

Any player out on a long loan term at a National League, National League North, or National League South team can play as long as the loaning team agree to allow the player to return for the match.

So we could play six lads from the Academy and an Academy goalkeeper, if we wanted to.

Clubs will be awarded three points for a win and one point for a draw.

In the event of a drawn game (after 90 minutes), a penalty shoot-out will be held with the winning team earning an additional point.

The top two teams in each group will progress to the knockout stage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024%E2%80...EFL_Trophy

[jjamez]

Koroma missing Tuesday

[theo_luddite]

How do those rules apply to the Prima Donna League U21'S Snoots as clearly most will not have 4 actual 1st team Prima Donna League players in their U21 squad?

[Lord Snooty]

Maximum of two over 21s.

[Lord Snooty]

Joe Hodge missing as well. Gone off with the Republic of Ireland u21s.

[theo_luddite]

So we're back up to 3 call up's again?

[jjamez]

Making a trip out to Donny. First time there and first game of season

[Lord Snooty]

Town’s team vs Doncaster Rovers

13. Jacob Chapman
3. Josh Ruffels
4. Matty Pearson ©
15. Jaheim Headley
20. Ollie Turton
23. Nigel Lonwijk
25. Danny Ward
28. Tom Iorpenda
34. Cam Ashia
36. Dan Vost
37. Peter Thomas

Substitutes

Lee Nicholls; Lasse Sorensen, Michał Helik, Jonathan Hogg, Ben Wiles, Mickel Miller, Antony Evans

---

Forward Peter Thomas gets the nod in attack. The 20-year-old is no stranger to this competition, having become the youngest ever player to feature in it for former club Rochdale back in 2019 as a 15-year-old. He joined Town this summer, having since studied in the USA.

Cam Ashia, 19, also gets his first Town start tonight. The former Derby County midfielder, who joined our B Team in April, featured for our First Team early in pre-season.

The final debut is handed to 18-year-old midfielder Dan Vost. He is in this third season at the club, having joined from the Everton Academy in 2022.

---

No Billy Sharp in the Rovers line up.

[theo_luddite]

I wasn't paying enough attention so Sharp is still in my list of Donny scorers. Still, listening to Christine McVie and Meetwood Flack can make up for that.

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Doesn't make up for failing to deal with a hoofball though

[Lord Snooty]

Half time. One-nil down. Not good at all.

Iorpenda looks good. Pearson playing well. Everyone else, must do better.

---

Good play from Iorpenda again leads to an equaliser