With familiar heartbeat of Huddersfield
Steve Francis and Lee Sinnott – they were all great characters and they were driven by manager Warnock (who is still doing a remarkable job with Cardiff City to this day).
It’s fitting that Mick Buxton has been back as a guest of the club this season, because he was another manager who not only drove Town to success in his time at Leeds Road, but he made sure his teams provided magnificent entertainment.
The 1979-80 Fourth Division championship was memorable for all sorts of reasons, not least providing new hope for the club after a decade of struggle.
Ian Robins and Peter Fletcher helped Town rattle in 101 goals with 46 between them, Steve Kindon was like a whirlwind when he arrived as a perfect Christmas present and the dressing room was already packed with big personalities, like Keith Hanvey, Dave Sutton, Brian Stanton, Fred Robinson, Dave Cowling and the magnificent Mally Brown.
Many of those players were still around, along with new heroes like Mark Lillis, when Town won another promotion, in 1982-83 – cementing their place in history but also in the hearts of the fans.
Then you have the 1969-70 team, the club’s last champions of this division and superbly talented – hard, effective and flamboyant all in the same mix.
In front of Terry Poole, Trevor Cherry and Roy Ellam – who still barely misses watching a home game – were rocks of the defence, fullbacks Geoff Hutt and Dennis Clarke uncompromising and then the midfield marauders of Jimmy Nicholson and Jimmy McGill.
Steve Smith, Bobby Hoy, Colin Dobson and Dick Krzywicki provided wide threat and then you had Jimmy Lawson and Frank Worthington up front. It was a recipe for promotion success and no-one who was at Leeds Road on April 14, 1970, to see that team parading the championship trophy after a 3-1 win against Watford will ever forget it.
Delve back even further into the early 1960s and certainly the 50s, there were other muchloved teams – many featuring a core of locallyproduced players and many of those who never moved away from the area after their playing days were over.
Jimmy Glazzard, Vic Metcalfe, Kevin McHale, Don McEvoy, Les Massie and World Cup winner Ray Wilson were among the enduring stars.
It’s impossible to compare elements of each team – how do you rate Booth and Jepson against Worthington and Lawson, or Robins and Fletcher for that matter?
How would Christopher Schindler and Michael Hefele stand up to any of those pairings?
What about Malcolm Brown taking on Chris Lowe, or Tommy Smith belting forward to be confronted by Tommy Cowan?
And maybe some computer wizard could come up with an app to show us Darren Bullock tackling Jonathan Hogg, Aaron Mooy and Co?
It’s a mouthwatering prospect and I’ve only given a flavour of each of those dressing rooms of the past.
But they were all loved, they all played with the heartbeat of Huddersfield – and so are David Wagner’s excellent squad as they stand just one win from the Premier League.