In April of 1972, when Edward Heath was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 14 unarmed civilians were murdered by British soldiers on Bloody Sunday and Huddersfield Town A.F.C. were relegated from top-flight English football. 45 years later after falling as far low on the Football Pyramid as English Football League Two (fourth tier) as recently as 2003-2004 and after three grueling playoff games which needed penalty kicks twice, Huddersfield Town are finally back at the top division of English football, joining Newcastle United and Brighton & Hove Albion as the clubs promoted to the Premier League. They are replacing last year’s playoff winner Hull City, Middlesbrough, and Sunderland at the top level. Their win today against Reading was, as mentioned, a hard one as they were scoreless through the first ninety minutes and again through thirty minutes of added time which meant, much like their two-legged fixture against Sheffield Wednesday it had to be decided by penalty kicks.
The results of those kicks, 4 goals for Huddersfield versus 3 for Reading mean the Terriers completed an amazing season in which they spent only about a week outside of the top-six but were elite otherwise in the Championship, with a late stumble seeing them fall to just fifth. Nevertheless, they won often enough to clinch the playoff berth that allowed for their ultimate success and did so despite small budget (they are not a wealthy club like Newcastle who splurged over 50 million pounds to regain Premier League status). What makes this more unbelievable is that just a season ago they were nearly relegated to the third tier finishing 19th in a 24 team league. Despite their half-century absence from the top-flight, success at that level has occurred for Huddersfield as they were the first English club to win three consecutive league titles from 1924-1926 with titans Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester United (twice) being the only other clubs to do that. While they may not be that successful next season, the main hope is that they don’t yo-yo (get promoted one year and relegated the next) and that an old giant of English soccer can once again compete for silverware.
