Derby County’s first Christmas game was at home to Bolton Wanderers at the County Ground on Boxing Day 1888. Until Bolton were relegated in 1899 they provided the Christmas opposition every year; in 11 meetings, the Rams won six to Bolton’s one. Derby’s first league game on Christmas Day was in 1894, a 4-1 win at Sheffield United. Two years later, the first Christmas Day fixture at the Baseball Ground saw Steve Bloomer hit a hat-trick in an 8-1 win…
Items from the Gerald Mortimer Collection sold for a combined price of over £25,000 at Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall on Friday 31 August 2018. A Derby County directors’ minutes book from 1888, the year the Football League was formed, was bought by the club for £4000 (estimate £1000-£2000). It is now on display at Pride Park along with a 1934 supper card commemorating the club’s jubilee, also bought by Derby County, selling for £400. The card is signed by 8…
On August 31, Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall are selling items from Gerald Mortimer’s collection which includes letters relating to the controversial dismissal of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor in 1973. Mortimer, who died aged 77 in 2013, reported on the Rams for the Derby Telegraph from 1970 until he retired in 2002. He kept all letters, programmes and memorabilia relating to his career and developed a close personal relationship with Clough and Taylor. One of the lots for sale at…
Derby travel to Boundary Park on Tuesday to play Oldham Athletic in the first round of the Carabao Cup. In this article, Steve McGhee looks back at the Rams’ first real success in this competition. Under its various sponsored guises, the Football League Cup is now a well-established feature of any season but, back in 1960, when it was first played for, the brainwave of then Football League secretary Alan Hardaker was met by a tide of apathy and concern…
This season marks the 50th anniversary since Derby County became Division Two Champions under the management of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. It was the beginning of a golden era for the Rams which would see the club win two League Championships, play European football and witness many great games at the Baseball Ground. Before the start of the 1968/69 season, Clough persuaded 33-year old Scotland legend Dave Mackay to sign for £5,000 from Tottenham Hotspur to captain the Rams…
On Monday December 14 1970, the Rams played a friendly match at the Baseball Ground against a British Olympic X1 team preparing for the 1972 Games in Munich. The game was one of a series of matches against professional clubs, with other teams including Oxford United, Watford, Reading, Preston, Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday. The Munich Games were the final Olympic competition entered by Britain’s amateur football team. The four page programme, priced four pence (two new pence), listed Derby as…