The 1930s had begun with an air of optimism around the club with George Jobey’s team lying in third place in the table, five points behind leaders Sheffield Wednesday, and on a run of 7 wins from their last 10 games. Adding to all the optimism, the Rams had coasted into the fourth round of the FA Cup with a comfortable 5-1 home win over Second Division opponent Bristol City.

The draw for the fourth round handed Derby another home game and, once again, against Second Division opponents with Bradford (Park Avenue) due to visit the Baseball Ground on January 25^th. The Yorkshire club were in fifth place in the table and had won 1-0 at Barnsley in the third round. As well as that, they had won 2-1 at local rivals Bradford City a week earlier.

The Rams fielded a very settled side – indeed ten of the eleven in the line-up were in the team which started the season with only centre-half Tommy Davison out injured. Avenue included winger Alf Quantrill who had played for Derby either side of the Great War and the Rams would need to keep a close eye on forwards George McLean and Irvine Harwood who had netted 10 goals between them in the club’s last 8 games.

For the match, Derby issued their standard 12-page programme. This was the final season the colourful 4-page outer advertising shell would be employed and, on this occasion, it would be an amber colour. The colour used would vary from game to game, presumably dependent upon the stock levels at printers Bacon & Hudson Ltd. Of course, the downside to this approach is that there is nothing on the cover to distinguish which match the programme covers.

“Notes And Notions” on Page 3 discusses the previous week’s surprising 0-4 defeat at an Everton side fighting against relegation, partly alleviated by the table-topping reserves beating the same opponents 4-2 (in front of a crowd of 5,886). Page 4 features a “Cheap (Rail) Trips to Derby” for the upcoming Baseball Ground fixture with Manchester City. The centre page has the team line-ups (players numbered from 1 to 22 though, of course, actual shirts were not numbered in those days) surrounded by adverts for, amongst other things, a “special double feature talkie programme” at the Empire Cinema featuring Laura La Plante in “The Last Warning” which apparently is “spooky, daring and the year’s greatest mystery” and Ken Maynard in “The Wagon Master” which appears to be a western.

There’s a H/T scoreboard on page 8 which covers 21 matches (including Newcastle v Clapton, Bury v Spurs and Derby reserves at Sheffield Utd). Page 10 has a short article stating that declining attendances at matches may be down to too few promotion places being available at the third tier of the game. There is, however, a conspicuous lack of any detail within the publication on the visiting team which suggests, at best, that a match programme was seen by the club in a very different light compared to the excellent issues published by many of their First Division rivals of the time.

To the match itself, then, and the wet weather led to a heavy, muddy pitch which as “Baseball” in the Derby Daily Telegraph noted in his review of the tie, did not lend itself to the slow passing game Derby employed in the first half and which made it easier for the Bradford defenders to maintain their shape – especially once they had taken a surprise lead on 30 minutes through Irvine Harwood (who had knocked himself out scoring the goal and was no doubt revived by copious use of the trainer’s magic sponge!).

Derby dominated the second half and made far more use of Crooks and Mee on the wings (Mee, especially, often cutting inside and shooting from distance) but attempt after attempt was repelled by visiting ‘keeper Jack Clough. On 69 minutes, however, a Harry Bedford header rattled the crossbar and Bob Barclay forced home the rebound. The Avenue defence held firm for the remainder of the match and thus earned a replay back at Park Avenue to be held on the following Wednesday afternoon.

“Baseball” was quite critical of the Rams performance on the day, especially in the first half, but felt that “lessons had been learned” and that, if the Rams played “cup-tie football”, would undoubtedly prevail in the replay. How wrong he was, however. The Avenue it was who would earn a trip to Sheffield Wednesday in Round 5, beating the Rams 2-1.