Club Spotlight : Derby County Story

    In 1884, association football, the me which had developed in the iglish public schools when those establishments took up the old mob game and evolved an organized, disciplined football, was gaining rapidly in popularity. The previous year Black-bum Olympic, a team of working-class lads from Lancashire, had won the FA Cup and broken the stranglehold of the public school and services teams. In 1884, Blackburn Rovers followed the example of their neighbours and won the Cup, and the face of football was changed forever. In Derby, local soccer was already well established. The Derbyshire Football Association had been formed in 1883 and Derby Midland was the leading local club. Midland, the works team of the local railway company, reached the third round of the FA Cup in 1883-4 and another Derbyshire learn, Staveley, went one stage further before bowing out to Blackburn Rovers, the eventual winners. It was against this background that Derby County Football Club was formed in 1884. The club was an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club and during the spring of that year, William Morley, a clerk at the Midland Railway, discussed with other enthusiasts the possibility of forming a senior football team for the town. His father, William senior, was a cricket club committee member and he put the idea forward officially. Derbyshire CCC was in a trough — the side were to lose all ten games in 1884 — and as the first Derbyshire Cup Final, between Midland and Staveley in March 1884, had attracted a crowd of some 7,000 10 (he County Ground — 'the largest attendance ever seen at a football contest in Derby' — so the cricket club probably felt that a football section could aid its precarious finances.

The pitch at the County Ground, where the Derbyshire Cup Final was played, was described at the time as 'a magnificent piece of turf .and the 1886 FA Cup Final replay between Blackburn Rovers and West Brom was staged there, as were several semi-finals and a full international between England and Ireland in 1895. The first colours of Derby County were those of the cricket club amber, chocolate and pale blue and the association with the cricketers was so strong that the football club wanted to call itself Derbyshire County FC. The Derbyshire FA objected, however, though for some time afterwards the Rams were described as the Derbyshire County FC. In the summer of 1884, a meeting of interested parties appointed a committee. One of the honorary secretaries was Samuel Richardson, who was assistant secretary of the cricket club and their first captain. Richardson, though, was to leave Derby under a cloud in 1890, accused of embezzling the cricket club funds. He fled the country, changed his name and was last heard of as court tailor to King Alfonso ol Spain. The first paid secretary of the football club was Mr W.Parker of 4 Amen Alley, a street which exists relatively unchanged to this day.

The honour of becoming Derby County's first player fell to Haydn Morley, a Derbyshire cricketer and a son of Wiiliam Morley senior. Derby Midland's brilliant right winger, George Bakewell, was the second player to be signed and there was much resentments amongst local clubs when their best players began to join the new club. Derby County's first match was against Great Lever, officially an amateur side from Bolton, but in its era era of growing professionalism — it was to be legalized the following year — the Lancashire players were undoubtedly paid. Thus, on 13 September 1884, Derby County took the field for the first time. Their team was: L.F.Gillett; R.L.Evans, F.Harvey; A.Williamson, H.A.Morley, H.Walmsley; G.Bakewell, W.Shipley, B.W.Spilsbury, A.Smith and CWard. The positions may not be strictly accurate, nor all the spellings since newspapers experimented with both. It was an inauspicious start for the Rams. Within five minutes Gillett, the goalkeeper who had helped the Old Carthusians win the FA Cup three years earlier, missed a centre from Whittle and Derby were a goal down. John Goodall, the man who was to play such a large part in Derby County's early story, was making his English football debut for Great Lever and he scored a second. Before half-time the Rams were 3-0 down and in the second half Goodall scored three more lo send the visitors back to Derby smarting from a six-goal defeat. On 27 September the Rams played their second match — and their first home game against Blackburn Olympic, difficult opponents and FA Cup winners the previous year. Some 1,500 people had watched the Rams at Great Lever and the club expected a similar gate for this home debut. Ladies were admitted free, men paid a minimum of sixpence (2!4p) which was later reduced to half that sum, and entrance was through gates near the canal bridge...

The start of the most successfull era in the history of Derby County can be pin-pointed to 15 May 1967. That was the day on which it was announced that Brian Clough and Peter Taylor were coming to the Baseball Ground. Before injury ended his career prematurely, Brian Clough, now 31 years old, had been one of British soccer's most consistent marksmen since World War Two, with Middlesbrough and Sunderland. After the injury which ended his playing days, he worked as youth coach at Roker Park before being offered his first job in management in October 1965, when hard-up Hartle-pools beckoned. After taking his old Middlesbrough goalkeeping colleague, Peter Taylor, who was then managing Southern League Burton Albion, to the Victoria Ground as his assistant, Clough built up, from virtually nothing, one of the best sides in  Hartlepools' history. They were good enough to finish eighth in Division Four in 1967 and their young manager had created a team capable of winning promotion. But Clough would not be around to take Hartlepools into Division Three. His style had brought him to the attentions of several clubs and when he accepted the Baseball Ground job, it was known that Aston Villa and West Brom were both looking at him with a view to filling their respective managerial vacancies. With typical bluntness Clough promised Rams fans one thing — that, whatever else, their club would finish higher than the previous season's 17th position. In fact the Rams finished one place lower and missed relegation by five points. Yet, despite this apparent worsening of fortunes, there was a buzz at the Baseball Ground of the kind not experienced since the 1940s. Everyone seemed to feel that 'something' was about to happen...

 

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