Huddersfield Town currently find themselves third in the Championship, behind only Newcastle United and Brighton.
Mark Lillis during his time as caretaker manager at Huddersfield Town
Mark Lillis is a man with close ties to Huddersfield Town. The 57-year-old began his career at Leeds Road almost 40 years ago, going on to make more than 200 league appearances before departing for Manchester City and returning in January 2012 as a coach, a role he only vacated in the summer.
As a player, Lillis won two promotions with Town, winning the Fourth Division title in 1979-80 and going up via a third-placed finish in 1982-83 which sent the Terriers back into the Second Division for the first time since 1972-73. The Mancunian also top scored for Huddersfield in 3 of his 7 seasons at Leeds Road, before making a £150,000 move to his boyhood club Manchester City.
As a coach, he rejoined Huddersfield in 2012, taking the reigns as Head of Youth Development and being named caretaker manager on four occasions, with an overall record of 4 wins, 3 draws and 4 defeats as caretaker boss. Lillis is a man who knows Huddersfield well then, and HITC Sport spoke exclusively to the former Terrier.
When asked if he could pinpoint the reasons for Huddersfield’s success, Lillis told us, “The manager [David Wagner] laid down what he wanted from the team at the start of the season. He changed the training times, getting them training twice a day and he changed the teams identity. It’s similar to what we were doing in the academy, getting the team pressing.”
Lillis worked briefly alongside Wagner, the German-born former US international arriving in West Yorkshire in November 2015, whilst Manchester-born Lillis left the club in May 2016. With regards to his former club’s promotion chances, Lillis is optimistic.
“There are a lot of points to play for, but they’ve got a good squad which he [David Wagner] rotates well and the stadium is the same as some of the seasons I played there, packed. We’ll start to see if they’ve got the mental strength over the next month.”
Huddersfield Town show their appreciation towards Mark Lillis
The upsurge in attendance has been a sharp one at the John Smith’s Stadium this season, with an increase of almost 60% on last season’s numbers. Currently averaging over 20,000, and with that figure only likely to increase with the importance of game’s as the season progresses, Huddersfield should record their highest average attendance for a season in 46 years.
Now just 5 points off the automatic promotion places and 10 points off slipping out of the play-off’s, Huddersfield fans are cautiously optimistic. In many ways, the pressure is all on Newcastle and Brighton above them, and it would take a serious collapse to see them drop out of the Championship’s top 6 altogether.
Huddersfield face Reading, Barnsley, Man City (cup), Wolves and Newcastle all in the next two weeks, and we should have a far greater idea of where the Yorkshire outfit are likely to finish the season next month, but Lillis believes that it could down to the final day.
Mark Lillis playing Masters Football
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