Chesterfield 4, Huddersfield Town 3

Oct 24 2005 By Mel Booth, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

PETER JACKSON has had the video working overtime to pick the bits out of an extraordinary performance by Town.

Appalling in a first half littered with errors and timidity in the face of Chesterfield's power play, Town were 3-0 down and had only pride to play for.

Then, with Jackson's undisclosed but undoubtedly unprintable words of admonishment ringing in their ears, they dominated with a prowess befitting their League leadership.

Raiding forward almost at will, Town scored three times in the final 10 minutes through Mark Hudson, the excellent Jon Worthington and Andy Holdsworth and one can only wonder what would have happened had Pawel Abbott scored a 50th-minute penalty to jangle the nerves of their hosts.

As it was, Shane Nicholson kept his cool from the spot to score what proved the decisive goal six minutes from time after David Mirfin - brought down by Wayne Allison for Town's spot kick - had harshly been adjudged to have upended Colin Larkin.

It was an astonishing finale to a clash which had looked all over when Larkin punished a shocking mix-up between Mirfin and keeper Paul Rachubka to put Chesterfield three up on the stroke of half time.

The defending had been equally abysmal when Allison pounced superbly to open the scoring from Kevan Hurst's cross on 11 minutes and when Paul Hall took advantage of an Abbott blunder to waltz past two would-be tacklers and score with a brilliant 29th-minute curler from just outside the box.

At that stage, Town's magnificent army of 2,043 fans couldn't believe what they were seeing.

Whether Town thought they could easily match their 4-2 Carling Cup win on the same ground or whether they were just slow out of the blocks, they allowed Chesterfield to seize the initiative right from the start.

Just like Scunthorpe United at the Galpharm Stadium in September, Roy McFarland's men didn't give Town a split second on the ball, tackling for fun and hunting in packs and, by their own admission, produced their best 45 minutes of the season so far.