jerrytumblr
Jerry Hinnen's personalish ditherings
Why the hell I care about Huddersfield Town
Ultimately, it’s John Thorrington’s fault. Or his agent’s.
Thorrington’s a familiar name for MLS fans. The current LAFC general manager, he played eight injury-hampered years in the league between 2005 and 2013, spending time with the Fire, Whitecaps and DC United. But long-in-the-tooth USMNT fans will also remember him as one of the US’s most promising young players in the late-’90s – a youth player for Manchester United and Bayer Leverkusen, a key member of the U23 squad that qualified for Sydney 2000, a lock for that Olympic roster before suffering a poorly-timed hamstring injury. He elected to stay in Europe after failing to break through with Leverkusen, signing in 2001 with a third-tier English side named Huddersfield Town.
A born-and-raised Alabamian who’d yet to establish permanent residence outside the state (and wouldn’t move further afield than Atlanta for another five years), I had never heard of Huddersfield Town. But like any American playing in Europe in the early Aughts, Thorrington’s exploits were watched closely by us Internet-dwelling USMNT diehards. Which is why someone on SoccerAmerica’s primordial message board posted a link to this “cartoon match report” featuring Thorrington, from a site called “HTFC-World.” Which is where I saw it. Which is how I wound spending hours upon hours upon hours of my grad school tenure reading and re-reading the HTFC-World archives. Which is how I almost perished from laughter on occasion.
Three years of HTFC-World exposure is how I wound up spending a lazy Monday morning in May 2004 listening to a BBC radio stream of Huddersfield taking on Mansfield Town in the League Two playoff final. That’s how I heard the Terriers win promotion back to the third tier in a penalty shootout, and more importantly, how I realized I wanted Huddersfield to promotion back to the third tier, wanted it in a way I’d never wanted something for any soccer team other the USMNT. They felt like my club – or as close to “my club” as a club I’d never seen playing in a league I couldn’t watch for a city I’d never visited could be.
The attachment shouldn’t have stuck. I don’t have a logical explanation for why it stuck. But through hundreds of weekend checks of League One scoreboards, a precious handful of FA Cup appearances on US TV, the treasured Christmas gift of a Toffs Huddersfield throwback, stuck it did.
Unfortunately, an attachment to a team I could actually watch play once every three years could only feel so strong. There have been moments in the “NBC shows every Premier League game every week” era where I’ve let myself be envious of American soccer fans who – as any normal, rational person would – have chosen steady top-tier clubs to support. But promotion to the Championship helped. (Here’s my first-ever tweet acknowledging my HTFC support, on the day they beat Sheffield United in penalties for promotion from League One. Good times!) BeIn Sports helped sometimes. Paying for the club’s radio stream has helped even more. And now, finally, a Premier League promotion push – meaning that just as I’m enjoying greater access to Huddersfield’s games than ever before, the stakes are higher than ever before. I’d rather have not had to download Silverlight (!!!) for Internet Explorer (!!!) to watch the stream of the Terriers’ playoff survival at Sheffield Wednesday 11 days ago, but I doubt I’d have pounded my desk any harder at Town’s goal or screamed any louder at Danny Ward’s saves if I’d been watching on TV.
The irony here is that for a long, long while, I dreamed of Huddersfield playing in the Premier League not just because I wanted Huddersfield to play in the Premier League, but because Huddersfield playing in the Premier League meant at least one season of being a normal soccer fan who has a club and watches his or club play every week. I grew up hundreds and hundreds of miles from the nearest MLS team, then fell in love with an English team that spent 11 years in the third tier (or worse). Normal Soccer Fan Who Has a Club is not an experience I’ve ever had, and for years, I thought Town would have to make the PL for me to have it. So it was quite the pleasant surprise to have the Football League announce earlier this month that I’ll be able to replace my radio with a video stream next season. In that sense, Town’s playoff final against Reading on Monday isn’t as do-or-die as I’d have expected it to be only a couple of months ago.
But in the sense of “I’ve completely lost my mind for this team over the past 10 months,” it’s more do-or-die than the Jerry listening to the Mansfield final 13 years ago could have imagined. I’ve watched clip after clip after clip of Aaron Mooy wrecking an opposition move and starting one for Town .3 seconds later. I’ve heard Paul Ogden lose his voice over half-a-dozen late goals. I watched Harry Bunn score at the Etihad. I’ve listened as Michael Hefele scored to beat L**ds, then dropped an f-bomb on live radio I later discovered came only moments after he’d also dropped an f-bomb on live TV. What a f—ing legend.
I’ve watched Collin Quaner become a season-saving substitution, Nakhi Wells celebrate the biggest goal of his life he didn’t score, Danny Ward sprint the length of the field after stoning Fernando Forestieri.
I’m ready, y’all. Forget the years of looking up scores hours after the fact, forget following play-by-play through Twitter, forget their only television appearances coming in lost causes against Chelsea and Arsenal. This is my team. I want them to smash Reading. I want to watch Huddersfield Town win promotion to the Premier League. I want it as much as I’ve wanted anything from this sport, the literal ocean between myself and Wembley be damned.
Up The Town!