Derby County concluded the 1911/12 season as Division Two champions with 54 points, edging out Chelsea on goal average after both teams finished level on points. After spending four years at Middlesbrough, the legendary Steve Bloomer returned to Derby in 1910 and played a pivotal role in their promotion campaign, finishing as top scorer with 18 league goals (19 in all competitions) as well as scoring his 300th goal for the Rams against Huddersfield Town in September.

After a mixed start to the 1912/1913 season – opening with a 1-1 draw at home to Blackburn, followed by a 2-0 victory at Sunderland, and a heavy 4-1 defeat to Everton at the Baseball Ground – manager Jimmy Methven took his Derby side to White Hart Lane to face Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday 21 September in a 3.30pm kick off.

The official match programme extends a warm welcome to Derby County and acknowledges their return to Division One and the strength of their squad:

‘It has taken the County a goodish while to join us in the upper grade. Their return to the fold last April was very popular, and we are pleased to see them back again in the First Division. Our visitors have not parted with a single player of the victorious combination that carried them to the top of the Second Division table last season, but of the players who assisted Derby when they came to us four years ago, only Atkin, Barbour, and Barnes, remain in the ranks of the Rams. Wonderful Steve Bloomer has, of course, returned to his old love in the meantime, and the veteran International, who was assisting Middlesbrough when we last saw him at Tottenham, needs but little introduction to followers of the winter game.’

‘Bloomer has a dashing set of colleagues in the Derby forward line. Grimes, the outside right, has improved considerably since his first introduction to professional football in the ranks of Watford. Ivan Sharpe, Derby’s amateur left winger, is said to be the fastest forward playing. He is an amateur International and was one of the English team that toured in South Africa in 1910.’

38 year old Steve Bloomer inspired the Rams to a 2-1 victory in front of 30,000 spectators at White Hart Lane. Collins converted a penalty for Spurs, while Henry Leonard and Bloomer found the net for Derby.

Match reports were full of praise for Bloomer’s impact on the game. The Daily Herald – a London publication in circulation between 1912 to 1964 – wrote:

‘There was not a forward in the game the equal of Stephen Bloomer. Age cannot wither the wonderful powers of this extraordinary veteran. Bloomer was the brains of the visiting front rank all through. He initiated practically all their dangerous moves, all the time working in that strangely quiet but effective manner which is only seen in the really great exponent.’

The Derby Daily Telegraph were equally effusive in their praise for Bloomer: ‘Derby’s forwards were great – up to a point. Their midfield work was clever in conception and brilliant in execution. They played like a well-oiled machine – Bloomer was the genius of the line. He is still an artist.’

Tottenham Hotspur: Lunn, Collins, Brittan, Weir, Rance, Lightfoot, Tattersall, Minter, Young, Jones, Middlemiss

Derby County: Scattergood, Atkin, Betts, Barbour, Buckley, Garry, Grimes, Bloomer, Leonard, Barnes, Neve

Although outside left Ivan Sharpe did not play in the game – he was replaced by Edwin Neve – he is an interesting character. Sharpe won an Olympic gold medal with the Great Britain football team at the 1912 Stockholm games and later had a long career as a sports journalist. He is also one of very few players to have played for both Leeds City and Leeds United.

Derby finished the 1912/1913 season in seventh place in the First Division, while Tottenham finished fourth from bottom. Steve Bloomer again played a key role for the Rams, making 30 appearances and scoring 14 goals. However, time began to take its toll on the club legend and he featured just five times the following season as Derby finished bottom of the table and were relegated. Bloomer scored his 332nd and final goal for Derby in the second match of the season, a 5-3 defeat to Sheffield United at the Baseball Ground.

The Rams made an immediate return to the top flight by winning the Second Division title in the 1914/15 season. However, their momentum was halted as football was suspended for over four years due to World War One.