Huddersfield might be back in the big time for the first time in over 40 years, having gained promotion from the Championship via the Playoffs, but they are no strangers to top-flight football; in fact, they were once the greatest side in the country.
Favourites for relegation as the 2016/17 season kicked off, Huddersfield Town sent shockwaves through the footballing world when they beat Reading in a penalty shoot-out at Wembley to secure the most unlikely of victories.
But, despite that fact that there might be few people still around that remember it, this sleeping giant from West Yorkshire once ruled the roost when it came to football under the guidance of the great Herbert Chapman.
In the 1920s Town swept away all before them, winning the FA Cup in 1922 before becoming the first side ever to win three league titles in succession between 1923 and 1926 – a feat only equalled by Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United, but never bettered – and if that wasn’t enough they also finished runners-up twice and reached two more cup finals within a decade.
Chapman will always be synonymous with Arsenal, who would go on to win a hat trick of titles themselves in the 1930s, and where he would be known for his innovative take on tactics, but it was Huddersfield Town where he would enjoy some his greatest success.
Huddersfield were promoted to the top division for the first time in their history in 1920 and Chapman wasted no time in building a side which would go on to dominate the English game landscape for the next decade or so.
He soon set about signing some of the biggest names of the time, like England’s Clem Stephenson, in an effort to build an empire that would challenge the bigger clubs at the time; but it was a young 18-year old who would really grasp his opportunity and George Brown - who was given his chance by Chapman - is still Huddersfield's all time top scorer with 159 goals during his time at the club.
Adopting a style that we now commonly refer to as the counter-attack Chapman set about transforming the way his side played the game, a shift which almost instantly brought success when Town defeated Preston North End 1-0 in the FA Cup final at Stamford Bridge, the last one of the 20th century to not be played at Wembley.
The momentum, and indeed the financial reward, brought about by this cup win allowed Chapman’s men to kick-on and become one the greatest sides of the time. They won their first title in 1924, narrowly squeezing past Cardiff, and retained the championship the following season thanks to a campaign that saw them concede no more than two goals in any one game.
Such glory came at a cost, however, and having won back-to-back league titles Herbert Chapman was eventually persuaded to leave Huddersfield and move south and join Arsenal, but his departure, initially, did little to derail the side which he had built.
The 1925/26 season saw the Terriers win the league by a healthy five points at a time when only two points were awarded for a win and to make it sweeter it was Arsenal, managed by their former boss Chapman, who finished behind them.
Their run of titles finally came to an end in 1927 when they finished runners-up to Newcastle United, while the following season they fell agonisingly short of what would have been the club’s first league and cup double, again finishing as runners-up, this time behind Everton, and losing the cup final to Blackburn.
Another FA Cup final defeat in 1930, this time to Herbert Chapman’s Arsenal, signalled the end of Huddersfield Town’s period of dominance and the years that followed failed to match the dizzy heights that the 1920s had brought with three league titles, two runners-up places and a third place finish in just six seasons.
The club remained a top-flight outfit until after World War Two, but finally dropped out of the First Division in 1952. They did enjoy a brief flirtation with the big time once again in the early 1970s thanks to a team brimming with quality and featuring the likes of Frank Worthington and Alan Gowling, though the revival was short lived.
Huddersfield fans would have to wait another 45 years before they would see their club rub shoulders with the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United again, but whether they can emulate the success achieved in the 1920s by the likes of Chapman, Stephenson and Brown remains to be seen.
