Herbert Chapman, Huddersfield Town, the Charleston, the Roaring Twenties and the Premier League business as usual.

Herbert Chapman, Huddersfield Town, the Charleston, the Roaring Twenties and the Premier League business as usual.

Oh well, it was business as usual at the top of the Premier League. The wealthy elite reign supreme at the top of the Premier League tree, the posh plutocracy have once again adopted superior airs and the relationship between master and servant has never been so apparent. In fact below stairs the Premier League have probably never felt so inferior, subordinate or downtrodden. But for one glorious day in the middle of August, it felt as if the lower orders were revolting and not doing what they were told to do.

Ah! A rainbow appeared on the Premier League horizon for just one day, 12 beautiful hours which saw a once famous football club go top of the Premier League. It was almost as if the clock had been turned right back to the 1920s when men and women did the Charleston in fashionably rich dancing salons and when the whole cinema experience was enhanced by voice and sound. But in the world of English football there could only have been one club on everybody's lips. No it wasn't Chelsea, nor was it Manchester City, Arsenal or Spurs because they were just emerging forces in the game.

No, the club I'm talking about is Huddersfield Town and yesterday Huddersfield, aka The Terriers, showed dogged tenacity and grit before biting their teeth into Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park who are known as the Eagles which sounds distinctly unsavoury. Not for the squeamish or those who would rather avoid the sight of blood. Still Huddersfield, on their return to the top flight of English football thumped Palace, brushed them aside almost dismissively and then just ripped them apart with a 3-0 win.

And so it was that Huddersfield were, unbelievably, top of the League and just for one Saturday afternoon this once mighty industrial town in the heart of Yorkshire were lords of English football's manor. Of course Huddersfield will always be regarded as a powerful force of good in their part of Yorkshire. But those long ago cotton and textile mills were silenced and it took the Terriers another 50 years to regain their foothold among the big boys. It's been a long time now but for the first time since 1970 Huddersfield are back where they feel they rightly belong.

It is at this point that my thoughts turn to the Roaring Twenties, the 1920s, and a certain Herbert Chapman. Chapman was the man who breathed life into a team who suddenly found themselves the major talking point in football boardrooms and pubs across Britain. Before Chapman there had been very little to lift the sagging spirits of a team who were going seemingly nowhere. Then an amiable figure wearing football's familiar bowler hat and waistcoat, arrived at Huddersfield's old Leeds Road ground and Huddersfield, on the pitch, wore a significantly smarter attire.

Within the blink of an eye lid Huddersfield snapped up three successive old First Division titles and the world of football looked on with a wide eyed amazement. Over night Huddersfield went from boot polishers in the parlour to the glittering banqueting suite at football's top table. The speed and efficiency with which Huddersfield had conquered all obstacles remains one of football's most remarkable back stories.

Then Chapman began to develop delusions of grandeur and took himself down to London where, with Arsenal he once again he swept through the marble halls of the old Highbury like the proverbial whirlwind. In no time at all Chapman had cracked it again, the formula one that couldn't be bottled and Arsenal were also crowned as the League champions. There must have been something in the North London air and naturally the name of Chapman would be etched indelibly in Arsenal folklore until Bertie Mee, George Graham and now Arsene Wenger worked a similar oracle.

But Huddersfield had to wait quite agonisingly for the next moment in the showbiz glare. In 1970 they returned to a land they thought they'd never see again. Sadly all the glamour and celebrity became too much, engulfing and overwhelming them with all of the pressures that seem to come pre-packaged when you became an old First Division club. Huddersfield were almost immediately relegated back from whence they came and the lower Leagues beckoned for the Yorkshiremen.

Still Huddersfield did have one or two claims to fame. During the 1950s a young Denis Law, who would later grace the red of Manchester United with such luminous distinction, made his debut in the blue and white stripes of Huddersfield Town as a young 17 year old certainly not wet behind the ears. Law may have been raw but even then there were all of the suggestions of greatness. Law was the finished article, a goal scorer with a ravenous hunger for scoring, an obvious desire to succeed and an insatiable hunger for being in the right place and the right time.

And last but not least Huddersfield had one other notable feather in their cap. During the 1960s the Prime Minister of Britain Harold Wilson proudly declared himself an ardent Terrier. Frequently he would pull that celebrated pipe away from his mouth and make bold pronouncements about Huddersfield one day winning the old First Division which seemed a pipe dream at the time. The truth was it was never likely to materialise when their neighbours, Leeds United, Sheffield United and Wednesday promptly muscled them out of the way and said they were infinitely better.

So here we are on the first weekend of the Premier League and another household name have once again re-asserted themselves in quite the most devastating fashion. Manchester United simply crushed West Ham 4-0 at Old Trafford and it almost seems as though Huddersfield's brief tenancy at the top of the League was no more than a flirtation. For one day football seemed to have re-discovered its romantic soul. Then there were aching hearts and anguished sighs as reality set in.  The team that Sir Alex Ferguson once took to the top of Mount Olympus had once again found itself back at the summit. Manchester United were back in the place where they'd always felt most comfortable in. Dear Harold would have felt terribly hurt. Still it had to be preferable to an argument with the unions. Prime Ministers were never that keen on beer and sandwiches anyway.