A HUGELY respected and well-known Derby County fan, who watched the Rams play more than 5,000 times, has died.
Ernie Hallam was known to generations of supporters as "Mr Ramaway" in recognition of many years supervising away match travel.
Then 97-year-old became a lifelong devotee of the club after first watching them play – and win 5-1 – in the 1928-29 season.
He was rewarded for his services with travel passes to away games and in 1967, at the invitation of Brian Clough, began a run of support that saw him watch every Derby competitive game, in England and all around Europe, for almost 40 years.
His son, journalist Neil Hallam, said: "I used to make a daily trip to the Baseball Ground while covering the club for the Derby Trader and casually remarked to Brian that my dad felt they were missing an opportunity to connect with the fans who travelled to away games on the official chartered trains.
"Cloughie said, 'If that's what he thinks, tell him to come and see me' – and as a result of that meeting Dad became responsible for liaising between the club and the fans. When the club opted to run coaches instead of trains, he was put in charge of the operation and took pride in demanding high standards of conduct and punctuality from those who travelled with him.
"It was only when I sat down and tried to work out how many times he watched Rams' matches I realised it was such a colossal number."
Raised in the North-East Derbyshire pit village of Pilsley as the eldest of five children, Neil said his father's proudest moment was when he was introduced to the Queen during the opening of Pride Park Stadium in 1997.
Ernie moved to Derby at the age of 14 after getting a job at the city's Carriage and Wagon Works.
When he married, the Rams connection was maintained as he and wife Nell moved to Clifton Street – just a few doors from Rams winger Jack Harrison, former Derby player and trainer Johnny McIntyre and a few minutes' walk from the Baseball Ground.
Ernie later worked at Rolls-Royce before become an insurance salesman.
And in the late 1950s, he began working as a volunteer in the club's ticket office and shop in Normanton Road. Neil said: "I reckon he saw between 4,200 and 4,500 first team games and to that you can add at the very least another seven or eight hundred reserve games. I can't believe any other Rams fan gets close to this total. Come hell, high water or illness, he simply refused to miss matches."
For many years, Ernie also represented the club as sponsors' host, marching them out to the centre circle to be introduced to the captains and match officials, and later arranging the "Man of the Match" presentation.
Neil said: "It was only in his early nineties that Dad reluctantly accepted that he could no longer do all the dashing about for the club, but he continued to watch every home game until declining health made it impossible about four years ago.
"He was a feisty character but you could always pull him up in his tracks by telling him that you would have his ashes scattered at Nottingham Forest's City Ground if he didn't behave himself.
"He'd rather have gone straight to Hell."
Former Rams winger Alan Hinton, who now lives in Seattle, wrote on his Twitter account: "Much sadness knowing the real Mr Derby County, Ernie Hallam, has passed away at the grand old age of 97."
Former Rams chairman Peter Gadsby said Ernie was one of the first people he turned to when he was seeking opinions about moving the club from the Baseball Ground to Pride Park.
Mr Gadsby said: "Ernie was pragmatic and understanding and was a pathfinder in the early days of linking the club with its supporters."
Ernie's wife's died in 1994, only a couple of weeks after the loss of his daughter Glenys, but he is survived by his two sons.
He died on May 30, four days after his 97th birthday, after several weeks in the Royal Derby Hospital following at a fall at his home in Kilburn Lane, Openwoodgate, near Belper.
His funeral will be at St. Mark's Church, Openwoodgate, at 1pm next Wednesday, June 12, prior to burial at Belper Cemetery.
