How a blank response at Watford will earn Huddersfield Town infamy

Instead, the need to end a goalless run that had already reached club record proportions was all that mattered to the Terriers.

Seven league games and the best part of six months had passed since Huddersfield had last breached an opposition defence on the road, a run that began shortly before relegation from the old Second Division was confirmed during the Spring of 1988 and stretched well into the following season.

Head coach David Wagner’s men matched that unwanted record earlier this month so will be able to empathise with how their predecessors in the famous blue and white stripes felt when heading to Northampton on the second Saturday of October.

“It was a difficult time,” said Chris Hutchings, a mainstay of that team after joining from Brighton & Hove Albion early in 1988.

“We were struggling and had been relegated with quite a few games still to play.

“You do wonder when things are going to change when a run like that is going on. Confidence is low and that can seep into how the team plays.

“There can be times when you feel like every decision is going against you or every piece of luck is bad.

“Like the current Town lads will no doubt be feeling, we were desperate to bring the run to an end.”

Huddersfield’s record-breaking troubles on the road in 1988 had begun with a 1-0 defeat at Barnsley on Easter Monday.

Within a fortnight, relegation for a team who had lost 10-1 at Manchester City earlier in the season was confirmed. The ensuing despondency may explain why further heavy defeats followed at Hull City (0-4) and Leicester City (0-3), six of those seven goals having come in the first half.

Manager Malcolm Macdonald left a couple of days after that Filbert Street loss and Town finished rock bottom, 19 points adrift of safety and 18 behind a Sheffield United side who went into the play-offs alongside three clubs from the third tier.

Change was needed at Leeds Road and in came Eoin Hand, a former Republic of Ireland manager, along with a host of new signings that included striker Craig Maskell.

He would score 28 league goals that season, but, initially, the club’s scoring woes on the road continued as an opening-day 1-0 loss at Brentford was followed by three-goal defeats at both Cardiff City and Chester City.

When a Monday night trip to Port Vale in early October also brought a 2-0 reverse, Town had set a new club record. It meant, as Huddersfield headed to the only surviving dual-use ground since Bramall Lane’s cricket square had been dug up in 1973, Hand’s men could have been forgiven for feeling as if they had been hit for six.

Northampton’s home, however, was to bring the long overdue breaking of that goalscoring duck, Junior Bent doing the honours 16 minutes into the game.

A few minutes earlier, Maskell had struck a post to suggest the away travails might continue so there was a palpable sense of relief among the Town ranks at Bent’s first senior goal.

By half-time the lead had been stretched to three goals after Hutchings fired in from distance following a flowing move and then Maskell converted a penalty. Martin Singleton replied late on for the Cobblers, but there was to be no denying Huddersfield all three points in the absence of manager Hand, who had been away on a scouting trip.

As if to illustrate the lifting of the burden on the players’ shoulders, Town promptly won their next away game, too, as Aldershot Town were beaten 1-0.

The possibility of such a quick turnaround in fortunes is something Wagner’s men can cling to ahead of tomorrow’s visit to Watford, when the firing of an eighth consecutive blank on the road will mean the setting of a new, unwanted club record.

“There is no doubt the club was on a downer when I joined that summer,” recalls Kieran O’Regan, signed by Hand and who went on to make more than 200 appearances for the Terriers.

“Eoin (Hand) was looking to freshen things up after relegation, but the away run continued for a few games into the season.

“That is when you need characters and we had enough to end the run. I look at the current Town team and I do see that same character. They will get out of this run, hopefully this weekend.

“The big difference with now compared to our run, of course, is that we weren’t playing Everton, Arsenal and Liverpool away from home.

“We lost at Port Vale a few days earlier and, with the greatest respect in the world, that isn’t like losing at Anfield. People should remember that when judging this season’s team.

“The Premier League is a tough place, but I was at the Manchester City game and saw a lot of character in David’s team.”

O’Regan, employed as a sweeper that day at Northampton, was arguably Town’s best player as the victory left just Brighton and Darlington, bottom of the second and fourth tiers respectively, as the only League clubs without a point to their names on the road.

He added: “Runs like the one Huddersfield are on away from home at the moment are most keenly felt by the strikers.

“For those at the back, the focus is a clean sheet. That means you have done your job, whereas a striker is all about goals.

“Obviously we were all pleased to end a long run like this, but the strikers will have been even more pleased.”

Town’s current crop have gone 642 minutes since Steve Mounie netted at Crystal Palace on the opening day, but Hutchings is adamant heads should not go down.

“I have been in the Premier League so know weeks at a time can go by with no points,” added the former Bradford City manager. “But then one win can push you up three or four places and, suddenly, the world looks a better place again. Huddersfield is a good club and I really enjoyed my time there. I still live in the area and it is fantastic that Town are in the Premier League. One goal is all it might need to sort this away form out.”