Huddersfield Town's League Cup history

Jun 15 2009 By Doug Thomson

It was Huddersfield-born Milner’s third first-team game, and he scored his first – and only – goal for Town, heading home Jimmy Kerray’s cross just before half-time.

That reduced Villa’s lead to 2-1 (Gerry Hitchens had opened the scoring after 19 minutes before Ron Wylie doubled the advantage on 27).

But in the second half, Mercer’s men stepped up a gear, and further goals from Wylie and future Stoke star Harry Burrows sealed a comfortable success.

Villa went on to beat Preston, Plymouth, Wrexham and Burnley before defeating Rotherham 3-2 on aggregate in a two-legged final.

Fixture congestion – which many clubs argued meant the competition should never have been introduced in the first place, meant the final games didn’t take place until the following season.

And some of the gloss was taken off Villa’s success by the fact that five leading clubs – Arsenal, Tottenham, Sheffield Wednesday and Wolves, didn’t take part.

In fact it wasn’t until 1969-70 that the full 92 featured, with Arsenal the last to make their debut in 1966-67, when the final was made a one-off and moved to Wembley, with extra incentive to win the competition provided by the carrot of a place in the Fairs Cup (later the UEFA, and now the Europa League).

Town’s best run was to the semi-finals in 1967-68, when Wolves, West Ham and Fulham were beaten before their Wembley hopes were ended by a 6-3 aggregate defeat to Arsenal.

The competition’s first sponsorship deal came in 1982, when it was renamed the Milk Cup. Since then Littlewoods, Rumbelows, Coca-Cola and Worthington and now Carling have all been backers.

The Carling Cup first-round draw takes place at 10.30am tomorrow. For the first news of Town's opponents check out www.examiner.co.uk