Having finished runners-up to title winners Sunderland the previous season, Derby had entered the new season as one of half a dozen clubs expected to challenge for honours and had started off in great form, having won three of their opening four games and scoring 13 goals in doing so. That included a four-goal haul for Jack Bowers in a 5-4 Baseball Ground success against Manchester United where the Rams had fought back from two goals down.

On September 14^th, they made the trip to Hillsborough to face a Sheffield Wednesday side who were in full-on entertainment mode themselves, having netted 12 in four games, including six in their previous home game with Everton so an exciting match was envisaged and this certainly proved to be the case, especially since the incessant Sheffield rain had left the well-maintained Hillsborough pitch soaking wet. The Derby team was unchanged from the previous week’s 3-0 triumph against Sunderland, the injured Reg Stockill once again replaced by Jimmy Hagan. The weather resulted in a lower crowd than expected – 25,629 – and there were noticeable gaps in the uncovered areas of the ground.

For the match, Wednesday issued a large 16-page programme priced 2d which, on the face of it, looks an excellent production but is somewhat sparse on reading material. There is one interesting article which looks at how George Jobey’s “happy knack of discovering young players” has transformed the Rams into one of the country’s best-run clubs and thus dispelled the rumour that “Derby could not afford to keep a First Division club”. The line-ups are on the centre pages surrounded by copious advertising including a Bette Davis movie playing at the Albert Hall cinema as well as the only example I’ve ever seen in a football programme from a fur coat retailer. Season tickets are offered for sale at prices ranging from 14 shillings to £3 (the latter described as ‘double ticket, lady and gent’). The Dannemora Steel Works Prize Band were listed as pre-match and half-time entertainment with a playlist of eight numbers.

The match kicked off with the rain still teeming down. As the half wore on, it was the home side who were looking the more dangerous concentrating their attacks down the left side, keeping Ted Udall and Jack Nicholas fully occupied. When Derby counter-attacked, it was noted that far too many of the passes out to the wing ended up being overhit due to the conditions. So it was perhaps no surprise when, on 26 minutes, the home side went in front when Neil Dewar’s trickery beat Fred Jessop before shooting past Jack Kirby. Nine minutes later it was 2-0 when Ellis Rimmer, who had been Wednesday’s most dangerous player, centred only for the wind to make Kirby mistime his attempt to punch the ball away, allowing 35-year old Mark Hooper to turn the loose ball home.

Two down at the interval, Derby made the best possible start to the second half when, straight from kick off and without any home player touching the ball, Jack Bowers finished off a five-man move by heading home a Charlie Napier cross.

The goal lifted the Rams’ spirits and, as they attacked incessantly, the equaliser eventually came on the hour mark when a move between Napier and Dally Duncan ended with the former firing past 37-year-old Jack Brown in the Wednesday goal. The impetus was now very much with Derby and the Wednesday defence, who had conceded eight goals in their previous two matches, struggled to cope with the speed of Derby’s passing movements.

On 75 minutes came the winning goal, Eric Keen finding Bowers who held the ball up before passing to the onrushing Dally Duncan who fired past Brown to earn a 3-2 victory. The reporter from the Sheffield Green’Un was especially impressed by the match he’d seen:

“Let’s have no whining and moaning, you Wednesdayites! It was a jolly good game, you got your money’s worth of goals and entertainment and Wednesday were not disgraced. Points are not everything”.

Come the end of the season, however, he may have regretted those words as his club were relegated along with Manchester United. For Derby, who would finish fourth, the season would see plenty of goals scored (96), a total only bettered by eventual champions Manchester City but far too many conceded (90), this being the second-worst in the division (only West Brom having conceded more).

Sheff Weds: Brown; Ashley, Catlin; Rhodes, Hanford, Burrows; Luke, Starling, Dewar, Hopper, Rimmer.

Derby: Atkin; Udall, Jessop; Nicholas, Barker, Keen; Crooks, Hagan, Bowers, Napier, Duncan.

Attendance: 25,629