Huddersfield Sporting History

Meet your favourite player, get a selfy with them and enjoy a great night

If you weren't the winner of yesterday's 2 free tickets, you can still get some from us.

We have kept the price to just £12 for a standard ticket. Why not grab one, catch up with rugby friends, have a drink, enjoy the opening of the night, the away shirt launch, find out which players have which number as well as enjoying the rest of the things we have planned.

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Standard tickets - £12
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I hope you've all enjoyed the article about the Rorke's Drift test. My book 'Backs to the Wall' covers the early career of Harold Wagstaff, the tour down under and the All Four Trophies season and is available in e-book and paperback on Amazon or you can get a signed copy from myself, just PM me for more info.
I'm off on my jollies tomorrow to, hopefully, warmer and sunnier Lanzarote for a couple of weeks.
Don't forget to let me have your suggestions for more Huddersfield Sporting Heroes. If you let me have a summary of why you have nominated this person (or team) I'll flesh it out into an article. We already have suggestions for Frank Worthington and Maurice Oldroyd. Just pop your suggestion in the comments.

PART 3 GAME ON – OR IS IT?
Whilst the touring team were making hey on and off the field in Bathurst things were happening in Sydney.
The Sydney sporting public had gone rugby mad; they had witnessed their favourites get hammered in the first test, only to see them hit back and win a close game two days later. When the news sank in that the third and final test – the Ashes decider – would not be played in Sydney after all, and was delayed by nearly six weeks, there was consternation, disappointment and outright anger amongst them. The press too, expressed amazement and questioned the wisdom of the decision. The pressure on the New South Wales League was immense. Hardly surprising then that the meeting of the General Committee which took place on the Wednesday evening decided to review the decision. After a long and heated debate what should have been a ‘rubber stamp’ of the Management Committee’s recommendation turned into a reversal of the decision.
News travels fast and a reporter for the National Advocate in Bathurst raised the issue with John Clifford after the game on Thursday. When the reporter told him that the new South Wales League had decided that the Test Match would go ahead on Saturday, Mr Clifford was reported as saying ‘There will be no test match in Sydney on Saturday’. Contacting a colleague in Sydney the reporter relayed Clifford’s response which the colleague then put to none other than the Secretary of the New South Wales League, Mr Larkin. The Secretary’s response was ‘If the Northern Union do not play, they should pack up and go home.’
The situation had reached crisis point so the New South Wales League took the unprecedented step of cabling the committee of the Northern Union in England with, of course, their version of events. By the time Joe Houghton and John Clifford had made their weary way back to Sydney the story was all over the newspapers. The headline in the Sydney Morning Herald read “ENGLISHMEN WONT PLAY – TOO MANY INJURIES”. The entire future of the tour hung in the balance.
The two managers were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Climb down, with the consequential loss of face or stick to their principles and put the entire tour at risk. Not to mention the issues for the long-term relationship with the New South Wales League. Fortunately, the decision was taken out of their hands. Several newspapers were running articles which quoted from a telegram to the Managers from the President of the Northern Union which read “We confidently anticipate that the best traditions of the Northern Union Football will be upheld, and that you will expend every atom of energy and skill you possess to secure victory, failing which you shall lose as sportsmen.”
How the press had got hold of the, supposedly private, telegram is anyone’s guess.
When the managers finally got back to the hotel, they informed the players of the decision to proceed with the match which brought a loud cheer from all the players. To a man they were keen to get on the field and put the Aussies in their place. They received further good news when their captain was declared fit to play.
The confusion and uncertainty over the status of the match probably had an impact on the attendance, along with the poor weather. A dull, grey and wet day greeted the players as they woke that morning. Just what the tourists would have wanted.
Before the team left the hotel, John Clifford called the players into a private room where he delivered what Harold Wagstaff later described as the most moving speech he had ever heard.
‘You are playing a game of football this afternoon but more than that you are playing for England, and more even than that, you are playing for right versus wrong. You will win because you have to win. Don’t forget that message from home, England expects every one of you to do his duty.’
On the short journey to the ground Harold sensed a real determination amongst the players, the normal light-hearted banter was absent and had been replaced by a quiet resolve.
The reduction in spectator numbers wasn’t particularly evident as the players made their way through the noisy, heaving throng of supporters as they approached the ground. Most of the newspapers had the Australians down as favourites, citing the great improvement in their performance in the second test along with the injuries that the Northern Union had sustained to some of their important players.
The sombre mood continued in the tourists dressing room. As Harold made his way to the front of the group in readiness to lead them out, he saw just what effect John Clifford’s speech had had and how every player was inspired by it. Most had clenched their hands into fists, others were fighting back tears; every single one of them was determined to follow the Northern Union’s instructions and expend every atom of energy and skill they possessed to secure victory. Harold smiled an inner smile, confident that these friends and team-mates would not let him down in their pursuit of winning the Ashes.
The Australian team was unchanged whereas the Northern Union had made several changes due to the injury situation. The changes were mainly in the backs where Alf Wood came in for Gwyn Thomas at fullback, Willie Davies replaced Jack Robinson and Stuart Prosser was the replacement for Johnny Rogers. There was one change in the forwards as Chick Johnson replaced Billie Jarman. In the backs Billy Hall was playing his fourth match in eight days.
There was a stony silence in the tunnel as the teams lined up, side by side. Sporting handshakes were exchanged but few words were spoken. The determination of the tourists was plain for all to see as the made their way out onto the Sydney Cricket Ground, the very same ground where they had suffered three defeats, the latest one just five days earlier. Arawa, the correspondent for the Sydney Daily Telegraph, described the entrance of the tourists most lyrically “as the huge English team strode on to the soddened turf, there was hardly a smile amongst them; there was a grim, teeth-set determination, all over them. Just before the start several of them, in the best Irish fashion, spat upon their hands and rubbed them together. There was bound to be some dirty work at the crossroads.”
What happened next is history and is well documented. The finest example of sporting bravery ever seen (in my opinion) as the Northern Union team battled through adversity and, despite losing three players to injury, brought off a most famous victory by 14 points to 6. A performance that motivated one Australian reporter to liken it to the famous defence of Rorke’s Drift in the Zulu war, a legend was born.
The Sydney press as a whole were fulsome in their praise, recognising that every member of the team had excelled but all singled out the England captain for his magnificent display in defence and attack. None were aware of the impact that the motivational speech made by John Clifford had on the team’s performance and the part which it played in bringing home the Ashes.

The picture shows the famous SCG where the Northern Unio had suffered three defeats before their Ashes winning victory.

PART 2 OF THE BUILD UP TO THE RORKES DRIFT TEST
The tour managers kept their word and made sure that the rescheduling of the third test was not leaked to the press. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the NSW league.
The Australian press had pretty much written off the chances of the tourists winning a single test match. They were in for a surprise. The Northern Union 13 finally hit their stride, producing their finest performance of the tour so far. They had scored five tries without reply before the home team got a late, consolation try. Final score 23 – 5 to the touring side.
The victory came at a cost as two of the five Huddersfield players in the side, Fred Longstaff and Stan Moorhouse picked up injuries which would prevent them playing any further part in the Ashes series. Longstaff had landed two penalties including a long range effort from inside his own half. Moorhouse too had enjoyed a fine game scoring twice but injuring himself in the process of scoring his second try. The tourist’s injury list was growing by the match.
Their bad luck with injuries would strike again in the second test, just two short days later.
On the Monday morning after the first test, it was the Aussies who were to be on the receiving end of the local press’s anger. I make no excuse for including here a quote from the Sydney Daily Telegraph: whose headline simply read ‘HUMBLED’.
A party of Englishmen from Lancashire and Yorkshire picnicked at the Agricultural Ground, Moore Park, on Saturday. They went there to ostensibly play a rugby match against the chosen of Australia, but, finding the opposition lamentably weak they gambolled with the virility of delighted schoolboys and when the master called them from their play found they had a credit balance of 23 points to 5. In the light of what happened forty thousand people went home wondering why the score was not 123 points to 5’.
The papers also confirmed that the third test was being put back following representations by the tour managers and this just needed the confirmation of the general committee.
The second test would take place at the Sydney Cricket Ground (known the world over as the SCG) in front of a crowd of 50,000 spectators. Huddersfield’s Johnny Rogers opened the scoring with a couple of penalties followed by a try for Coldrick to stretch the lead to seven points but the Australians hit back to level the scores at half time. Shortly after half-time the tourists injury curse struck again as another winger, Jack Robinson, left the field with a suspected broken collar bone. They would have to play the rest of the game a man short.
The tourists continued to give as good as they got but eventually the home side were able to take advantage of their numerical superiority to score a converted try and end the game victors by 12 points to 7. The series was all square.
In addition to losing Jack Robinson to injury, Waggy had taken a bad knock to the head and was ordered to bed by the doctor suffering from a mild concussion. The tour managers contented themselves with the knowledge that they had six full weeks to get some lads back before the final test would take place. Or so they thought!
Clifford and Houghton turned their attention to assembling a team to take the 200 kilometres journey from Sydney to play Western Districts at Bathurst in dreadful weather. Two of the team, Jarman and Hall, would be playing their third game in 6 days. The team enjoyed a warm welcome as they received a Civic Reception on Thursday morning and repaid their hosts by defying the conditions to run in ten tries in a thrilling display of open rugby. Final score 42 points to 3.
The managers and squad were in cheerful mood as they left Bathurst on Thursday morning. Little did they know that the news that was awaiting them in Sydney would change their mood dramatically. The final part will follow shortly.

The picture below shows the Royal Agricultural Showground, scene of the first test.

The 1914 tour of Australia and New Zealand by the Northern Union (forerunner of the Rugby League) was, in fact, the second such tour which had taken place. Four years earlier the legendary Oldham centre, James Lomas, had led the tourist to a 2-nil victory in the test series. Huddersfield’s representatives on the tour were half back Jim Davies and fullback Jack Bartholomew. Neither player featured in any of the test matches.

The Australians had reversed that score, with one match drawn, when they toured Britain in 1911 and captured the Ashes.
By the time of the 1914 tour the Fartowners had established themselves as the dominant team in the Northern Union and the composition of the tour squad reflected this. The 22 year old Huddersfield captain, Harold Wagstaff, was given the honour of leading the squad alongside team-mates, Douglas Clark, Fred Longstaff, Jack Chilcott, Johnny Rogers and Stan Moorhouse. All of the Huddersfield players would feature in at least one test match on the tour. Wagstaff, Clark and Chilcott played in all three tests.
In addition, Huddersfield’s John Clifford was appointed co-manager alongside Joe Houghton of St Helens. In this article I describe the impact that Clifford had on the test match.
The tour schedule was a demanding one. 17 games in 10 weeks (11 in Australia and 6 in New Zealand) were sandwiched between two six week journeys by ship. 5 matches in in Sydney were interspersed with a long trip up to Queensland where the first test was scheduled to take place on 20th June. On their return to Sydney a game against New South Wales would take place on Saturday 27th June. The second and third tests would then follow in Sydney on 29th June (a public holiday in Australia) and 4th July. A trip to Bathurst to play Western Districts was also squeezed into the schedule and would take place in-between the second and third test on Thursday 2nd July.
If the schedule was demanding the early fixtures were extremely challenging. The hosts didn’t allow the tourists any easy ‘warm up’ games. The first game, on 6th June, was against a team called Metropolis. This was, in effect, the top players in Sydney who made up the majority of the test team. Two days later the opponents were a New South Wales select, when the exact same players faced the tourists.

The Huddersfield contingent hadn’t travelled with the rest of the squad as they had been granted a dispensation to stay on in England to play in the championship play-off against Salford. Consequently Wagstaff and co had only arrived in Sydney a couple of days before the first match. Unsurprisingly the tourist were well beaten in both games and immediately written off as no-hopers by the partisan local press.

The Northern Union had lost a player to injury in the first half of both these games and consequently played the remainder of the matches a man short. In the second game NSW also lost a player to injury but, under a local rule, brought on a substitute to replace the injured player.

Clifford and Houghton had been made aware of this local rule and had telegraphed the Northern Union management committee for permission to apply the rule if one of their players was injured. For some reason their request was turned down to the dismay of the managers and the consternation of the local press. It would not be the only time instructions from home caused frustration for Messrs Houghton and Clifford.

Shortly after their second defeat the team left Sydney on Wednesday evening and wouldn’t arrive in Brisbane until the following evening. It was not a pleasant journey. There was a stop off in Newcastle for a meal before resuming their journey on a night-sleeper train. Not that the lads got much sleep as the train was delayed for several hours as a cow, which had been run over, had to be removed from beneath the train. Things didn’t improve when they reached Warra Garra near the Queensland border to change trains. For the rest of the journey, they would have to endure the violent swaying of their narrow-gauge train. Clearly not a journey to be undertaken lightly.

The players had just one day to practice before their next game against a Queensland select. One can only speculate how today’s pampered professionals would have coped with the demands of the programme.

With just a week before the first test the team finally clicked and ran out worthy winners in a closely fought contest by 18 points to 10. A mid-week fixture followed at Ipswich where the tourists were convincing winners by 45 points to 8. Confidence within the squad was returning just in time for the first test.

By now the Sydney based players should also have been in Brisbane but were nowhere to be seen. With just two days to the first test John Clifford and Joe Houghton arranged to meet the secretary of the Queensland Rugby League, Mr H Sunderland. Rumours had been flying around that the Sydney based players had refused to make the journey and Mr Sunderland confirmed that this was indeed the case. The NSW league had actually informed Queensland RL the previous Saturday that the players would not be travelling. Mr Sunderland explained the delay in going public was because they had hoped to persuade the NSW league to change their mind and honour their commitment. Saturday’s match would be downgraded to a game against a Queensland select and a new date for the missing test would have to be found.

That concludes part 1. In the next part we’ll look at what happened during the week of the test matches.

Looking for a Christmas present for a sport lover? Sales of my book are going well and the feedback has been good. I've sold out my first batch but have another 20 arriving today. You can get e-book or paperback from Amazon or I can supply signed copies £11 each or two for £20 collect from Honley. PM me to arrange.

Attention you programme collectors. As a lad me and my brother were avid programme collectors, as were most of our mates. We used to swap programmes to build up our collection. Nobody could get hold of a Hartlepoole Unitied programme to complete their collection. My brother had the idea of writing to the club and we duly received 4 or 5 programmes. Not only had we won the race to have a full collection but we had some spare ones to trade with our mates. happy days. Anyway back to the present. A friend of mine who's father in law had recently passed away found these three programmes from Town's time in the first division in the early 70's. If you would like them all you need to do is to post here your choice as Town's best player of all time, along with a short description of why you have chosen this player. If we get more than one poster I'll put the names into the hat and draw out a winner. Over to you.

And here is part 2 as promised
The Magic of the FA Cup – Part 2.
In Part 1 we followed Town’s progress to reach the semi-final of the FA Cup for the first time. Their progress had been far from straightforward as they had beaten high riding first division opposition along the way. Liverpool would finish 4th with Newcastle close behind in 8th place.
First division Chelsea and Aston Villa along with second division Bristol City made up the semi-finalists. The draw would pit the two first division sides against each other at Brammall Lane, Sheffield whilst Town would meet their second division rivals Bristol City at Stamford Bridge, the home of Chelsea.
Town’s excellent cup run hadn’t deflected the team from their league duties as they continued their fine form. Spurs were runaway leaders, but the second promotion place had become a two way battle between Town and Birmingham City as the other contenders faded away.
Town, by virtue of their superior position in the league, for once found themselves favourites to triumph over mid-table City. Luck favoured Town as City lost a player to injury in the first half (there were no substitutes in those days) and Town duly ran out 2-1 winners with Sammy Taylor’s brace taking his goal tally in the cup to six.
With the final scheduled to also take place at Stamford Bridge there was a real possibility of a team playing the final at their own ground. A comfortable victory for Villa by 3 -1 ended that possibility. And so it was that Town’s maiden appearance in the final would be against the seasoned cup winners Aston Villa, a side full of players of international standard that had been assembled at the astonishing (at the time) cost of £20,000. The press dubbed the contest one of ‘the aristocrats against the workers’. Could Town pull off one more giant killing act?
Back to league duty and Town continued their good run and duly sealed promotion to division 1 as runners up to Tottenham Hotspur. Victory in the final would make them the first team ever to secure promotion and win the FA Cup in the same season. 24th April 1920 would be the day of destiny.
Across the town at Fartown the rugby club had enjoyed another successful season. With three trophies already ‘in the bag’ they too would face a final on the same day as Town. They would have to do it without five of their star players who had been selected to tour Australia and New Zealand and were already on the boat when the Championship Final was played.
As fate would have it, Town would also go into the match without one of their most important players. Billy Smith their star winger had the misfortune to be suspended following a sending off in the league match at Port Vale. By the time the season was over Town would score 97 league goals with Sammy Taylor breaking the club record with 35, backed up by Jack Swann (19) and Frank Mann (17) and Billy Smith had been the provider in chief.
Smith’s replacement on the left wing was Ernie Islip, a player with plenty of first team experience. Lining up against Town was none other than Clem Stephenson, a player who, in due course would play an integral part in Town colours as the team went from strength to strength.
That the Town’s two professional clubs were playing in finals on the same day didn’t go un-noticed. The Globe, a London based, sporting publication ran a feature on the town’s successful teams. It was also glowing in it’s praise of the way Town’s supporters had rallied to save their club from extinction.
As it happened both teams would go down by the smallest of margins. The Fartowners would be thwarted by a late Hull try to lose by three points to two and Town would take their first division rivals to extra time before losing by a single goal to nil.
The deciding goal scored by Villa was controversial. Eight minutes into extra time Villa took a corner which caused confusion in the Town defence and found it’s way into the Town net. Town players protested that the ball had reached the net without further contact from either side. In 1920 the rules stated that a goal could not be scored direct from a corner. The referee, however, would have none of it and the goal was awarded.
That disputed goal prevented Town from becoming the first team to win the FA Cup and promotion in the same year. The team had done the town proud, as their supporters turned out in their thousands in St George’s Square to cheer the lads on their return.
Here’s an interesting statistic which demonstrates the true scale of the change in the club’s fortunes during this momentous season.
Town’s first six home league games attracted a total of 26,000 spectators at an average of 4,333 per game. Town’s six Fa Cup ties attracted a total of 225,140 spectators for an average of 37,523 per game. What a transformation!
There was no rest for Town after the final as two days later they had a home fixture against Nottingham Forest. With promotion already sealed and their cup final disappointment the players could have been forgiven for taking their foot off the gas. No sir! These lads were made of sterner stuff and Nottingham Forest were defeated 2 – 1. Whilst Lincoln City suffered a similar fate the following Saturday as Town finished the season with a 4 – 2 victory. Completing a winning run in the league with eight successive victories.
My book ‘The Football Miracle – How Huddersfield Town escaped extinction to become England’s leading football team (Part 1)’ is now available on Amazon in e-book or paperback at The Football Miracle: How Huddersfield Town escaped extinction to become England’s leading football team - Part 1 (Huddersfield Town's Football Miracle): Amazon.co.uk: Woodworth, Bryn: 9798864534403: Books
Alternatively I can supply signed copies for £11 each or £20 for two (get one for dad / son).

Well, that's the hols done and dusted for a while. Apologies for the delay in posting my first article but here it comes. I'm doing this in two parts as its quite a long one. The picture I'm using is courtesy of Kirklees Image Archive and shows the squad who performed so well in that years FA Cup.
As the third round draw has just taken place I thought it was a good time to celebrate Town's first appearance in the final.
The magic of the FA Cup.
It’s a phrase we’ve often heard. Sadly, Town’s long suffering fans won’t have felt much of the magic dust in recent years.
These days the FA Cup has lost a lot of it’s supposed magic as the back pages of the newspapers more often than not are taken up by coverage of the Premier League and Champions League, along with the cult of ‘celebrity’ players.
Although Town’s recent record in the FA Cup is, to put it mildly, pretty average, there was a period when Town’s record was far from dismal, but we must go back a hundred years to find it.
Every Town fan will know that the period between 1920 and 1930 was Town’s most successful era. Not only did Town become the first team to win a hat trick of championships but they also made 4 Cup Final appearances including their one and only victory in 1922.
Town’s early involvement in the cup had been disappointing. With the exception of their very first cup tie against Heckmondwike, when they recorded their biggest ever cup victory by 11 goals to nil, their cup form had been pretty poor before the Great War.
When official football re-commenced in August 1919 Town had serious grounds for optimism. They had a manager, Arthur Fairclough, who had previously led Barnsley to glory when they won the FA Cup in 1912. Fairclough had assembled a talented squad prior to the war. With most of those players remaining with Town after the war the outlook was positive.
Nobody could have predicted the extreme highs and lows that the club would experience in the most turbulent season of its young life. At one point in November the club were on the verge of being transferred to the newly formed Leeds United – but that’s a story for another day.
At the start of 1920 the threat of extinction still hung over the club like a dark cloud. Despite this uncertainty the players maintained fine form which had put the club in serious contention for promotion. December had been a busy but successful month with five wins and a draw out of the seven games played.
The first round of the FA Cup (equivalent of the current third round) took place on 10th January and Brentford from the Southern league were brushed aside by 5 goals to 1. The crowd of 10,670 generated club record receipts of £677 bringing welcome funds to the club in their fight for survival.
A much stiffer test awaited the club in round 2 as they were drawn away to Newcastle who were going well in the first division. The last day of January would see Town lying second in the league and through to the third round of the FA Cup for the first time in their history as they overcame their high-flying opponents by a single goal to nil. This was no backs to the wall effort by Town, they were good value for the win and should have scored more goals from the chances they created. With over 46,000 fans packed into St James’s Park there would be more cash for Town from their share of the gate receipts. Things were definitely looking up.
Town were through to the third round of the FA Cup for the first time in their history and their reward was a home tie against another team from the Southern league, Plymouth Argyle. It would prove to be a long and fruitless journey for the men from Devon as Town proved too strong and ran out winners by 3 -1. Earlier in the season Town had struggled to get more than 4,000 to their home matches but the magic of the FA Cup had really caught the imagination of the town’s sporting public and 35,000 were there to witness Town’s victory. Town’s previous record attendance had been shattered.
As cup fever gripped the town the question on the supporters’ lips was ‘how far could we go?’ The cup draw again blessed the club with a home tie but their opponents were the mighty Liverpool, a team who were challenging near the top of the first division. Could another giant killing act be achieved?
The answer was yes! Liverpool led at half time by a single goal, but two goals in a minute by Billy Smith and Sammy Taylor put Town ahead. In front of another record crowd of 47,527 Town held out for a famous victory. The ‘Babes’ (this was Town’s nickname at the time) had made it to the semi-final of the FA Cup.
That concludes part 1. Town’s experience in the semi-final and final will follow in a day or two.

- 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝟏

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