Huddersfield Town v Chelsea: Terriers must leave nothing on the pitch, says Matt Glennon
That, though, was how Huddersfield Town felt in the wake of the club’s last meeting with Chelsea, an FA Cup fourth-round tie in 2008 that the Londoners won 3-1 thanks to two goals from Frank Lampard.
“It was really strange in the dressing room afterwards,” recalls Matt Glennon, in goal that afternoon. “There was a sense among the players – and (then manager) Andy Ritchie also touched on it – that we could have done better, almost as if we had let ourselves down.
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Hide Ad“That sounds daft, considering where we were in the league and the size of Chelsea. Most League One clubs would consider 3-1 a decent result.
“But we had played well and maybe should have at least brought them back to Huddersfield for a replay.”
Town’s sense of ‘what might have been’ was fuelled by the manner in which Chelsea had been rocked by an equaliser from Michael Collins before half-time.
Roared on by a travelling army of 6,000 fans who had earlier movingly chanted their support for former manager Peter Jackson following his diagnosis with throat cancer the previous week, the Yorkshire side could then have taken the lead.
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Hide AdAndy Holdsworth, however, was unable to connect and, on the hour, Lampard fired in his second after Glennon had saved the England man’s earlier shot. Salomon Kalou then sealed the win 20 minutes from time to end an FA Cup odyssey that had taken Huddersfield from the rundown surrounds of Accrington Stanley in round one to the King’s Road.
“Chelsea had made changes but there was still the likes of Lampard, John Terry and a few others in the starting XI,” said Glennon, now a pundit with BBC Radio Leeds.
“They also brought on (Andriy) Shevchenko and (Nicolas) Anelka, so it wasn’t a bad team.”