Agony of play-offs is driving Town to new heights

SITTING in an eerily quiet away dressing room at The Den last May, Gary Roberts cut a forlorn figure.

Huddersfield Town’s promotion hopes had just been ended by a 2-0 defeat to Millwall in the League One play-off semi-finals, leaving the Chester-born wideman feeling crushed.

All the hard work that the Terriers had ploughed into a long season had, Roberts reasoned, gone to waste courtesy of a below-par display in south London and a goal apiece for Steve Morison and Paul Robinson.

The sense of regret lingered long into the summer for the 27-year-old, only really starting to lift when the Terriers returned to pre-season training in early July. Nine months on, however, and Roberts believes the memory of that horrible night in Bermondsey is helping fire Huddersfield towards the Championship.

“The defeat at Millwall was the worst night of my career,” recalls Roberts ahead of today’s eagerly-anticipated game between Lee Clark’s side and promotion rivals Peterborough United at the Galpharm Stadium.

“I can’t explain my feelings afterwards. It was like the season had been a total waste. Everyone was flat in the dressing room.

“No one was speaking and to see the manager really down hurt us all. The summer was the same. It was a bad time and I don’t want to go through that again.

“What I do believe, though, is that it has made us all feel stronger this year. We don’t even want to go in the play-offs.

“Our aim before the season started was to win the league. Unfortunately, Brighton are having a great season. But even if they are too far ahead for anyone to catch, then second spot is what we want.

“Of course, if we had to go in the play-offs, we would fancy ourselves. But after that feeling last year, we want to avoid them.”

Whether Town can sidestep the tension and torture that invariably accompany the end-of-season promotion deciders will be decided over the coming four weeks.

Clark’s side, who boast 2011’s only remaining unbeaten record in League One, sit second in the table on 73 points with six games to play.

Southampton are two points behind the Terriers in third place but have two games in hand, while today’s visitors to Huddersfield are a further point adrift of Nigel Adkins’s men. It means the stakes will be high today at the Galpharm Stadium, especially as a home win is likely to reduce the race for second to a two-way scrap.

Roberts, in his third season with Town after being signed in the summer of 2008 by Stan Ternent, said: “We are more solid this year, the stats show that. Last year, we left ourselves a bit open because we had players who just wanted to go one way – forward.

“The gaffer looked at that and brought people in with experience (last summer). Lads like Jamie McCombe joined the club along with Gary Naysmith, while Liam (Ridehalgh) has stepped up. We look a lot stronger as a result.

“The mood is confident. All the lads are lively and everyone is enjoying coming to work in a morning.”

The main reason for Town’s Storthes Hall training ground being such a happy place to be right now has got a lot to do with the club’s stunning form.

Since crashing to a 4-1 defeat at Southampton on December 28, Huddersfield have not lost in 19 league outings.

The 41 points that Clark’s men have collected in 2011 would, under normal circumstances at this stage of a season, have been enough to leave a side within touching distance of promotion.

However, due to a combination of Town’s form having been patchy in the first half of the campaign and the impressive form of the other sides chasing promotion, the Yorkshire club are facing an almighty fight to ward off the threat posed by both Saints and Peterborough.

Roberts already has one promotion on his CV, having helped Accrington Stanley romp to the Conference title in 2005-06. He netted 13 goals in Stanley’s success and remembers how the belief within the Lancashire club’s squad steadily built throughout the season.

“We won the title by a distance in the end,” recalls Roberts. “But we didn’t have it all our own way. We won at Grays in the November when we were third and they were comfortably clear at the top.

“After that win, things snowballed and even when we didn’t play well we always seemed to get a decent result. It has been similar at Huddersfield, where we have picked up points even when not playing well.

“That is maybe something we didn’t do before, picking up the scrappy 1-0 wins. The Brentford win was a big one (when Peter Clarke scored a last-minute winner). It is never a nice place to go, as the home team make it hard for visiting teams.

“So, to come away with a win at the death when a lot of teams would maybe have settled for a draw was massive, especially after our win at Bristol Rovers the previous Saturday.

“Maybe come the end of the season, they will be games we look back on and say they were the key ones.

“What I have seen is how our confidence has built during the current (19-game) unbeaten run. We did go on a good run at Accrington. We had a string of wins at one stage that helped us get to the top of the Conference.

“It meant that, eventually, we were going into games believing we would win. It has been the same feeling at Huddersfield lately. That is not us being cocky, just confident.

“We showed that (a couple of weekends ago) against Notts County. The game was on the television and it was our way of saying, ‘We can do it’.

“If you listen to all the pundits and people outside the club, Southampton are going up. So maybe that was a bit of an eye-opener for them.”

After today’s game, Huddersfield travel to Charlton Athletic and MK Dons. Dagenham & Rebridge then visit West Yorkshire on Easter Monday before the regular season finishes with a trip to Brighton and a final-day meeting with Brentford at the Galpharm.

Roberts adds: “The lads were all saying the other day that the season has flown by. It will soon be the last day of the season, when, hopefully, we can have a full crowd and the champagne out. If we do enjoy success, that night at Millwall will make it feel even sweeter.”

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