Huddersfield Town 3 Brentford 2: Promotion would be best tribute to the fan who helped save Town

KEEP the faith was the farewell message to Huddersfield Town fans from the man who played a prominent role in rescuing the club from its darkest hour.

ITV Yorkshire head of news Will Venters was buried on Friday aged just 56 following a short illness but left the familiar mantra to be read at his funeral, where a 300-plus congregation included Les Massie, one of the players in the first Huddersfield team a young Venters watched in the Sixties.

He was hooked from that day and when the club was on the verge of liquidation in 2003 he was the driving force behind the formation of the Huddersfield Town Survival Trust, which raised £150,000 in a few short weeks, enough to persuade a High Court judge to allow the club to enter administration rather than being wound up.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

What a fitting tribute it would be, therefore, to this respected award-winning journalist if his beloved Huddersfield could secure automatic promotion this season.

Although the financial future of the club is much brighter these days under Dean Hoyle, the long-running dispute over the return of the club’s 40 per cent shareholding in the stadium remains a thorny issue.

Thousands of fans donned lime green t-shirts in front of the Sky television cameras on Saturday with the message ‘£2. Do the right thing. Give us back our shares.’

It was aimed at Huddersfield Giants chairman Ken Davy, the man who led the football club out of administration and who paid that price for the shares in 2004.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The return of them will enable the club to play a major role in the multi-million pound regeneration project around the stadium and up to the town centre.

Getting out of League One is the priority for the majority of Town fans, however, but on Saturday the team had trouble getting out of their own half in the opening 30 minutes as Brentford tore into them.

Gary Alexander gave them the lead from the penalty spot after Marcus Bean had gone sprawling under the challenge of Peter Clarke and the lone frontman made it 2-0 as he volleyed in from close range a cross from Niall McGinn.

Bean should have made it 3-0 when Jonathan Douglas, the one player to make light of the blustery conditions in his 300th career appearance, sent a glorious ball over the top of the Town defence only to see his colleague make a hash of his finish, enabling Ian Bennett to race out and grasp the ball.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Town chief Lee Clark conceded it would have been game over but was delighted by his side’s character as they drew level before the break.

Their opener was contentious and came after a rasping shot from Gary Roberts had been tipped onto the bar and cleared for a corner. Leon Legge could only head Danny Ward’s flag kick into the air, Alan Lee backed into goalkeeper Richard Lee, who tumbled into the net as the Town striker nodded the ball in from on the line – the 100th league goal of his career.

Brentford’s furious protests were in vain and Town continued to press into stoppage time when central defender Jamie McCombe met a whipped-in cross from Ward with a fine header which looped over the goalkeeper and into the far corner of the net.

It put the wind back in Town’s sails and Roberts, who will be out for three to six weeks following a hernia operation tomorrow, chipped the ball against the bar after the restart before the predatory Jordan Rhodes made it 34 goals in all competitions by converting his sole opportunity of the game.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Ward sent a glorious crossfield pass from the right-back area and Rhodes, going down the left channel, shrugged off centre-back Marcel Eger to create the space to precisely curl the ball inside Lee’s far post for what proved the 50th-minute winner against the club he played 14 games on loan for in 2008-09.

There were six tactical substitutions by the managers, mainly defensive ones by Clark as his side recorded a third successive win which put them in second place above Sheffield United on goal difference.

Clark said: “We had to show character because we started the game so poorly. We were flat in every aspect. They deservedly took a two-goal lead and we were staring down both barrels.

“To get two before half-time gave us a bit more energy and Jordan Rhodes’s goal was worthy of winning any match. It was a very difficult chance which he made look fantastically easy.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Of Lee’s contentious opener, he added: “Usually when that happens, 99 times out of 100 the goalkeeper gets the decision so Uwe (Brentford manager Rosler) is very upset. It’s unique for the attacking player to get that decision.”

McCombe added after his first of the season for Town – he had netted on loan for Preston: “It was a really important comeback because we were so poor in the first half. We were a bit more in control in the second half although we did not play our usual stuff. Sometimes you have just to grind out those games.

“My goal was long overdue but it was a great ball and when the pace is on it you just have to direct it goalwards and fortunately it went in.

“Alan Lee gets battered and bruised most weeks and my view of his goal is that 99 times out of 100 the referee gives it to the keeper so he was fortunate in that sense but I’m not convinced their penalty was a pen.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Huddersfield Town: Bennett, Hunt, McCombe, P Clarke, Naysmith; Ward (T Clarke 82), Gobern, Miller, Roberts (Cadamarteri 67); Rhodes, Lee (Robinson 71). Unused substitutes: Colgan, Parkin.

Brentford: Lee, Bennett, Legge, Eger, Bidwell; Douglas; McGinn (Donaldson 58), Bean (Weston 65), Diagouraga, Saunders (Forrester 76); Alexander. Unused substitutes: Dean, Moore.

Referee: C Webster (Tyne and Wear).