This would ultimately end as Town’s most successful season to date – A momentous league and cup double.
New manager Ritchie Barber was promoted from the reserve set-up and was assisted by club founder and player coach Rob Edwards.
Pre-season training was down at Little Wembley initially on Saturday mornings. For the first three weeks, it was conducted in a heat wave which pushed the players physically to their limits. The first friendly was away at Hade Edge with a 9am Kick Off. Town won convincingly with a mixture of first teamers, reserves and trialists.
A first game midweek home defeat (1-3) to a strong Honley team was one of only three league defeats all season. The match got the go-ahead on the day after the posts at Little Wembley were hastily put up on the day of the game and the pitch raked of grass cuttings by club Chairman Andrew Watson.
Despite a few draws early on, Town then hit form and spent much of the season in second place behind rivals Shelley FC (Reserves) who had throughout the season had always played more games than Town leaving Town with the games in hand to go above them.
Until the signing of goalkeeper Jeremy Travers in the New Year, Rob Edwards kept goal solidly for the club in many games. Jimi Philips and new signing Sean Hazelden were paired at Centre half throughout the season forming a solid partnership. Club captain Paul Jagger provided the legs in midfield in his fourth season at the club. Louis Langfield, who played and scored in the club’s very first game in 2010 was upfront throughout with new signing Adam Sanders, a well-known figure throughout local football.
Town’s home ground was again ‘Little Wembley’, though due to drainage problems in the winter months, Town played three games on the small pitch at Almondbury High School. One of note was the 4-1 victory against Meltham Athletic – Manager Barber coming on as a sub and then getting sent off almost immediately. The ‘off the ball incident’ resulted in a penalty in the last minute from which the visitors scored their solitary goal.
An odd early season home 1-5 defeat to DRAM (who would finish bottom) was followed up a few weeks later with a 5-1 away victory against the same team… well the same club. It appeared that DRAM had played their first (West Riding) team in the game at Holmfirth. Bizarrely though despite the margin of defeat, Town more than matched their opponents and only some lucky goals gave DRAM that margin of victory.
The home 1-1 draw v Kirkheaton is remembered for Town’s total dominance – The visiting gloveman had the game of his life, saving shot after shot to claim a point for his team.
The game in a freezing cold March away at Meltham will be remembered for being played in the most foul wind and rain weather conditions, a 4-2 victory after which Towns player’s sprinted to the changing rooms prompting Manager Barber to comment that ‘That was the fastest you lot have moved all day’!
Goalkeeper Travers, who was borderline hypothermic in the Town goal, conceding one of the goals because he was ‘too cold to dive’.
Reece Nyland had scored one of the goals of the season at Meltham, a belting top corner strike from 25 yards after a storming run from right back.
There was a tense couple of weeks in the spring when a defeat to Cumberworth away and a draw at Home to Meltham left Town with an eight point deficit but with three games in hand on leaders Shelley – Three wins were then required to claw back the gap. These duly arrived as Town won their last five league games to go top and claim the title away to HV Academicals (bizarrely on the pitch next to our own at Little Wembley!). Simon Walsh, who would score a total of 13 goals this season from midfield, claimed the second and ultimately decisive goal in a 4-1 victory. Town were Huddersfield and District Second Division Champions and were presented with the winner’s Shield and medals by Frank Beaumont.
The Sheffield Cup saw Town get to the fourth round (quarter final), losing out to Byron House of Sheffield in a home game played on the ‘bigger pitch’ at Almondbury High school. The two sides were well matched and in a physical game, the visitors clinched it 3-1 AET. The previous rounds had seen easy victories away at Sheffield Banker’s reserves, away at Durkar in Wakefield and Shaw Lane Aquaforce’s under 21 team. Shaw Lane, from Barnsley had beaten our own reserves in the previous round.
At Shaw Lane, their centre midfielder went in on Jagger with a horrendous two footed, over the top tackle, which was fortunate not to do damage to Jagger’s leg. Jagger confronted the lad, as you would after such a bad tackle, with arms raised and their lad gets his ‘second’ red card by slapping Jagger round the face. To our astonishment, the referee also sent Jagger off.
Byron house went on to reach the final, and Town were left to concentrate on another cup competition……
It was the Barlow cup for which the season will be best remembered by those who were lucky enough to be there. A 3-2 post-Christmas win away at Cumberworth (after leading 3-0) and a 3-1 away win at Skelmanthorpe saw Town reach the Semi-final.
The victory at Skelmanthorpe (Town’s 100th competitive game since forming) was particularly sweet after an earlier in the season 1-4 defeat on the same ground. On that day, Town had struggled to cope with Shat’s tactic of a ‘long throw in to the box’ from anywhere in the Town half. By the time the cup game came around, Coach Rob Edwards had organised Town’s defence to
deal with this, their one and only real threat. Adam Sanders scored the third goal from virtually the touchline after the home keeper was found wandering was off his line. The home side took the defeat badly. Many commented that the earlier defeat there in the league was a ‘blessing in disguise’.
The semi-final venue of Shelley FCs ground was a contentious issue as Town’s opponents were to be Shelley themselves, though the game was played on the excellent quality first team pitch and not the reserve pitch that Shelley were used to – although Town had won there 2-1 back in December and had nothing to fear. We were the second semi-final that day – Britannia sports had beaten Scholes in the morning Kick off. There was some miss-communication of our Kick off time, resulting in several players having to call their families and friends to inform them of the earlier-than-thought start time.
Town, on the day were excellent. Just before half time, left back Andrew Standring challenged the tricky Shelley forward who took a tumble in the box – Penalty! Jeremy Travers though saved the penalty. A Sander’s cool finish and then a Dom Harris penalty saw Town reach the Final at the John Smiths Stadium after a tense second period of football played on a warm April’s day. Shelley were lucky to finish with 11 men. Their right back avoided a second yellow after a cynical foul on a charging Sanders – The referee was bold enough to admit afterwards that he had made a mistake.
Having finished their league programme some weeks earlier, a lack of match fitness may have affected Shelley who were no match for Town who had had a consistent weekly fixture since the start of March. This was Town’s third victory over Shelley this season.
Having claimed the title, Town were to play Britannia Sports at the Stadium under the lights. Britannia had finished 5th in the first division and were favourites for the game although were no doubt aware of Town’s championship winning exploits.
Town’s players, in a relaxed mood, gathered at the ‘Rope walk’ pub behind the stand to begin taking in the atmosphere that was building amongst this group of players whom could sense that something special was about to happen. It’s a Barlow Cup Final tradition that players are let into the changing rooms one hour before kick-off – Although at 6.10pm (with a 7pm KO), both teams were still stood outside. Some were beginning to twitch. Veteran Barlow cup finalist Neil Robshaw claimed that he would ‘have a word’ with the stadium officials. Within 30 seconds the door was open. Good old Nelly. Not his last contribution of the night…
Players were free to take pictures inside the stadium but were asked to ‘stay off the grass’.
Town warmed up in front of the ‘away end’, the music pumping out over the tannoy and was pumping up the previously relaxed group of players. Town’s
junior teams provided the ball boys for the game. The pitch, having recently been relayed due to the hammer it receives from Huddersfield’s football and Rugby League teams, was in pristine condition. Had it been a Huddersfield Town game, no doubt the pitch would have been watered to give it a ‘slickness’ that professional players seem to enjoy. Whilst admirable, the grass was bone dry. Many Town players thought it had a ‘sticky’ feel when passing the ball, but were not complaining. We have all played on worse.
Town wore their away kit of white shirts, red shorts and socks, whilst Brittannia lined up in red shirts and black shorts and socks. The HTFC players were treated to new socks for the occasion – The players felt like royalty in the dressing room as manager Barber distributed them around, fresh from the packet.
The game was tense though both teams played some good football in front of over 400 spectators – many of them supporting Town. Midway through the first half, a wild cross field ball by Town right back Reece Nyland put left back Standring in trouble and the Britannia winger nipped in to steal the ball. Standring slid in and fouled the winger resulting in a penalty for Britannia. It was calmly slotted past Travers to give them the lead.
Town just about edged the first half and got an equaliser before half time. Nyland and Walsh combined down the right and a miss-hit shot from the latter found Club legend Louis Langfield, who steadied himself in the box, rounded the defender and slotted home past the despairing dive of the keeper. 1-1 at half time.
The second half belonged to Britannia. Anybody who has seen the highlights package on YOUTUBE will see two things – How Britannia dominated the second half and how Town were resolute in their defending (with a little help from Traver’s right post on three occasions!).
The game was heading for extra time – then it happened. A tired through ball by Standring was too strong for the chasing Sanders and was heading for the Britannia keeper. Thinking that his defender had touched it (and therefore made it a back-pass), the keeper opted not to pick it up and kicked it badly straight down the middle of the pitch. Now way off his line and stranded, the kick had fallen at the feet of Neil Robshaw who took an excellent first touch and lifted the ball from 30 yards into the unguarded net.
The cheer from the main stand was deafening as Robshaw set off down towards the corner flag in celebration, followed by anybody who had enough energy or rush of adrenalin to follow him. A huge pile-on of players from the pitch and off the bench followed including keeper Travers who had sprinted the length of the pitch to stumble onto the top of the heap of ecstatic players – Robshaw later admitting that he was ‘just trying to get his breath back’ at the bottom of the pile.
The goal finished off Brittannia, who tried to launch one more desperate attack down the right but ran out of time. Town, in only their fourth season, had won the cup that all Huddersfield league sides aspired to win - the Barlow Cup. A couple of HTFC players had experienced this final before but for many it was their first appearance at the Stadium, 20 years since the famous (and often copied) ‘banana arches’ were erected. The squad and management received the trophy in the main stand. The Captain was asked to go up last to receive the cup.
Captain Jagger and Town celebrated pitch side and sprayed champagne in the visitors changing room, just as Leicester City had done when clinching promotion to the Premiership with a 2-0 victory over Huddersfield Town three days earlier – The evidence of ‘Champers’ still being on the ceiling.
Town received a share of the gate receipts from the game. The Huddersfield DAILY Examiner reported that the game was ‘not a classic’, but were full of admiration that a second division team had won this cup.
Town’s players returned to the Clothiers Arms in Netherthong, their base for the season to celebrate and take photographs with both hard-earned trophies.
Dom Harris, a pre-season recruit from Newsome would end the season with 29 appearances, one ahead of Sean Hazelden, Jimmy Phillips and Neil Robshaw on 28 each. Hazelden and Philips though started all but one game.
The only game Hazelden missed was away at Kirkheaton on what was a ‘god-awful’ pitch. He was absent to attend the birth of his second child. Louis Langfield, a scorer in the 2-1 victory, dedicated his goal to new-born Tommy, and promised to ‘talk the young lad through the immense finish’ when he is older.
Rob Edwards and his son Kyle played in four games together – Rob in goal and Kyle as a wide midfielder. Kyle scored four goals in four starts.
Louis Langfield with 21 goals and Adam Sanders with 18 had proved an effective ‘big man, average sized man’ partnership up front throughout.
Josh Hobson had a fine season in midfield.
The end of season do was held at Durkar Roods hotel in Meltham.
Player’s player of the year – Jimmi Philips
Managers Player -
Club person of the year – Rebecca Weir (soon to be Barber)
Sean Hazelden