Everyone it seems is talking about Huddersfield at the moment - and rightly so.
The town’s football club is set to embark on their first foray into the richest league in the world.
And with that brings added media attention, with national press all now scurrying to the John Smith’s stadium from their southern base to find out what being in the Premier League means for the town.
There has been articles from The Guardian, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Sunday Mirror to name just a few.
It is great to see the rest of the UK is now starting to discover how great our town is with mention in some of the articles of our best bits - Castle Hill, Marstons Chicken Shop, Greenhead Park, Standedge Tunnel and so on.
And now the appeal of Huddersfield Town has stretched over the waters with an article from The New York Times headlined ‘When the Premier League Puts Your Town on the Map’.
The article - which includes a cameo from Huddersfield Examiner’s sports writer Raj Bains - again celebrates how fantastic our town is and the flourishing industry - and says we all now need to get used to being in the spotlight.
There is mention for the growing craft beer industry - let’s hope they visited The Grove and Magic Rock, craft shops and coffee enterprises as well as the transformation of derelict mills into ‘creative spaces and start-ups’.
The article goes on to highlight how Premier League football will only bring more investment to the town with Steven Leigh, of the Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, telling the New York Times how in the case of Bournemouth “as much as £70 million flowed into town businesses related to soccer — restaurants and bars and hotels — in the course of a single season.”
Over in Swansea they also saw a huge boost with a surge in university applications and the article’s author Rory Smith also looks to Burnley as a comparison with their chairman Mike Garlick saying the ‘feel good factor’ that Premier League football brings is one of the best aspects as it cements a ‘winning mentality’ in the town.
Mr Garlick ends the article saying: “I have an office in Singapore.
“I was out there a couple of years ago. I walked along a street full of bars, and they were all showing Burnley. From 7,000 miles away. Burnley. The Premier League puts us — places like us — on the map. And that has got to be a good thing.”
It appears that although Town’s first game in the top flight for 45 years is still a couple of days away - and their first home tie more than a week - Huddersfield has well and truly been put on the map already thanks to Christopher Schindler’s winning penalty just ten weeks ago.
