[Lord Snooty]

Wigan Athletic v Huddersfield Town
Sky Bet League One
Wednesday January 1st - 15:00 ko
at Springfield Park




AND THEN

Huddersfield Town v Rotherham United
Sky Bet League One
Saturday January 4th - 15:00 ko
at Leeds Road

Huddersfield Town travel to Wigan on New Years Day and then welcome Rotherham United to the Town Ground on Sunday afternoon.

Unlike Boxing Day where we have a very good recent record, New Year's Day hasn't been a very good day for the Terriers over the last few years. We haven't won this fixture since 2017, the promotion season, when we won 1-0 at Wigan with a late goal from Nahki Wells to win 1-0. That was on January the 2nd though. We haven't actually won on the actual 1st of January since 1997, a 2-1 home win against Stoke City when Brian Horton was in charge. Lee Makel and Rob Edwards with our goals that day.

The Wigan game is on Sky Sports+ but if you fancy a last minute decision to go, there will be pay on the day. It's cash only and you have to get a ticket from the ticket office and according to the Town website, there aren't many left. Twenty-six quid if you're interested.


Head to Head



Town lead the head to head with 14 wins to Wigan's 11, with 8 draws.

It was only last month that we beat them at our place, with Ollie Turton, the Ginger Cafu scoring the only goal of the game.







So what's going on down the Wigan Casino? Still managed by Shaun Maloney, the whiney wee toss pot.

Wigan profiles:

James Carragher is a 22 year old centre back, who came through the Liverpool Academy, the club where his dad played for many a year. He joined Wigan in 2017 but having made his debut in 2018 in an EFL Cup tie against Hull City, he's only just made his next appearances this season. That's because he's been out on loan at far flung places like Oldham Athletic and Inverness Caledonian Thistle. The spell in the Highlands coming at a turbulent time for Caley and by the end of the season, Jamie's lad had a relegation on his CV.

The old place: Just like Leeds Road, Springfield Park was dismantled and built over straight after the last game there. All we have now are pictures. Have a look around the old place here......





Recent form - last 6 matches:

Town 1-1 Burton
Town 1-0 Stockport
Cambridge 0-4 Town
Town 2-2 Lincoln
Bolton 3-1 Town (EFL Trophy)
Mansfield 1-2 Town


Wrexham 2-1 Wigan
Rotherham 0-1 Wigan
Wigan 2-2 Shrewsbury
Bolton 0-2 Wigan
Chesterfield 3-2 Wigan (EFL Trophy)
Wigan 0-2 Leyton Orient

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Head to Head



Town are miles ahead in the head to head with 33 wins to Rotherham's 12, with 18 draws.

It was the Merry Millers who came out on top back in August though. New loanee signing Joe Hodge came off the bench to score an equaliser, but the referee gave a late penalty to them as we all came to realise that Championship officials weren't all that bad after all.

So what's going on down in New York, New York? Managed nowadays by Steve Evans, the ex Leeds United manager.

He's been pretty high profile over the years, so there's not much else to say about him. His assistant however, is an ex Town player who has been his number two for donkey's years, ever since 2004 when they came together at Boston United.

He's Paul Raynor and joined Huddersfield Town in the summer of 1985 as an attacking midfielder from Nottingham Forest. He was only 19 when he signed, having been given his Football League debut by Brian Clough. It was Mick Buxton who took him on and furthered his career, although he had to be content with a place on the subs bench to start with. That was in a time when we only had one sub and he came off the bench to score his first Town goal in a 3-3 draw with Carlisle United at Leeds Road, replacing the injured Phil Wilson. Later in the season, he scored twice in a 3-1 win at home to Sheffield United.

He scored twice in a remarkable game in the next season, a 5-4 home win against Oldham Athletic (another one I missed). It wasn't long before he was off though with a transfer to Swansea City in January 1987, where he would go on to have the longest spell of his career, with over 150 appearances. His last appearance in the bright blue n white was again from the subs bench, replacing Julian Winter in an FA Cup replay at home to Norwich City, a game we lost 4-2.

After Swansea, he played for Cambridge United, Preston North End and Leyton Orient, as well as a few months playing in China, before taking a ten year tenure in non league football. This included a player/manager's role at Hednesford Town before he went to Boston and teamed up with Evans. He was still playing at Crawley Town as assistant manager, aged 42, before hanging up his boots as the pair of them moved into the Football League with Rotherham United in 2012.

Raynor then followed Evans around the highs and lows of the EFL, firstly at the Champions of Europe, Leeds United in 2015. Then on to Mansfield Town, Peterborough United, Gillingham and Stevenage, before returning to Rotherham towards the back end of last season.

The old place: Millmoor, unlike Leeds Road and Springfield Park, wasn't demolished immediately. It wasn't demolished at all. It's still there and is now back in use for youth and women's football. Here's a tour by drone of the old place, which shows how close it is to the new place.......






Recent form - last 6 matches:

Lincoln v Rotherham (Jan 1st)
Rotherham 1-1 Stockport
Rotherham 0-1 Wigan
Mansfield 1-0 Rotherham
Rotherham 3-0 Northampton
Rotherham 3-2 Tranmere (EFL Trophy)


Town are 4th in the League One table with 43 points. Wigan are 16th with 27. Whereas Rotherham are 17th with 24 points.

[theo_luddite]

Nice one Snoots.

I remember standing/slipping and a sliding on that muddy bank one particularly wet Wednesday (or was it Tuesday?) evening and wondering why the f*** don't these idiots share the rugby ground with Wigan RLFC? They've got proper roofs on the stands and proper terracing underneath them. Someone with a vision and a dodgy leg injury must have read my mind.

They could only have improved it by putting a Speedway track inside it. The shale/concrete dust coming over the fence would have held the mud together a bit better. Well, it worked at The Shay.

[WakeyTerrier]

Game is off due to localised flooding. Blessing in disguise if you ask me, it gives us time to work on getting some of the injured players back and hopefully time for any new signings to bed in a little bit more

[theo_luddite]

Access to the area is severely restricted, with many routes closed, and the emergency services are "unable to provide resources to support the matchday operation", a statement on the Wigan website said.

The lack of coordination of the local traffic lights do that every matchday anyway.

Glad I didn't buy a train ticket then

Millmoor rejuvenated? You mean they've scraped up all the dog and cat sh!t from that back alley and painted proper lines in the car park?

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Apparently there's also a yellow snow warning for England over the weekend.

I've seen skiers in The Rockies and the Coastal Mountain Range (and been one) take great care in turning parts of the snow yellow around the tree line at the edge of the piste. Apparently they aren't needed over here. So it's already yellow when it lands then? Who knew?

[jjamez]

Do we think we will have anyone new in before the weekend? Taylor came on for Luton today, got 6 minutes to prove himself which considering how Luton have been doing seems a bit stupid

[Lord Snooty]

There's rumours online that the Luton boss is getting sacked in the morning.

Would that scupper our plans to sign Taylor or is it like at Town and the head coach has no say in these things?

[theo_luddite]

Shirley the new boss, if ever they find one, would want to assess his skwad first?

[WakeyTerrier]

Danny Ward out for the season, he’s done his cruciate ligament according to Duff man

[jjamez]

That's him as good as finished then

[theo_luddite]

Woudn't put it past someone to offer him another 12 months though I would rather it was someone in League Two or the National League.