[Lord Snooty]

So we now have 4 players at the World Cup. Today the question was asked on twitter if we've ever had that many players at a World Cup before.
Well quite frankly, no. Bill McGarry and Ron Staniforth both played for England in the 1954 World Cup and Ray Wilson played in 1962. But those are the only three.
So I posed the question that if England hadn't been so snobby and taken up the invitation to partake in the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930, how many Town players would we have had in that squad, seeing as we were the top team of the day? Well not by this time, but definitely one of the top 6.
Nobody answered, so I've done some research myself. We would definitely had one and if England had come home triumphant, we would've had a Huddersfield Town player as famous as Bobby Moore. This is because our club captain in 1930, Roy Goodall, was also at the time the captain of England.

He went on to play 25 times for England, 12 of them as captain. And don't forget, there weren't as many games played back then. Only 5 England games took place in 1930, as opposed to 10 last year.

In 1928, an England v Scotland match at Wembley featured 5 Huddersfield Town players, 4 of them in the England team. As well as Goodall, there was Billy Smith, Tom Wilson and Bob Kelly, who scored for the home team. Unfortunately for England, the Scots won 5-1 and our other Town player on the pitch, Alex Jackson scored a hattrick for the Tartan Army.
So would those other three have made the World Cup squad two years later? Well Smith still holds our appearance record, 521 games he played in the bright blue and white. But he only played three times for England and that bad day at Wembley was his last. So probably not.
Tommy Wilson was so famous that he even had a waxwork of himself in Madame Tussauds for the 1930 FA Cup Final. But like Smith, not many England caps. That Wembley day was his one and only. So unlikely.
Bob Kelly had the same fate as the others. Despite scoring 8 times in 14 games for England, he never played beyond 1928. So of the Wembley 4, we only have the one going to the 1930 World Cup.
Alf Young was an England regular in the 1930s, but didn't make his debut until 1932. Ken Willingham didn't get his first cap until 1937. Goalkeeper Hugh Turner 1931, so could've possibly been in the squad. There is one Town legend who would definitely have been in the squad. George Brown, our record goal scorer with 159 goals in his Town career was an England regular around the time. However, by 1930, the man who's goals had taken us to three consecutive League Championships had moved on to Aston Villa in 1929 for the princely sum of £5,000.

GEORGE BROWN

So, in conclusion, no. Not even if England had gone to the 1930 World Cup would we have had more Huddersfield Town representation there than we have today.
But crickey! How far have we come on in such a short space of time? And I don't mean from 1930, I mean in the last couple of years. This would be quite unthinkable when the Euro 2106 competition started and we were all giddy about Danny Ward turning out for Wales.
Unbelievable!