Secrets revealed behind Lee Nicholls' Huddersfield Town rise and culture that has club thriving

Despite the brilliant season Huddersfield Town have had, when the EFL Championship team of the season came out last month, the Terriers had just one representative. Perhaps they should have had more. But in fairness, it was probably the one fans would have pushed for most vociferously: Lee Nicholls.

Last summer, the goalkeeper was out of contract at League One side Milton Keynes Dons, where he had spent five years but found himself relegated to the bench. With just seven prior Championship appearances on his CV – the most recent of which came in 2015 – perhaps it was understandable that there was some scepticism about his ability to be Huddersfield Town’s number one.

What an incredible bit of scouting that has turned out to be – and Town head of goalkeeping Paul Clements was the man responsible for picking Nicholls out of a rough patch and helping polish him into a Championship diamond.

Asked about the process that led Town to Nicholls, Clements tells us: “We’re not in a position where we can go and spend £60m on Ederson or De Gea or whatever. Goalkeeping fees are going up and up and up, and if you speak to the coaches they want someone who can play, who’s unbelievable saving shots, can come for crosses, defend the space…these things cost money!

“So you’ve got to go and find the ones who are maybe not quite at where they should be for us to get them, and now hopefully you’ve got some goalkeepers who may look at it and go ‘what’s going on at Huddersfield?’, because the programme’s good.

“Jonas [Lossl] was struggling as well when we brought him in and it’s about coming into our programme…we have good staff here and do a lot of individualised things, we’ve got a great analyst department that help us out, the nutritional