[Lord Snooty]

Huddersfield Town v Sheffield Wednesday
The Sky Bet Championship
Saturday February 3rd - 15:00 ko
at the Town Ground

Huddersfield Town welcome Sheffield Wednesday to the John Smith's Stadium on Saturday afternoon for what would've been a reunion for Darren Moore with the team he got promoted last season, but now obviously won't.

Will we have a new manager in place in time for kick off? I doubt it very much, but we shall see. Young Jonny Worthington has been given the responsibility of doing the caretaker's job for the time being. Kevin Nagle, speaking on his Town Diaries video on Tuesday said that we had a small list of names to interview, which has since extended to a list of about twelve. So very doubtful there'll be a new man in charge for next Saturday, never mind this one.

So who has Jonny got to pick from this week? Well Yuta Nakayama won't be returning to the side any time now. He's still away with Japan in the Asian Cup and his team have now reached the semi finals. The club have recalled Kevin Kalvin Kieran Phillips from his loan at Shrewsbury, but that's just because he's been injured since October and needs some company. He'll have plenty of that down at the Millers Oils High Performance Complex physio's room.

So we've brought back an injured striker and sent another one out on loan. Hightower, aka Kyle Hudlin, has gone on loan to Burton Albion. That's got to be a bad bit of business. What if the new manager is desperate to play a ten foot tall attacker?

On a more serious note though, we are all waiting with baited breath for news on the Blue & White Foundation Player of the Month for January, Michal Helik. He limped off on Sunday at QPR in what looked like a something and nothing knock that could well be easily walked off by full time. Until our physio team get hold of him and make it a season ending injury.

As for the Owls, well they had a 0-0 draw at home to Watford on Wednesday night which moved them to within five points of us. QPR, who could catch us on Saturday, are away at Blackburn.





Head to Head



Town lead the head to head with 25 wins to Wendy's 21, with 18 draws.

This fixture has to be one of the most boring head to heads in the footballing calendar with this century alone having 7 (seven) goal less draws. There have only been nine altogether though, suggesting that the borefest is a recent thing.

The fixture played at Hillsborough earlier this season was the latest in this scoreless sequence. And the one before that was as well, a League Cup tie which we won on penalties through new hero Lee Nicholls.

The first goal less draw was way back in the 1928/29 season at Leeds Road in a First Division game. A crowd of 32,555 turned up for this one as Town's keeper Hugh Turner kept the Wednesday's leading scorer, Jack Allen off the score sheet. Hugh played in every game for Town that season, which included getting to the FA Cup semi finals. He went on to make 394 appearances for the club (7th in the all time apps list), as well as winning two England caps. The Wednesday won the title that season.

The next total shut out didn't come until 1983/84 with Brian Cox in the Town goal. I went to this one at their place. The official attendance was 27,824. It seemed like most of them were in the Leppings Lane end with us. Absolutely jam packed it was and with a massive fence at either side of us, in hindsight it was a recipe for disaster. 

The next nil-niller was a "let's all meet up in the year 2000" at the McAlpine Stadium. The 30th of December with Nico Vaesen in goal for Town and Kevin Pressman in the recently relegated Owls' goal. This was followed twelve years later in another Twixtmas match at the same venue after we had both been promoted to the Championship. Alex Smithies and Chris Kirkland keeping the sheets clean that day, as the likes of Michail Antonio, Jermaine Beckford and Simon Church all forgot to bring their shooting boots.

Joe Murphy was in the Town goal for the next match to not register on the scoresheet. That was just one of the fourteen matches he played for us. It was in November 2014 and the Owls had Keiren Westwood in between the sticks. And he was still in there for the next one in this boring series, the 2017 Play Off semi final first leg. We had another lesser used goalkeeper in for this one. Danny Ward famously kept goal in the 2nd leg, but he'd been sent off in the final game of the regular season, so young Joel Coleman it was who played in this one.

So we went up and they stayed down, but it wasn't long before we met again and had a goal less draw at Hillsborough in the Championship during the lockdown of 2020. Played in July of that year, Jonas Lossl and Joe Wildsmith had the gloves that day.

And then came the two matches that I mentioned earlier with Town winning another shoot out down in Owlerton and then in October this season with Darren Moore at the helm of what has been described as the most tedious game of football ever.

So what's going on down at the Massive? Managed nowadays by Danny Röhl, a 34 year old German in his first management röhl.

He played his whole career as a defender in the German lower leagues before starting in coaching jobs at RB Leipzig, then at Southampton, Bayern Munich, and as assistant manager of the German national team.

In October 2023, he was given the job at the Wendyhouse, taking over from Darren Moore. Sensibly he brought in experience to help him. That was ex Town manager Chris Powell, who has come in as his assistant.

Wednesday's Wednesday night line up at home to Watford:

26 James Beadle - 19 year old goalie on loan from Brighton.
14 Pol Valentín - Spanish full back signed in the summer.
17 Di'Shon Bernard - ex Man Utd centre back signed in the summer.
23 Akin Famewo - Ex Luton, Norwich and Charlton centre back.
18 Marvin Johnson - Ex Kidderminster winger.
2 Liam Palmer - Defender and advocate for Show Racism the Red Card.
10 Barry Bannanaman - Club captain, ex Villa and Palace. Too good for this lot.
45 Anthony Musaba - Dutch winger signed in the summer.
11 Josh Windass - Ex Town Academy, son of a Bradford legend.
41 Djeidi Gassama - French winger signed from PSG in the summer.
12 Iké Ugbo - Ex Chelsea Academy lad, on loan from Troyes.

Subs:
4 Will Vaulks - Welsh international midfielder.
7 Mallik Wilks - Ex Leeds, Barnsley and Hull winger.
20 Michael Ihiekwe - Ex Tranmere and Rotherham centre back.
24 Michael Smith - Ex Bury and Rotherham striker.
25 Guilherme Leal Siqueira - 19 year old Brazilian defender.
33 Reece James - Chelsea and England Ex Town full back.
42 Bailey Cadamarteri - 18 year old son of a Town (and Bradford) legend.
44 Mohamed Diaby - French midfielder on loan from Portimonense.
47 Pierce Charles - 18 year old goalie, played in the Cup last week.



Recent form - last 6 matches:

QPR 1-1 Town
Blackburn 1-1 Town
Town 1-1 Plymouth
Man City 5-0 Town (FA Cup)
Leicester 4-1 Town
Town 1-2 Boro

Sheff Wed 0-0 Watford
Sheff Wed 1-1 Coventry (FA Cup)
Sheff Wed 1-2 Coventry
Southampton 4-0 Sheff Wed
Sheff Wed 4-0 Cardiff (FA Cup)
Sheff Wed 3-1Hull


Town are 21st in the Championship table with 28 points. Wednesday are 23rd with 23.

Leading scorers:

Terriers:
Michal Helik (8)
Delano Burgzorg (6)

T'Owels:
Anthony Musaba (5)
Josh Windass (4)


Sheffield Wednesday in popular culture: They have been in the news twice this season. Once for a couple of their supporters (pricks) taunting the Sunderland fans with images of Bradley Lowery, the boy who died of cancer aged six, in 2017. That dopey pillock got a five year banning order as well as a 12 week suspended prison sentence.

Then just the other week, another of their brainless morons taunted ex Town hero Kasey Palmer with a racist gesture. A man has since been arrested and released on bail, with South Yorkshire Police saying; "We do not tolerate hate crime or disorder."

So SYP must've been surprised then when Coventry came back to Hillsborough the following week for an FA Cup match and were booed loudly when they took the knee before kick off.

But as we know, these burkes are just a small minority. Let's have a look at some of the Owls' celebrity supporters. The most famous one of course is the former England cricket captain, no not Joe Root, he's a Blade. No it's the man who won back the Ashes in 2005, Michael Vaughan. Another racist!                 

Oh I give up. Have some music........







There is hope for the future though. There was one young Wednesday fan who spent his pocket money on buying a hamper of sweets to give to our Kasey, which he did before kick off at the Cup game and before the neanderthals started booing.

He's an eleven year old lad called Cole and he's been invited to the replay by Coventry and their fans are going to give him a pre match round of applause. In't that nice.

[Lord Snooty]

JW says Helik will be assessed in the morning.

So that'll be play him and make it worse or he'll be getting assessed this week, next week and the week after before they decide he needs an operation.

How many times have we seen this script?

[Lord Snooty]

Anne Hough has gone now. Thirty years in the job and just a cursory thank you from Jake the snake.

Is she taking the blame for Darren Moore's appointment?

[Amelia Chaffinch]

She's probably had enough of them.

[Lord Snooty]

Just seen the stat that this game will be the 100th Town match played with a caretaker manager.

Might have a study of the results later.

[theo_luddite]

Anne Hough has gone now. Thirty years in the job and just a cursory thank you from Jake the snake.

Is she taking the blame for Darren Moore's appointment?

When someone who has been a major part of the heartbeat of the club for all these years, and one of the most respected women, nay, people, in the game, it makes you wonder what the hell is going on behind the scenes. Cut her anywhere and she bleeds Hudderfield Town.

A thoroughly nice woman who I had the pleasure of meeting a few years ago when I questioned Town's early bird Season Ticket policy, which was basically bullying fans into buying early (like February or maybe March I think that season) or pay a small fortune extra if you didn't, and that was just renewals, let alone newbies. One of Deano's dickheads was behind that policy.

I hope she's not been bullied into leaving and she's succesful in whatever she moves into (she will be without a doubt).

[jjamez]

Some sites reporting that we've approached John Eustace


I really hope not

[theo_luddite]

For Ann's job?

[Lord Snooty]

Have to say, it doesn't reflect well on the club. No announcement that she'd be leaving at the end of the season or she's leaving for personal reasons.

No. Just a statement saying she's gone, as of now.

I hope the reason she's leaving isn't because she's heard Ian Holloway is the new manager.

[theo_luddite]

I'd have thought she'd have stayed to at least welcome him with a frying pan applied to the nasal point of the fizzog if he was. In true Tom and Jerry style obvs, with an anvil above the players tunnel to follow in Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote style of course. What else would he deserve?