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If I am going to be writing regularly for Terrier Bytes I had better give you some basic information about myself and admit to the Skeleton In My Closet.

I have been a member of Terrier Bytes since July 2001 and have made 500+ posts. I?m retired, 66 last birthday, and have been supporting Huddersfield Town since way back. My main interests these days in addition to Huddersfield Town, are walking my dog, horse racing and TV quizzes. If my quizzing career interests you at all the details can be found at my personal Website which you can get to through the following link:

Peter's Quiz Page

Additionally I will be recording for the new series of ?Judgemental? on 13th July.

I had better warn you that many of the articles will be based on events in my life, (not to mention downright nostalgia!), but I hope that the football reminiscences will have some appeal regardless of the age of the reader.

Now to the Skeleton in the Closet:

I wasn?t born in Huddersfield!

I was actually born in a Northamptonshire village called Irthlingborough , (Try writing that in the space they give you on visa forms and entry permits!). Irthlingborough had a football team in the lower reaches of the various leagues but it was amalgamated a few years ago with that from the neighbouring town. They didn?t call the resulting club Irthlingborough Town but Rushden (Town) and (Irthlingborough) Diamonds who have just leapfrogged Town into the second division.

I moved to Huddersfield as a babe-in-arms just before the start of the war, WWII that is, not the Boer War! I was luckier than most in that my father wasn?t called up, he was a doctor, a GP in the days before the NHS. Actually my father?s occupation probably gives me a greater link with the current population of Huddersfield than if I was born there. When the NHS started in 1948 my father became an obstetrician. If any of your parents were born in the Princess Royal Maternity Home, in Greenhead Road, between 1946 and 1951 then my dad was probably involved somewhere along the line.

The War? Well I only really became aware of it around 1943. What was it like? If you watched ?The 1940?s House? or even ?Goodnight Sweetheart? you have a reasonable idea of what it was like in Huddersfield, some scares, lots of air raid warnings but nothing major.

Proper football restarted in 1946 and one of the first matches I remember going to was The International!

England 8 Netherlands 2

The International because as far as I am aware it was the only one ever played at Leed?s Road. Incidentally although the Official record attendance at Leeds Road was 67,000, for a cup tie against Arsenal, it is rumoured that well over 70,000, if not 80,000, were at this match. As well as kids being passed over the turnstiles, normal practice then, they managed to squeeze many returning servicemen through two at a time.

I must be honest and tell you that I don?t have many memories of specific Town matches from those days only of players and incidents. I am sure, all the same, that I have enough material for quite a few articles as long as you are interested.

As BB has said, in another post, 1946 was only 18 years since we had won the league three years running, and been runner-up the next two years. It was only two Cup Finals back that we had lost 1-0 to Preston North End in extra time. Having football back gave a buzz to the Town like no other. As a little lad growing up it certainly affected me. Over the next little while I hope you will let me tell you more about football in those days. There were major differences between then and now which I look forward to telling you about but I?m not going to claim it was any better or worse then compared with now.