To mark the founding of the world’s first professional football league by William McGregor in 1888, which began with 12 clubs including Derby County, the Football League celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1938 with a series of events and matches featuring all 88 member clubs.

Ahead of the 1938/1939 season, a series of friendly fixtures were arranged to raise money for the Football League Jubilee Benevolent Fund. At the time, professional footballers’ wages were capped at just £8 a week, with only minimal insurance against injury. The Fund set out to raise £100,000 to support players and clubs in hardship, providing grants to ease financial struggles and to help players prepare for new careers after retirement.

A week before the 1938/1939 season began, ‘Jubilee Saturday’ on 20 August 1938 launched the fundraising campaign. Local derbies were staged to boost crowds and revenue, attracting almost 450,000 spectators across 44 first-team matches. Derby County travelled to Leicester City for their fixture, losing 4–2 before a crowd of 5,740.

With Jubilee Saturday deemed a success, the fixtures were reversed and repeated in August 1939 – just weeks before the season was abandoned as the Second World War halted league football for six years. On 19 August 1939, Derby County hosted Leicester City at the Baseball Ground. The previous season had been one of contrasting fortunes: Derby finished sixth in Division One, while Leicester ended bottom of the table and were relegated to Division Two.

A 34-page programme was issued for the match, though it contained little detail about either side beyond the team lineups. Inside, readers could find team photos of the 1938/1939 champions from all divisions – Everton, Blackburn, Newport, and Barnsley – along with results grids for the previous season and fixture grids for the forthcoming campaign. A message from the Football League President, WC Cuff, explained the origin of the Jubilee games, citing concerns over the ‘after-care of our League players’ and ‘what was to become of them when their playing careers were finished, whether by age or accident.’ The programme also featured several pages on Association Football, including ‘How Spectators Can Help Their Clubs,’ ‘Points from the Laws of Football,’ and ‘Some Explanatory Notes on the Laws.’

Rams fans welcomed back a familiar face as Leicester’s number 9 was Jack Bowers, a former Derby County hero who scored 183 goals in 220 appearances for the club between 1928 and 1936 – surpassed only by Steve Bloomer and Kevin Hector in Derby’s all-time scoring charts. Bowers holds the record for the most league goals in a single season, scoring 37 in 1930/1931 – a record he shares with Ray Straw, who also netted 37 goals in 1956/1957.

In September 1934, Bowers suffered a serious knee injury and lost his place to Hughie Gallacher. After a slow recovery, he returned to the first team at the start of the 1936/1937 season and, on 5 September 1936, with Derby 4–1 down at home to Manchester United, Bowers scored four goals in a 15-minute second-half burst to secure a remarkable 5-4 win. However, Bowers was no longer first choice and was transferred to Leicester in November for £6,000.

On a sweltering summer day, the crowd got their money’s worth as both teams entertained, with Leicester eventually running out 6–4 winners. Derby’s centre-forward David McCulloch was sidelined by throat trouble, so Kendrick stepped in and scored two of the ten goals. Dally Duncan opened the scoring in each half, while Kendrick added two more after the interval. For Leicester, Liddle scored twice in quick succession in the first half, Stubbs struck just before half-time and again shortly before the final whistle, and Jack Bowers added the Foxes’ second and seventh goals.