Huddersfield Town come to Cardiff City Stadium tonight with just two losses in their last nine games on the back of an impressive 1-1 draw with Leeds on the weekend which saw them playing for more than half of the match with ten men.
Yet the mad nature of this season’s relegation battle means that it is only goal difference that is keeping them out of the bottom three currently – they are one of four sides on thirty eight points with only the doomed Rotherham below them.
City had their biggest win of the season in the first meeting between the clubs last October, but it’s very hard to see how there will be a repeat of that 4-0 victory tonight given our struggles in front of goal since then and the improvements Huddersfield have made at the back over the last five months.
With Huddersfield up among the highest scorers from set pieces in the Championship, the predictions for tonight I’ve seen have tended to favour a low scoring affair with the likelihood being that any goals scored may well come from set pieces – I find it hard to argue with that.
Here, a bit later than normal, are the usual seven questions on upcoming opponents with the answers to be posted on here tomorrow.
60s. Why were the Huddersfield Town of the sixties of such interest to someone who lived and worked in London, but also had to visit Liverpool often as part of his job?
70s. If this player’s career is remembered now, it has to be for what happened on a March afternoon in the mid seventies. Before that though he had started his career at Huddersfield and one of the relatively few matches he played for them was against City. The fact he played just over twenty league games for Huddersfield did not mean that he struggled to nail down a starting place, it was because his performances were so impressive that they attracted the attention of bigger clubs and he soon made a move from the Terriers to more ferocious animals.
Despite him having done so well at his first club, he was very much an understudy at his new team and it was injury which allowed him into the side for his career defining afternoon around a year after he was signed. His performance that day enhanced his standing, but he didn’t become a regular choice until after a relegation – even then, he eventually lost his starting place and so headed back to Yorkshire having not made it to a hundred league games during his four years at the club. At his new club, he arrived just after a future City manager had left, but he had someone else who would go on to manage us as a team mate for most of the four years he spent with them – again though, he wasn’t in the team week in and week out. His final move saw him returning to his native Lancashire for a season to play for a team that had dropped from First Division to Fourth in a little over a decade – who am I describing?
80s. Plus the male might in other words!
90s. Defender emerges as five wearing mittens riot! (5,7)
00s.His one cap for the Republic of Ireland was gained when he came on as a sub for Robbie Keane. He played for Huddersfield during this decade. He’s recently managed two clubs in the Scottish Premier League in two years and he is currently in charge of a club with ambitions to play at that level. Who is he?
10s.. Follow river.
20s. Bequeath carbuncle?
Answers.
60s. Harold Wilson, who had two periods as Prime Minister in the sixties and seventies, was born in Huddersfield and was a supporter of the local club. Wilson represented the constituency of Huyton in Liverpool for over thirty years.
70s. Gary Pierce played in goal for Huddersfield in a 2-1 win over City in November 1972 before moving to Wolves a few months later. Pierce starred in his new club’s 2-1 win over Manchester City at Wembley in the 1974 League Cup Final and was first choice for most of the 76/77 season when Wolves finished as Second Division Champions. He subsequently moved on to Barnsley where he missed having Neil Warnock as a team mate by a few months, but he often played in the same team as Mick McCarthy. Pierce retired from the full time game after spending the 83/84 season with Blackpool.
80s. Andy May.
90s. Simon Trevitt.
00s.Jim Goodwin, the current manager of Dundee United who has been in charge of St. Mirren and Aberdeen in recent seasons.
10s.. Mark Hudson.
20s. Will Boyle.
