With our dear neighbours from Huddersfield Town coming to visit us on Saturday, it’s time to educate ourselves about their beautiful home town.
The area was first settled over 4,000 years ago and a Roman fort was built at Slack near Outlane, west of the town. A market was established in Huddersfield in saxon times, but then bugger all happened for the next thousand years.
There was trouble at t’mill in the early 19th century, as many local weavers faced losing their livelihood due to the introduction of machinery in factories, which would have condemned them to poverty or starvation. Luddites began destroying mills and machinery and one of the most notorious attacks was on Cartwright (a mill-owner with a reputation for cruelty) and his Rawfords Mill. It took an army platoon of a thousand soldiers to quell the rioting.
Huddersfield has the third highest number of listed buildings of any town or city in the UK and the most conspicuous landmark is the Victoria Tower on Castle Hill
One of the Grade I listed buildings is Huddersfield railway station, which was described by John Betjeman as 'the most splendid station facade in England' second only to St Pancras, London. That seems a bit over the top, but it has got two decent real ale pubs The Head of Steam and The King's Head.
In front of the station is a statue to commemorate Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who was born in Huddersfield and supported of Huddersfield Town, but never served the town as MP.
Other famous people from Huddersfield include Roy Castle (fondly remembered by my generation as the presenter of the TV show ‘record breakers’) actor James Mason and Zöe Lucker, who played Tanya Turner in the ITV Drama Footballers' Wives, including the episode when she got her tits out.
The town was the birthplace of Rugby League. In 1895, a decree by the RFU banning the playing of rugby at grounds where entrance fees were charged led to twenty-two clubs meeting at the George Hotel, on 29 August of that year and forming the "Northern Rugby Football Union”.
On Christmas Day 1977, the Sex Pistols played their last two British shows, a matinee for the children of striking firefighters, at Ivanhoe's nightclub, before embarking on their ill-fated US tour which saw the group's acrimonious collapse.
But Huddersfield’s main claim to fame in the 1970s was that it was mentioned by some laughing robots in the classic advert for ‘Smash’, a fairly horrible brand of instant mashed potato.
According to the 2001 Census Huddersfield was the 10th largest town in the UK, but when the Huddersfield Daily Examiner held an unofficial referendum as to whether they should apply for city status, the consensus of opinion was that the townsfolk couldn’t be arsed. So the council didn’t apply for city status in either the 2000 or 2002 competitions. I could say this is because the people of Huddersfield know their place, but that would be unkind.Huddersfield Town F.C. were formed in 1908, but In November 1919 their chairman John Hilton Crowther offered to amalgamate them with the newly formed Leeds United, without consulting his fellow Hudderfield directors. He was motivated by the poor gates Huddersfield had been getting and thought Leeds had far more potential, but Huddersfield folk woke up and started a fund-raising campaign was to avoid a move to Leeds. Citizens of Huddersfield were asked to buy shares in the club for £1 each, and the club staved off the proposed merger, so Crowther moved out and became chairman of our great club instead.
In the 1920s the Terriers became the first club to win three successive league titles, a feat only three other clubs have matched. But they haven’t won the league since, and when the Huddersfield Town scoreboard shows footage of their greatest triumphs before matches they are all in grainy black and white.
A Huddersfield Town calendar took pride of place on the wall of the Sid’s café in ‘Last of the Summer Wine’.