Terriers

FA Cup fourth round day offered matches at Sunderland and Huddersfield and I plumped for the latter as providing a better (if longer) rail connection, a cheap cash at the turnstile ticket deal (£5 for seniors), and novelty value as my previous trip to see The Terriers was to the old Leeds Road ground in 1984; the new John Smiths Stadium is a fine, futuristic sight across the town as the train pulls into the station, and up close, after a twenty minute stroll, it is equally impressive, small but perfectly formed into the hillside with four matching steel-arched stands separated at each corner by three-legged floodlight pylons that resemble HG Wells’ Martians in his War of the Worlds novel, and the crowd are a friendly, enthusiastic lot noteworthy (in a football crowd context) for their complete lack of foul language – only a shame that their team played well but lost 1-0.