After a month away in the land of Oz the Blues present run has, almost, made me forget the sorry cricket I had to endure! Great wins v West Brom, there were a few beers sunk on the Bondi after that one, thank you JCR, and in the Welsh heartland of Cardiff following on from strong draws at Coventry and Norwich. Throw in a well deserved F.A. Cup victory at Barnsley on Tuesday, I may make White Hart Lane yet, add up to some smiles returning to the Roots Hall faithful at last.
However, this is all going to be put to a stern test on Saturday when Derby come to town. Charging up the table after a fine run themselves they are making Birmingham look over their shoulder and we all know what City did to us over Christmas. The lads are going to have to be at the top of their game to get the points from this one, points that are still badly needed, this run needs to go on for a few games yet, we are talking promotion form here till May!
Manager Billy Davies has also been given the money to back his hunches, after his failure to land Freddy Eastwood earlier this season, as four players have made the move to the Baseball Ground in January including Celtic's highly rated midfielder Stephen Pearson, adding to a strong Scottish influence at the club, along with Gary Teale, Craig Fagan and David Jones. The board made their intention known back in the summer when Luton received 1 million pounds for their highly rated striker Stephen Howard who has rewarded the club with ten goals so far. This week has also seen Bradford City turn down a bid in the region of £250,000 for their Jamaican winger Jermaine Johnson. This team are serious Premiership contenders.
To many supporters the name Derby conjures up two epic cup ties played in the seventies, the first in front of 31,918 on Valentine's Day 1976 when we played the present league champions in the fifth round, Derby going on to beat the mighty Real Madrid 4-1 at the Baseball ground that year, though lose the overall tie, and with Charlie George at the height of his powers, we came away with an unlucky 0-1 defeat. Thousands of Blues fans that day in the crowd with many joining in the shout of 'F*** Off Rioch' as the Derby hard man kicked, if my memory serves, Colin Morris into the East Stand as he was about to go clean through on the Derby goal.
The second match only two years later saw another one goal reverse, 2-3, as Parker grabbed a brace in the third round, January 7 1978.
It was, in fact, the cup that first brought us together and our biggest win against them, a 4-1 home win in the fourth round, Hick (2), Andrews, Graver scoring with 14,225 attending, on the 30th of January 1926.
Three other games stand out. The first away match back in the second tier on August 24 1991 saw 12,284, and many of them Shrimpers, beat the Rams 2-1 with Andy Sussex and Bretty Angell grabbing the goals, the winner an unfortunate mistake by the then ageing ex-England keeper Peter Shilton.
The other two were both in the 1993/94 season. The Judas Fry's greatest moment came on the day England beat the All Blacks 9-6, November 27 1993. A day stoked with infamy as we hammered Derby 3-1 with, arguably, the greatest 90 minutes of attacking football I have ever witnessed away from Roots Hall. Jonathon Hunt, Gary Jones and a Rikki Otto volley which I still see in my dreams and must rank as a desert island Blues goal if such an island exists.
Sadly Karen Brady was also aware of what was going on in the crowd of 14,458, did we go top six or even higher?, and Fry went off to Birmingham a couple of weeks later.
Yet we still had the last laugh as on a sunny May 1 1994, the final day of the season, a Roots Hall crowd of 8,119, witnessed a game made in attacking heaven as we won 4-3, 'Ohh' Andy Ansah got two, Sussex a penalty and another Rikki cracker, as the news circulated the ground that the Fat Man's Birmingham had lost to West Brom I believe, and were relegated. A very sweet moment made sweeter by several bottles of cider set free by the bar in the West Stand before the kick off and seeing Rikki himself smoking a joint on the steps of the East Stand at around six thirty after.
Sadly I must quickly change the mood with our biggest defeat, a horrible 0-7 in some Mickey Mouse cup on Oct. 7 1992, after winning the first leg 1-0!
Our last league meeting was on Sep. 30 2006 where we surrended easily 0-3. Hopefully they will see a mighty different Blues on Saturday, if not in actual personel, certainly in spirit.
Overall there has been 23 matches in total: Won 9 Lost 12 Drawn 2, so all to play for.
History of the club
The club was formed in 1884 as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club. They originally wanted to name themselves directly after the cricket club as Derbyshire County FC, but objections from the local football association (who thought the name was too long) led them to choose Derby County FC.
The Rams, as Derby County are known, initially played at the Racecourse Ground, like their parent cricket club. As well as competing in a number of friendly matches and informally competitions, Derby County also entered the premier British football competition of the time: the FA Cup.
Derby County were founder members of The Football League when it was launched in 1888. In 1891, they absorbed another Derby club, Derby Midland F.C., who had been members of the Midland League. Steve Bloomer, generally considered to be Derby County's best-ever player, joined the club in 1892. In 1895 the club moved to a new stadium, The Baseball Ground (so called because it was previously used for baseball), which became their home for the next 102 years, and adopted their traditional colours of black and white.
On April 16, 1898, Derby appeared in their first FA Cup final at Crystal Palace, but unfortunately lost 3-1 against Nottingham Forest. They were losing finalists again on April 15, 1899 (4-1 to Sheffield United) and April 18, 1903 (6-0 to Bury). Derby's luck didn't get any better and they were relegated to the Football League's Second Division for the first time in 1907, but under Jimmy Methven's management they re-signed Steve Bloomer and regained their First Division place in 1911. Bloomer's captaincy of the side that contained 'The 5 Bs' ('Major' Frank Buckley, Tommy Barbour, Horace Barnes, Jimmy Bauchop) was a feature just before World War I.
In 1914 they were relegated again, but instantly won the Second Division to get promoted (though World War I meant that they had to wait until 1919 to play First Division football again). After just two seasons, they were relegated yet again in 1921.
However, more successful times lay ahead, instigated by Derby's promotion in 1926. Despite not winning anything, the club became a formidable force, with constantly high finishes, from the late 1920s and all the way through the 1939-1940 season, which was abandoned due to World War II. For example, in the 1929-1930 season Derby County finished in second place in the First Division with 50 points behind Sheffield Wednesday on 60 points.
The FA Cup restarted in the 1945-1946 season. Derby got to the final again, but this time managed to go all the way and win by beating Charlton Athletic 4-1 after extra time. (Derby's previous lack of success in the FA Cup as they also regularly lost at the semi-final stage and gave rise to a superstition that the club was subject to a gypsy curse, supposedly because of gypsy anger that the Baseball Ground was built on a gypsy camping ground. Prior to the 1946 final, Derby County players went so far as to ask the gypsies to lift the curse.)
The Football League restarted the following season and, despite the Cup win, Derby could not reproduce their pre-War form and were eventually relegated in 1953. Things went from bad to worse and in 1955 they were relegated to the Third Division North for the first time in their history. The third tier proved easy for Derby, though: they finished second at the first attempt and then bettered it by finishing first (and gaining promotion) the following season.
In 1967, the now-legendary Brian Clough took over Derby County (in partnership with assistant manager Peter Taylor) and led them to their greatest glories. When Clough took over the team, the Rams were treading water in the Second Division and the club's only honour, the 1946 FA Cup win, was becoming a distant memory. There was little expectation that the young manager was going to lead his team to the club's first League Championship.
With Clough having clinched the influential signing of Dave Mackay, Derby were promoted to the First Division in 1969 and won their first ever Football League Championship in 1972. On May 8, 1972, Clough was on holiday in Spain with his Derby side as they were crowned champions with their season having already ended. Back home Leeds United and Liverpool failed to get the results necessary in their last games and the Rams clinched the title.
Though Derby did not retain their title the following season, they did reach the semi-finals of the European Cup, eventually losing to Italian side Juventus in a controversial match which was subject to subsequent allegations that the Italian club had bribed the match officials, leading Clough to call the Italians "cheating bastards".
Clough's frequent outspoken comments against football's establishment (which had led to Derby being threatened with expulsion from the Football League) eventually led to him falling out with the board of directors at the club, and Clough and Taylor both left in 1973, to widespread uproar from Rams fans, who demanded the board resign and Clough be reinstated.
With the high profile signings of Francis Lee and Bruce Rioch, Derby's League success was repeated in 1974-1975 season when they won the title again, this time under Dave Mackay. Before the 1975-1976 season the Rams made another big name signing in Charlie George and that season saw the Rams face mighty Real Madrid in the European Cup. In one of the greatest games at the Baseball Ground, Charlie George scored a hat-trick as Derby ran out 4-1 winners. Progress in the competition was halted by a 1-5 loss in the second leg at Madrid's Santiago Bernabeau Stadium.
Derby's form declined towards the end of the 1970s and they went down to the Second Division in 1980.
Though they challenged well in their first season, Derby's stay in the Second Division was not a happy one and they were relegated to the now-national Third Division in 1984, their centenary year and just nine years after their last Championship.
After the relegation, the club appointed former Newcastle United manager Arthur Cox to stop the rot and stop it he did. After a two year stint in the Third Division, Cox's emerging side were promoted to the Second Division and won it at the first attempt, returning to the old First Division in 1987.
The club finished fifth in the 1988-1989 season, with the team now containing stars like Peter Shilton, Mark Wright, Dean Saunders and Ted McMinn. However, English clubs were banned from European competition at the time, so the Rams missed out on a place in the UEFA Cup that their high finish otherwise would have earned.
This was Cox's team at its peak; a lack of further investment from controversial chairman Robert Maxwell lead to a decline shortly after. With Maxwell soon dead from suspected suicide, the club was relegated back to the Second Division in 1991 (which became the "new" First Division a year later when the old First Division clubs broke away to form the FA Premier League). At this time, local newspaper businessman Lionel Pickering became the majority shareholder of the club.
Derby's hopes of earning immediate promotion to the new FA Premier League in 1992 were ended when they lost to eventual winners Blackburn Rovers in the playoff semi-finals. The same year, Derby paid £2.5 million for Notts County's central defender Craig Short. At the time and for five years afterwards after he was the most expensive player to be signed by a club outside the top flight.
The FA Premier League (or, more precisely, the money it brought) made it even more difficult for Derby to gain promotion to the Premier League, let alone stay there. Cox resigned in late 1993 citing health problems, and Roy McFarland returned as manager. Despite big spending, however, McFarland failed to get the side anywhere near the top of the division apart from a defeat at the hands of Leicester City in the 1993-1994 playoff final and was sacked in 1995 after a pair of mid-table finishes. Jim Smith was appointed as the club's new manager. Although the season started slowly, the hugely influential signing of sweeper Igor Stimac proved pivotal. Throwing his brief of 'a top-half finish' out the window, Smith guided the Rams to a second-place finish and, more importantly, the Premier League.
Derby County made an excellent Premiership debut in the 1996-1997 season, finishing 12th in the final table with a side containing quality players like Paulo Wanchope, Aljosa Asanovic, Igor Stimac, Jacob Laursen and Dean Sturridge. The club moved into the new 30,000-seat (later upgraded to 33,597-seat) Pride Park Stadium for the 1997-1998 season.
Progress continued in the next two seasons. The Rams finishing ninth and eighth places before a decline in form saw the club finish 16th at the end of the 1999-2000 Premiership campaign. Another relegation battle followed in 2000-2001 when Derby narrowly avoided the drop by finished 17th in the Premiership one place clear of relegation.
Jim Smith resigned as manager in October 2001 after rejecting an offer to become the club's director of football. He was replaced by assistant manager and former player Colin Todd. Todd remained in charge for just three months before he was sacked in the aftermath of a humiliating FA Cup Third Round home defeat against Third Division strugglers Bristol Rovers.
At the end of January 2002, John Gregory was appointed Derby manager less than a week after walking out on Aston Villa. Derby won their first two games under Gregory's management and also held title chasing Manchester United to a draw, suggesting that Gregory might be able to save Derby from relegation. But seven defeats from their final eight fixtures condemned Derby to relegation from the Premiership after six successive seasons of top division football.
Derby County's relegation back to The Football League saw the club enter a serious financial crisis, which forced them to sell many key players and build a team mostly of home-grown youngsters like Tom Huddlestone and Lee Grant. Gregory was suspended from his managerial duties over alleged misconduct and former Ipswich Town boss George Burley was drafted in as a temporary manager. An 18th place finish was secured. At the end of the season Gregory's contract was terminated and Burley received the job on a permanent basis.
The club's parent company went briefly into liquidation in October 2003 and the majority shareholder Lionel Pickering gave way to a new board of John Sleightholme, Jeremy Keith and Steve Harding. The police are currently investigating whether any illegal payments were made at this time. Derby finished 20th in the 2003-2004 First Division campaign, but improved dramatically in the 2004-2005 season and finished 4th in the Football League Championship (the new name for the Football League First Division) and qualified for a promotion play-off spot, though lost in the semi-finals to Preston North End.
Soon afterwards, Burley resigned citing differences between himself and the board. He was replaced by Phil Brown. Brown failed to find much success in the job, however, and was sacked in January 2006, after a bad run of results, including a 6-1 hammering at Coventry City and an embarrassing 3-1 FA Cup exit to League One side Colchester. Terry Westley, the academy coach at the time, took over first team duties until the end of the season, when Derby finished 20th in the Championship - just two places above the relegation zone.
Derby's Chairman, John Sleightholme, resigned in April 2006, saying his position had become untenable. The board did not replace him. The rest of the board followed him later that month. A popular consortium of local businessmen led by former vice-chairman Peter Gadsby bought the club to huge popular acclaim, reducing the club's debt and returning Pride Park Stadium to the club's ownership in the process. In June 2006, former Preston North End boss Billy Davies was appointed Derby County's new permanent manager, with Julian Darby as his first-team coach.
The Rams have so far performed very well under Davies, and as of 14 January 2007 they occupy joint first place in the Championship, only behind Birmingham City on goal difference and are well placed for automatic promotion.
Derby County's fierce rivals are Nottingham Forest, who are based in Nottingham, a city 15 miles east of Derby. Leicester City, also based in the East Midlands, come second.
There is also a significant amount of rivalry with Leeds United, despite Leeds not being geographically close to Derby; the rivalry is due to Derby and Leeds being two of the top English teams in the early 1970s. (Hopefully this will make them do the double over them following a 1-0 win at Elland Road.)
