Derby County Memories

Relegation from the First Division in 1921 had been followed by two successive mid-table finishes for the Rams. The previous season had seen attendances begin to drop below 10,000 so the summer signing of inside-forward Jackie Whitehouse from Birmingham, who had won a Second Division medal there 3 years earlier, was intended to improve the club’s goalscoring record which had averaged barely a goal a game in the previous season. It certainly achieved that, however Whitehouse would, ironically, be the…

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One of the rarest post war Derby home programmes is from the game against arch rivals Nottingham Forest on Saturday 30 January 1971. At the time the Rams had been struggling to establish a consistent run of form, winning only four league games since the end of August. The previous game, however, had seen the team beat Ipswich 1-0 at Portman Road thanks to a goal from John O’Hare. According to Andy Ellis’s The Derby County Programme Guide (2021), bad…

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The 1930s and 40s saw Chelsea as one of the Rams’ most regular opponents. Indeed, the two clubs had met one another in 17 consecutive seasons between 1930/31 and 1952/53. While the subsequent decade saw Derby drop down to the third tier before consolidating in the Second Division, the same period of time had seen Chelsea, who had flirted with relegation for all bar one post-war season, quite unexpectedly win their first-ever League title in 1955. Far from ushering in…

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After losing the opening game of the 1939/1940 season 3-0 at Sunderland, the Rams played their first match at the Baseball Ground on Wednesday 30 August against Portsmouth. Derby President Bendle W Moore is optimistic about the campaign in his programme message, saying: “we shall no doubt have our disappointments, but I am hopeful that they will not dishearten us and make us forget those moments of elation when the play of our team is a delight to watch.” There…

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The FA Cup hadn’t been overly kind to Derby in the years since they lifted the trophy in 1946. There was a semi-final in 1948 and quarter-final appearances in 1949 and 1950 but, in the subsequent 14 years, the 4th round was the best the Rams could boast. There hadn’t been too many “plum” draws either but when the 3rd round draw for the 1965/66 competition was made, and the Rams landed perhaps THE “plum” tie – at home to…

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In the summer of 1951 a national exhibition and fair was held throughout the UK known as the Festival of Britain. Its objective was to give British citizens a feeling of successful recovery after World War Two and to promote British science, technology, culture and sport. As part of the festival, the FA organised friendly games which mostly involved English teams playing against Scottish, Irish and European clubs. Derby County took part in the competition and played Borussia Dortmund on…

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Eight years after being crowned League Champions, Derby, now under the management of Peter Taylor and Roy McFarland, found themselves in a struggle to avoid relegation to the Third Division and, going into the final day of the season, with nothing decided, were one of nine clubs who faced the drop depending upon results. This, however, was still a vast improvement in a season which had seen them bottom of the table in mid-March before going on a 13-match unbeaten…

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The Rams were due to travel to Carlisle United for a Division Two fixture on Saturday 8 February 1969 but the game was postponed due to severe frost and snowfall in Scotland and northern England. Manchester had recorded temperatures of -13°C and only two games in the division went ahead, in Cardiff and Portsmouth. Brian Clough and Peter Taylor’s team were four points clear at the top of the league on 40 points from 29 games, with Carlisle in mid-table…

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If there was one ground that Derby would have anticipated visiting with great relish at this time, it would have been the vast bowl that was The Valley, home of Charlton Athletic. Since the resumption of League football after the war, Derby had made five visits there and returned home with five victories resulting in an aggregate score of 19-6 in the Rams’ favour. November of 1951 opened with Charlton lying 6th in the table (4 points behind leaders Bolton)…

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Milburn Shanks, deputy sports editor of the Derby Evening Telegraph, wrote the following in his match report for the 0-0 Division Two draw at home to Luton on 3 March 1955: “‘Just what more has a team to do to earn two points?’ was a question I heard asked several times by Rams’ supporters after the game at the Baseball Ground yesterday, bewildered because relegation-haunted Derby County, after attacking for a good 90 per cent of the time against promotion-challengers Luton Town, could…

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