If you could've timed six months to come and help cover Huddersfield Town, it'd have been the six that have just passed. Joining the Examiner during the first week of May, the club had just secured a play-off spot, and were just about to embark on three of the most important matches in the modern history of the side. A season ticket holder for a number of years, the story wasn't new, but going from occasionally offering coverage to doing so on a daily basis allowed for a fresh perspective on how the club was changing, and what effect this sudden upturn in form and fortune was having.

This, I think, is the point - Huddersfield are a club who're self aware enough to ensure their past safeguards their future. That's true right down from the owner to the casual fan. There has been no sudden change in attitude or behaviour, and their feet remain very much on the ground. That, as much as anything, is why there were little to no worries about how the club would fare under the additional spotlight the Premier League would bring - it's only those who allow themselves the disillusions of grandeur in the first place that are bitten in the bottom by it, and that hasn't been the case here for even a split second.

Huddersfield Town players celebrate beating Sheffield Wednesday in the SkyBet Championship Play-Off semi-final.
Huddersfield Town players celebrate beating Sheffield Wednesday in the SkyBet Championship Play-Off semi-final.

In those two matches against Sheffield Wednesday, people outside the club discussed the inevitability of a Wednesday-Fulham final, and you could see by how both sides performed - and lost - that they allowed themselves to believe a job was done before they'd even started. Even a goal down at Hillsborough, there was a mental fortitude that allowed Town to claw themselves back in to it, and once they had, there only ever seemed one side capable of winning the game. A large part of that seems, in hindsight, to be because one side believed promotion was owed to them, while their opposition was of the opinion that it needed to be earned. We may not fully understand just how significant a part psychology plays in sport, but this was as a good a sign as any that even the intangible should not be disregarded.

Building steadily throughout the season, the mood that engulfed the club soon feel across the whole town. Children in the town who'd previously been adorned in the shirts of Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool were now steeped in blue and white stripes. Shop fronts were decorated in support of the club, tickets were sold to such an extent that even the club was surprised by the demand and folk you knew didn't like football were suddenly bringing it up in conversation - Huddersfield Town, after all, were just one game away from becoming a Premier League club. If that wasn't going to be enough to capture the imagination, nothing would be.

Huddersfield Town's Christopher Schindler scores the winning penalty during the SkyBet Championship Play-Off final shoot-out.
Huddersfield Town's Christopher Schindler scores the winning penalty during the SkyBet Championship Play-Off final shoot-out.

As much as anyone, I'm a perfect case study in how that wasn't the case in years gone by. Born and bred in the town, my early schooling years were spent in Newsome and Lindley, but Huddersfield Town was never presented as an option to support. Not by friends in the playground - who'd pretended to be Beckham, Shearer, Ronaldo or Zidane - or by the club, who never once made their presence felt. Part of a lost generation of Town fan, I instead followed in my father's footsteps and supported Tottenham, and likely will have done even if Huddersfield were better at presenting themselves as an option - but the point remains that there was never a choice to make. These days, you can't move for mini-Aaron Mooy's or Christopher Schindler's, and that's a great credit to all involved in marketing and setting affordable pricing at the club.

That trip to Wembley was, of course, beyond anyone's expectation, but the experience was enhanced by an underlying feeling of warmth that'd been set by the club and players themselves. Rather than speaking about their own ambitions and dreams in the various pieces of pre-match press, they prioritised fulfilling the hopes and dreams of others. This was about delivering for everybody, rather than just doing something for themselves, and for anybody who's watched even one Christmas film that pretends to have a wider meaning behind it will know: the power to give is far more potent than that to receive. None of Huddersfield's success has ever been about individual talent or simply having better players - this is a success story of the collective, who were able to put their club before themselves and do what was needed as a team to achieve what they did. That's an attitude that remains prevalent today, too.

Aaron Mooy of Huddersfield Town celebrates his opening goal

There has been a clamour to treat Huddersfield like competition winners since promotion. Like they'd somehow found a golden ticket by accident rather than doing the work needed to get to that level on merit, and that's fine - the longer the team and the club are misunderstood, the more likely they are to catch other sides cold an unaware. You can go and ask Manchester United and Jose Mourinho about just that, for example. What has been misunderstood as a happiness just to be part of the conversation by those outside the club is actually contentment in where the club are and where they are heading. While some clubs may choose to lament their lack of resources compared to the elite, and use their infrastructural disadvantages and a shield from criticism, Huddersfield proudly wear those as badges, safe in the knowledge that 'different' doesn't always equate 'worse'.

What others may perceive to be the biggest weakness of the club is what they internally point to as their biggest strength - they are not small, but they are close. They are not limited, but focused. Wonderfully encapsulated by the 'no limits' mantra and all who've bought in to it, there is no harm in pointing out what Huddersfield lack, because they're already aware of who they are, and aren't insecure enough to let that hold them back.

Huddersfield Town chairman Dean Hoyle on stage during the promotion parade in Huddersfield.
Huddersfield Town chairman Dean Hoyle on stage during the promotion parade in Huddersfield.

Of course, the flip side to this is that they've been grossly misunderstood since promotion, and in a rush to define them without actually putting in the work to either watch or analyse them closely enough, Town are being lazily characterised as a typical northern side who kick and hassle their way to victory. A far simpler reading of what is tactically disciplined play with the ball and concentrated pressing off it, it will take a while for the Merson's of the world to twig, not that folk of that ilk should even be a concern. While it's always frustrating to see the side not given they credit they undoubtedly deserve, it shouldn't come as a shock - it has long been the case. Huddersfield aren't doing this for acclaim, despite the fact their players are linked with moves away and their coach spoken about with other clubs in mind, and it should always be remembered that, outside of this moment in time and bubble, none of them may go on to repeat such success elsewhere. One victory does not guarantee another.

With an excellent return of fifteen points after eleven games and the very real reality that they should have more - Southampton were there for the taking and a perfectly legitimate winner was stolen from them against Leicester - this doesn't look like it will be a temporary stay in the Premier League, no doubt shocking those who had so confidently backed them to struggle in pre-season. There have obliviously been teething problems and lessons to learn, but that's only natural - a vast majority of the Town team haven't played at this level or in this league before, and David Wagner is still a young coach learning his trade, no matter how good he has been already. While there have been hurdles, they have been cleared, and there is no reason to think they will begin to struggle in that department going forward, either.

Huddersfield Town's Rajiv van La Parra celebrates scoring his side's goal against West Bromwich Albion.
Huddersfield Town's Rajiv van La Parra celebrates scoring his side's goal against West Bromwich Albion.

These past six months may never be matched in our lifetime - that does sound somewhat grandiose, but given the nature of everything that has happened, it would take something remarkable to beat it. There will only ever be one first promotion to the Premier League, and that has changed the outlook of the club from here on in - unless something untoward occurs, that same arc of being regular relegation fodder to fighting for automatic promotion won't be repeated any time soon, so this period deserves marking and commemorating. There's a reason publication's like this one have suddenly created a Town-centric podcast to increase coverage, and somebody like myself would have reason to write an entire book about the season that has just been and gone. While it's important we don't live in the past, there is no harm in reminding yourself where that springboard came from, either.

Of all the phrases David Wagner has become fond of since joining the club, the one that holds most weight is when he tells the press that the club "know where they've come from". It's sign that, in the face of all the attention they're getting and increased focus on the club, they haven't lost sight of what made them great to begin with. As long as they hold on to that while they grow, and keep in mind the principles that defined their rise to prominence, this club will remain impervious to failure. You see teams falling in to the trap of trying to reinvent without maintaining an essence of what they were before, or becoming too cocky within themselves after gaining that intial success, and all that inevitably does is result in them struggling. From what we've seen so far, Huddersfield don't look the type to do that even if they wanted to, with the club structured and organised in such a way that it's almost impossible for one too get too big for their boots.

David Wagner celebrates with his players after the victory over West Bromwich Albion

"It doesn't count how big you are, or how experienced you are - if you have passion and desire, you have no limits." Those words have defined the past six months, and if these halcyon days are to continue, they're going to have to define those, too. From the evidence we've seen so far, there's minimal reason to worry. While it may still feel new at present, it wouldn't come as too much as a shock for this to be the new normal - after all, if there's any club that has the confidence in itself to do so, it's Huddersfield Town.

You can follow Raj Bains on Twitter over on @BainsXIII, and his Huddersfield Town book Underdog is being published later in 2017. It is available to order now, with the opportunity to have the name of your choice printed in a fans list at the back of the book. Please visit www.gnbooks.co.uk or call 01274 735056.