Andrew Whitehead

To Leyton tonight, to see my old team Huddersfield Town - the first time I've seen them in a League match for decades.

And a chance to watch their wonder striker, Jordan Rhodes. He scored twice in a 3-1 win for Town over Leyton Orient - a better score line than they deserved. And Rhodes is certainly good, hard working and with great finishing. But not quite a van Persie.

Good to see Huddersfield. Great to see them win. But they are a long way short of being a shoe-in for promotion to the Championship.

The first football match I ever saw was at Huddersfield's old Leeds Road home back in, I guess, 1965 take a year or two either way. The visitors - Leyton Orient. And as far as I can remember, Town won then too!

When I was a youngster - and I am talking about two or three seasons some time around 1970 - I had a season ticket at Huddersfield Town. Every fortnight, my father, brother and myself went to Leeds Road to cheer on Jimmy Nicholson's "Terriers". And there was a lot to cheer about - Second Division (what's now the Championship) champions, and two seasons in the First (Premiership).

So I couldn't even think of missing today's match at the Emirates, - my son's team against the team I supported when I was his age.

And a fantastic game it was. As we walked in, there was a wall of blue and white. 5,000 Huddersfield fans had made the journey down. They outsang the home fans. And in  the later part of the game, their team outplayed their rivals too.

It took Huddersfeiled about half-an-hour to settle and to lose their awe of Arsenal and the Emirates stadium. By then, they were a goal down. The Terriers' equaliser in the second half was golden. I was sitting next to my red-and-white bedecked son amid the home fans - repeatedly warned by him not to cheer the visitors. When Town scored, I beamed quietly with delight amid ranks of silent, stunned Arsenal supporters. It didn't last - Arsenal won with a Fabergas penalty in the closing minutes. But that's football.

Nice of Arsenal to put Herbert Chapman, a  legendary inter-war football manager with Huddersfield and then Arsenal, on the programme cover, and on the big screen before kick-off. The Gunners know their pedigree. I seem to remember that Chapman attracted controversy by watering the pitch at half time, ostensibly to make the ground safer but more because the soft going helped his side. And at half time today, you've got it, the sprinklers were on at the Emirates. Some things don't change.