A team in the Football League currently boasts the longest unbeaten run outside of the top flight in English history. When you take into consideration that run stretches an incredible 42 league games, you would be forgiven for thinking, wrongly, that the team must be surging up the divisions, winning promotion and topping their league.

For those who don’t follow the Football League as carefully as some, the team in question is Huddersfield Town.

It would make sense at this stage to clarify the specifics of the run. Unfortunately for Huddersfield and their manager, former Newcastle, Sunderland and Fulham midfielder Lee Clark, it only refers to ‘regular season’ encounters, as they were beaten in the League One play-off final by Peterborough last term. So we’re only discussing league games. Apparently, the play-offs are actually classed as cup matches.

It is perhaps an indication of just how important results have become in the modern game that before the afore-mentioned playoff final, there was speculation that nothing less than a win in that game would save Lee Clark’s job, as the Terriers had also stumbled at the playoff hurdle in the previous season. Despite being on a run of 20-something games unbeaten at the time, no promotion was to mean no job. Thankfully for Clark, that rumour turned out to be unfounded.

The manager has been in the headlines recently, and Huddersfield fans would have been delighted to see him show loyalty to the club that stood by him through those rumours. Apparently a target of Leicester City and their many millions of pounds, he did what a lot of football fans would see as ‘the decent thing’ – something which is becoming increasingly rare in modern football – and decided to stay at the Galpharm and continue his quest to get Huddersfield back into the Championship.

Having not tasted defeat since December 2010, the Terriers are currently sitting pretty in second place in this season’s League One. The club have drawn a large number of games since their last loss, and it begs the question as to whether their supporters would be willing to exchange the record-breaking streak for a few more victories, with the occasional defeat thrown in.

I spoke to Huddersfield fanatic Charlie Johnson, to get his take on matters.

“To say we are truly unbeaten is to ignore the obvious facts that are staring us in the face, namely the 3-0 defeat to Peterborough in the play-off final. The one game that really mattered in this whole run, and we lose it. Which does beg the question: if you stay unbeaten and don’t get promoted, then what is the point?

“We can go all season and maintain our unbeaten run, and I would question the value of it. I would rather have lost a few games in the Championship than stayed unbeaten in League One. Ultimately, it is actual success we will measure ourselves on, and a failure to gain promotion will render an unbeaten run an obsolete fact of trivia.

“Despite the obvious anomaly of the play-off final, to have gone unbeaten in the league for such an extended period cannot be overlooked or ignored. Over the course of this run, we have witnessed some fantastic games, and been able to enjoy witnessing a football team that simply do not lose. That is without doubt every football fans ultimate desire, to have a team that never lose, that sweep aside every opponent and never succumb to defeat whatever the predicament.

“It would be wrong to suggest, however, that we are the Harlem Globetrotters of lower league football, as it hasn’t been easy at all.

“We could have quite easily lost any number of games, and the large amount of draws in the run indicates a team that cannot always finish off opponents, add to that a propensity to concede late equalisers and it hasn’t been a dream run without moments of frustration.

“Whatever happens and whenever we lose, we will always have this unbeaten run, and beyond it, we will still have a very strong team, who are more than capable of achieving the ultimate goal of promotion.

“What we have discovered within this run is not a trail-blazing side that leave others in their wake with a brand of football unseen in this league, but a consistency that every side yearns for.

“My greatest hope however is that when we lose, we dust ourselves off and get back on a winning run as soon as possible. Unbeaten run or not, we haven’t achieved anything yet, and promotion will be our ultimate aim. Whether we continue to be unbeaten will always be secondary to that.”

What is certain is that the West Yorkshire club are better prepared than ever to make their push for the second flight this season. Clark has put together a squad which is bustling with youthful exuberance, as well as enough veteran heads to steer the young lads in the right direction. Players such as Scottish defender Gary Naysmith, midfielder Joey Gudjonsson and frontman Alan Lee have been in the game for a long time, and are the kind of ‘old heads’ that a lot of successful lower-league teams boast.

At the other end of the spectrum, young striker Jordan Rhodes has been in the news recently thanks to a call-up to the Scotland squad, mainly in thanks to his 13 goals in only 15 appearances this season for the Terriers. 58 goals in his 116 games for the club tell a story about the young man, and you can be sure that the sigh of relief that Huddersfield fans afforded themselves when Clark rejected Leicester was a double-whammy, as any outgoing manager would want to take their young, hot-shot striker with them.

When I spoke to Clark earlier in the season for Roker Report, he was very optimistic about Huddersfield’s chances this season, “I certainly believe this could be our year. It is a terrific club with terrific supporters.” Interestingly, he also dodged my question about whether his aims are to be Newcastle manager one day, and the answer should interest Huddersfield supporters, in light of the recent speculation surrounding him, “You can only concentrate on the job that you are in. Football is a dangerous game if you look too far into the future.”

Whatever happens at Huddersfield in the coming weeks, they will always be able to look back on this unbeaten run with pride. If they can add one more game to the sequence, they will be able to boast the joint-second longest run of all-time. Only Arsenal’s 49 will then better what they have done.

The next six games could go a long way to deciding how successful Huddersfield’s season is. Games against Notts County, Charlton and Sheffield Wednesday will prove as tough as any in the division, but if the Terriers come through those unscathed, then they will have announced themselves as true contenders for promotion.

However, if the run does come to an end at the hands of one of those teams, it is the reaction of Lee Clark’s men to that defeat that has the potential to tell us whether or not Huddersfield have what it takes to make it back into the Championship.

It is probably fair to say that, by the end of the season, Town will have cast off at least one of the tags that I’ve labelled them with in the title to this piece. Fans will obviously hope that it is the underachievers side of things that no longer applies, and although others may dream about staying unbeaten for the entire term, the odds are stacked firmly against Huddersfield in that regard.

At the end of the day, it is probably not Town’s ability to remain unbeaten in the league that will decide whether they are promoted or not. As we saw last season, not being beaten for a huge amount of games does nothing but look good in the record books if you don’t have the strength, arguably both physically and mentally, to perform on the big stage when it truly matters.

Therefore, it is what happens when Huddersfield lose that will be the true mark of the team, and will really cast a light on their true credentials. Sooner or later, and as much as Town fans don’t like to admit it, that defeat will come, and Lee Clark will know whether or not he has built a team with the mental fortitude to jump back up at the first hurdle. It is the way that his players react after a deafeat, rather than a win or draw, that will tell Clark, and Huddersfield fans all they need to know with regards to casting aside their ever-growing reputation as underachievers.

Thanks go out to Charlie Johnson for taking the time to talk to me about Huddersfield Town. He is more than worth a follow on Twitter @footballcharlie.

You can read Dan’s interview with Lee Clark for Roker Report by going to that link.

Photo courtesy of Julian Holtom Photography.