On Beyond Jewel: A Story No Longer About Huddersfield Town
God knows how long ago, a story from God knows where concerning 1990s singer-songwriter Jewel lodged itself in my head. And for a bit, it felt like it concerned Huddersfield Town AFC's 2021-2022 season, too.
The story goes like this: when Jewel signed her first real recording contract, she broke down in tears. The contract represented quite a tidy sum, but she recalled afterwards she hadn't started crying because she suddenly had a lot of money. She cried because she'd spent the first part of her career with almost no money at all, sleeping in her car, unsure of where or when her next meal would come, having to scrape loose change together just to eat or make her next gig. She wept in her record label's office, she said, because whatever else happened, she wouldn't ever have to live like that again.
That's the story that came to mind on Boxing Day, when Huddersfield twice came from behind to defeat Blackpool 3-2:
For four consecutive seasons following David Wagner's promotion revolution, Town played with the specter of relegation floating above their heads. The first of those seasons was thrilling, ultimately even joyous. But the second was time-killing tedium. The third was equal parts head-shaking disappointment and stomach-knotting worry. The fourth was embarrassment and misery, with an empty John Smith's Stadium the COVID-poisoned cherry on top. Town won 3 of their final 24 matches to close the 2020-2021 season, and though I didn't feel like sacking Carlos Corberan would solve anything, I wouldn't have told you not sacking him was going to solve much either.
So when Sorba Thomas scored those two second-half goals to defeat the Tangerines and take Town from tenth to sixth in the table last December 26, I didn't celebrate Huddersfield's occupation of the last Championship playoff spot. I celebrated Huddersfield's occupation of a spot 16 places clear of the relegation zone. I celebrated that after back-to-back wins and eight points from Town's last four, there was no more doubt. They were too good. Thank heavens, we now knew there would be no swan dive down the table. There would be no 5-points-from-11-matches agony. They would, finally, play pleasant low-stakes April matches for the right to finish ninth. They would be a normal team playing a normal season at last, all the Sword of Damocles metaphors stuffed in an attic trunk for at least a year.
Yes, by the sheer definition of being sixth at the turn of the year, Huddersfield were playoff contenders. But like Jewel weeping over her contract, I didn't need another promotion push. I just needed a win here, a win there keeping my fan's soul at ease. A top-six spot would be fabulous, sensational. But after the past four seasons, all my inner '90s coffeehouse pop star really wanted was to not live that relegation-threatened life again.
Then on February 19, Town traveled to Craven Cottage to face runaway league leaders Fulham. In the 31st minute Harry Toffolo made a tremendous tackle to keep the ball in the attacking third, after an exchange with Duane Holmes Toffolo played the ball into the box, and a touch from the Cottagers' Tom Cairney ran loose in front of goal.
A moment later, the Jewel story somehow didn't feel relevant anymore.
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To judge by the bits of conversation among Huddersfield fans I gleaned on Twitter, podcasts, etc., Danny Ward was never likely to win the club's Player of the Year award.
It's understandable. Lewis O'Brien is quite possibly Town's most talented player, hardest-working player and most consistent player, a walking One Weird Trick To Control The Midfield. Reached for comment, the Rock of Gibraltar called Tom Lees' performance this season "envy-inspiring." Sorba Thomas's work rate and durability* would generate comparisons to the Energizer Bunny if instead of a drum and sunglasses the Energizer Bunny had a laser-guided right foot that delivered the division's best set pieces.
But my Player of the Year vote would've gone to the same candidate as most Town fan's, to our Shithouse King:
The numbers will tell you plainly Lee Nicholls has been the best goalkeeper in the Championship. But the numbers don't tell you as much as having watched Town's defense flail for months in front of poor Ryan Schofield's aura of worry, then watching it turn overnight into one of the most reliable in the division in front of Nicholls' aura of serenest confidence. Obviously the additions of Lees, Matty Pearson, Levi Colwill and Ollie Turton have played an enormous role in Town going from "literally the Championship's worst defense to literally the Championship's second-most clean sheets," but the key word there is additions: in an area of the field where continuity and chemistry are paramount, Town's first-choice defense has consisted entirely of either three or four players who played for three or four different teams last season. Nicholls' shot-stopping has been tremendous; his ability to avoid mistakes has been crucial; but his organization has been maybe most valuable of all.
So: maybe Danny Ward wasn't Town's Player of the Year. But I'd argue he's the player who most exemplifies this Huddersfield team, the player who I'll think of first when I think years from now of the giddy unexpectedness of this Town season.
Because I find myself asking: how is Danny Ward this good? What attributes does Danny Ward possess that have made him a 14-goal scorer this season, and surely a 16, 17-or-more-goal scorer if he'd been just a touch more healthy?
Ward's quicker than you might expect, but no announcer's ever going to describe him as possessing "blistering pace." While he's got a surprisingly great leap -- again, ask Blackpool -- you won't hear him portrayed as a Mounie-esque "towering aerial presence." Ward's ability to hold off the division's burliest defenders with his back to goal should tell you he's not remotely a pushover, but he's also not going to Romelu Lukaku his way past those defenders with raw "brute strength."
To look at him, Ward shouldn't be this good. But he is, because he works that hard, because he's that smart, because he's that skilled, because knows exactly where he should be and what he should be doing on the pitch at all times. Maybe you can't look at him and know that when Cairney misplays the ball in Fulham's penalty area, there's only one winner in the race to reach it, and that the winner also has the composure to send it first-time through Marek Rodak's legs. But there is, and he does:
But if you wouldn't look at Ward himself and see one of the Championship's most effective strikers, if you looked at his impact over his last several seasons, you ... perhaps still wouldn't. Despite some sterling per-minute performances during his tenure at Cardiff, he never nailed down a spot in the first 11 and started 17 league games total in his three seasons there. After returning to Huddersfield on a free, he suffered an injury-plagued 2020-2021 that saw him collect one goal and one assist over 725 minutes. After a slow start to 2021-2022, Town fans that wanted him benched for Mipo Odubeko were not hard to find.
None of that mattered. It didn't matter for his teammates, who by-and-large came into this season with the same lack of expectation that surrounded Ward. It didn't matter that as recently as 16 months ago Thomas was playing in the National League, or that Town signed him for a pittance. Didn't matter that Wednesday didn't much seem to care when the 30-year-old Lees left for a sum less than a pittance, viz. free. Didn't matter that Colwill arrived as an 18-year-old at the sport's most difficult position for 18-year-olds. Didn't matter that Pearson, Turton and Jordan Rhodes all signed on frees, too. Didn't matter that Nicholls signed on a free after he spent last season as a League One team's backup, a fact that makes my head spin around like a cartoon character's every time I read it. It didn't matter that all these players were added to a team that already viewed buying a player from Lincoln City for less than what West Brom spends on bootlaces as the height of luxury.
It didn't matter that when the season started the oddsmakers had Town pegged to finally consummate their flirtation with League One. It didn't matter that even some smart Town fans agreed.
What mattered is that it doesn't matter what kind of striker Danny Ward looks like. What mattered is the kind of striker -- hardworking, shrewd, ruthless -- Danny Ward is. What mattered is that Town have an entire squad of Danny Wards willing to work just as hard, just as smart, just as collectively, regardless of what they did or did not cost.
The ball's loose in the penalty area at Craven Cottage. The only thing that matters is who gets there first.
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On the 16th of October, Duane Holmes scored in the 73rd minute to give Town a 2-0 home victory over Hull. Given how unlikely a goal from the visitors seemed, no one thought it an especially noteworthy development at the time.
But that would be the last goal of its kind Town would score for nearly four months. Over its next 18 matches in all competitions, Huddersfield would take a 1-0 lead in 10 of them ... and a 2-0 lead in zero of them. By the time Rhodes scored to put Town two goals up on Derby on February 2nd, Town had played 426 minutes with a 1-0 lead without adding a second, giving up six equalizers along the way to boot ... and even when the drought mercifully ended, it ended against 10 men.
Even if Town couldn't claim a two-goal victory over that stretch to save their souls, though, thanks to three different 1-0 wins and the uproarious comeback victories over Blackpool and Reading, they finished those 18 matches just as they'd started them -- in the playoff places. And in their first performance after Rhodes put Derby to bed, they managed to see off Barnsley -- a 19th-minute goal followed by 71 minutes of scoreless football for a 1-0 win, natch -- to make the FA Cup Fifth Round, too.
So: I dunno. Maybe I shouldn't look back at the Fulham match as they day everything changed. Maybe I shouldn't have been so frustrated that Town so consistently refused to win comfortably when they just as consistently refused to lose. Maybe by the time they headed to Craven Cottage -- on a 14-match unbeaten run, no less -- I should have put the exultation at simply clearing the no-relegation-battle bar behind me.
But I hadn't. The Jewel story still hung over my shoulder. Teams that do more than finish midtable do more with their chances to turn 1-0 leads over the likes of Swansea and Barnsley into three points, right? Teams destined to recreate the Wagner promotion push shouldn't have to wait until February to recreate at least one the cathartic triumphs of the 2016-2017 season, right?
No. Not right.
Town couldn't push a 1-0 lead to two against Cardiff or Stoke or the Swans or Tykes ... but they could in a matter of minutes away to the future champions. Maybe I shouldn't view the win that day as the season-defining turning point I do, but in fairness the Terriers did play the remainder of the season like they'd learned something in London. After beating Fulham, Town would turn a 1-0 lead into 2-0 lead against Birmingham ... and Peterborough ... and West Brom ... and Luton ... and Boro ... and Barnsley and Coventry and Bristol. The team that spent one-and-a-half entire seasons failing to press its advantage under Corberan suddenly couldn't stop pressing its advantage**.
The team I was happy to see merely avoid a relegation scrap became the best team Huddersfield has seen in the second tier in more than 50 years.
In the end it wasn't enough for these players or this manager to just stay out of the relegation conversation. It wasn't enough to finish midtable. It wasn't enough to only contend for a playoff place. It wasn't even enough to claim a playoff place if it came via fifth or sixth. Just watch them against desperate Boro: only third was ever enough.
Now they're 270 minutes from the Premier League. Like what I suspect is roughly 99 percent of Town fans, I don't expect a 2022-2023 season spent in the Prem would be much fun to watch. But even putting the club's financial picture aside, I'll be damned if I spend a single nanosecond begrudging Sorba, Lees, Toffolo, Nicholls, Ward, etc. their chance to compete at that level because I wouldn't happen to enjoy the last 60 minutes of a 3-0 loss to Spurs or whatever. It'll be earth-shatteringly incredible if they make it; it's an earth-shatteringly incredible season already if they don't.
Most of that incredibleness is putting the days of crying with relief over not being in the relegation picture behind us. The rest of it is knowing they've been put behind us for more than just this season. A 2022-2033 spent in the Championship likely won't be as spectacular as Town's 2021-2022 (though I ain't ruling it out, either). But a club well-run enough, well-managed enough to put this squad together on this budget isn't going back to metaphorically living out of its car anytime soon.
For now, that's in Huddersfield Town's past. Huddersfield Town's future starts at Luton this Friday, and I cannot wait to see how this remarkable team makes it its own.
*Until literally the dying weeks of the season. Siiiiiiiigh
**The season's worst penalty decision at WBA aside
Jerry Hinnen (@jerryhinnen) is quite possibly the only Huddersfield Town supporter living in the state of Alabama, USA.
Screencaps via videos at @HTAFC and HTAFC YouTube channel