HOPE ON PARADE
‘No limits’ is mantra for Town, even if their ambition is survival
ForMer Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was so fond of Huddersfield Town he used to carry a photograph of the 1922 FA Cup-winning team in his inside pocket.
so he would have been pleased to know that the square that hosts his statue was once more alive with Terrier blue and white late yesterday afternoon.
st george’s square — the handsome landmark outside Huddersfield railway station — is not unaccustomed to victory parades. When Herbert Chapman’s team were winning three division one titles in a row between 1924 and 1926, they might as well have left the bunting up. There hasn’t been a party for a while, though, and that is probably why Wilson’s statue wore its own Huddersfield scarf yesterday along with pretty much everyone and everything else.
The estate agents over the road from the destination of the bus carrying david Wagner and his team through town had changed its window display in tribute to Monday’s Championship play-off winners. The giant cactus outside gringo’s Mexican smokehouse on nearby Viaduct street wore a full Huddersfield strip.
Meanwhile, the imposing st george’s Hotel that sits on one side of the square had its front door obscured by a huge Huddersfield Town flag. Fitting, given that the hotel is widely accepted as the founding place of the town’s rival sport, rugby league.
The two sports sit side by side in this part of Yorkshire. They share a stadium — they always have — and some townsfolk go to both. But this is a week to celebrate the football as Huddersfield, remarkably, prepare to play in the top flight for the first time since the early 1970s.
‘i didn’t think i would see this,’ said James Holbake, a gentleman in his 70s sitting on a bench in the early afternoon sunshine. ‘i thought the Premier League was a place where the rich and famous play, not a team from Huddersfield. i remember when we were a decent team in the 1970s. i used to go then to Leeds road and i preferred it there. But i still go now.
‘i must admit i thought those memories would be as good as it got for me.’
Visitors next season to Huddersfield’ss rela-relatively modern stadium down the hillhill from town by thehe river Colne e should make the effort to walk 300 yards round the corner to where the great Town teams of the 1920s and beyond used to play.
Most clubs leave eave nothing behindd when they move but HuddersHuddersfield happily have. A simple plaque in the middle of the B&Q car park on Leeds road marks the centre spot of the stadium designed by Archibald Leitch, where Chapman and then Bill shankly managed and players such as england stars ray Wilson and Frank Worthington and scotland’s denis Law all played.
When Law was sold to Manchester City in 1960 for a British record fee of £55,000, Huddersfield spent the money on new floodlights.
occasionally, the plaque gets stolen but it always seems to come back. if you stand — or park — next to it, you can just about see the floodlights of the new place above the rroof of the Argos ssuperstore. Next season MaManchester United,ted, Arsenal and LiverpLiverpool — the only other cluclubs to win three league titles on the spin — will come as Huddersfield become the latest small-town team to have a spin on the Premier League’s wheel of fortune.
This is a town that does history very well indeed but thanks to Wagner’s management and the foresight of owner/chairman dean Hoyle, Huddersfield can at least dream of a bright future too.
Yesterday, it started to rain as the team bus wound up from the stadium towards st george’s square. A police helicopter reminded us of changed times. Currently, fun and celebration require some attendant steel.
But after Arsenal and Chelsea understandably cancelled victory parades following recent successes, this was one party that was always going to go ahead.
Huddersfield MP Barry sheerman said: ‘This will only add to the attractiveness of the town.
‘We have Yorkshire’s only Premier League football team. What an amazing opportunity.’
it is wrong to say that a spell in the Premier League can transform a town’s fortunes. Ask people in Hull whether the football or the UK City of Culture label has done most for them this year and few will talk with any pride about events at the KCoM stadium.
But promotion does present this part of Yorkshire with an opportunity for betterment and that is the beauty of it.
Yesterday the team bus carried the phrase #NoLiMiTs in banner letters. it has been Wagner’s recent message, players even wearing it on special wristbands in Monday’s penalty shootout defeat of reading.
‘When a coach comes up with something like that, it makes you believe in him,’ said Chris schindler, scorer of the winning penalty.
There are limits, of course, even with an estimated £200million promotion windfall. Manchester City have spent almost £80m on two players over the last few days compared to the approximate £15.5m Huddersfield have spent in the eight years of Hoyle’s ownership.
But Huddersfield are not going into the top division to compete with clubs like City. Their initial ambition will be survival and the landscape of battle will involve clubs like Burnley, swansea and Bournemouth, three who have shown that it can indeed be done.
in Arthur Hopcroft’s acclaimed 1968 book The Football Man, he argued clubs ‘like Huddersfield’ should concentrate ‘ on astute, meagre buying’ rather than ‘heavy dealing’ in transfers and that probably remains true 49 years on.
But it was Chapman who said during his time in Yorkshire that a club ‘should never be satisfied’ and should ‘ always attempt to improve’.
one imagines that would be advice more to Wagner’s liking. Yesterday the crowds were encouraged to chant ‘ Danke schön’ to their manager as he addressed them by the station. For once he looked almost bashful.
down at the stadium, meanwhile, a sign at the entrance to the car park reads ‘Almost There’. it looks a bit strange. Huddersfield are there. For now, at least.