With Derby Countyembroiled in their
play-off bid to join football's elite in the Barclays Premier League, long-time supporter John Weston, 94, above, of Breedon-on-the-Hill, has penned these thoughts on his beloved Rams.
ALTHOUGH I don't have an exact date, it is getting quite close now to 90 years since I first watched the Rams at the old Baseball Ground. So, there are many memories.
I remember my little legs trying to keep up with my father as we walked down the line to the old Tonge and Breedon railway station. We got out at Pear Tree and Normanton and walked across open ground.
Dad always went to the Baseball Hotel for a pint before kick-off. I stood in the little lobby and he brought his drink out for me to have a sip. Once a fortnight, he had one pint.
Hard work was all he ever knew from 12 years old to well past 65. A way of life I would come to know so well myself.
There weren't many boys at the ground in the mid-1920s. I stood with my head between the railings on the old "Bobside" (later the "Pop side"). And there I saw the beginning of my Derby County story.
Of course, it had begun many years before but this was the time of the old English First Division. Years before Brazil and Spain caught up and passed us.
What a privilege for a football supporter. I saw the five great players that George Jobey built his team around.
In March 1926, Tommy Cooper came from Port Vale. In the next three years, Sammy Crooks, Jack Barker and Jack Bowers came into the team. Then, in 1932, the peerless winger, Douglas (Dally) Duncan arrived.
We had one of the best teams in the world but we never won anything big. Why? Because Arsenal and Huddersfield Town were the top dogs. If only. Those two words again, if only.
Jack Barker, a great centre half, did not stand between two full-backs. Roberts, at Arsenal, was a third back. Derby played 2-3-5. The winners played 3-3-4. And George Jobey sold two great players.
Tommy Cooper, England captain, was sold to Liverpool, and Jimmy Hagan to Sheffield United. He became their great inside right, which we never had. Oh dear.
Crooks, Hagan, Bowers, Ramage, Duncan. Those other words, "what might have been".
In the years when Derby slumbered in the Second and Third Divisions there was one great time in between. One good thing set among the many tragedies of the Second World War.
Horatio (Raich) Carter and Peter Doherty played war-time football for the Rams. Both were signed in time to play in the FA Cup winning team of 1946.
What a marvellous year, for this still-young supporter. To see these two, still great inside forwards, driving Derby on to victory at Wembley.
Despite being a shift worker on the LMS railway, I only missed two matches, away to Luton and Brighton, all through the home and away ties that took place in that very special year.
For me, Doherty and Roy McFarland remain the two greatest box-to-box players who ever wore a Derby County shirt.
Fast forward to 1967. The young, brash Brian Clough came from Hartlepool and fashioned the great 12 players who won the Championship for us (note – the 12th man was "the supporters").
We were playing First –Division football in the Second Division. It was indeed, like 12 players against 11.
George Jobey had his Famous Five. So did Brian Clough. He bought into a workaday team John O'Hare, Roy McFarland, Dave Mackay, Willie Carlin and Colin Todd.
What a season, 1968-69. Who would believe that this team had three draws and two defeats in the first five games. And the attendances. August 28, 1968 – 24,650. Two months later, October 26 – 34,218.
So what was the difference? Thirty years earlier, Derby County sold Hagan to Sheffield United. In 1968, it was the other way around. On August 20, Willie Carlin was playing for Sheffield. Eight days later, he was playing for Derby County. That's when they took off and flew away.
Carlin brought to the forward line what Mackay brought to the defence. In one word, know-how. Oh boy, did they know how!
So what other special memories do I have, down the years?
From the Twenties and Thirties, the great half-back lines of the top British football teams. I saw them all, once a year. The hard man, the stopper and the cultured passer of the ball. Arsenal had Crayston, Roberts and Copping, the hard man.
Everton had Britton, Cunliffe and Mercer. Manchester City had Busby, Cowan and Bray. And Derby County had Nicholas, Barker and Keen. It was Owd Nick that drove Sammy Crooks on from behind. Before him, Johnny McIntyre.
At Preston North End, Bill Shankley played behind the great Tom Finney, who has just recently passed away.
Other great players, such as George Best and Stanley Matthews didn't have anybody special behind them.
Stanley was a great player, who never had a good game at Derby. Jack Parr played him as well as anybody. So many memories.
What of the future, the players I only see now on the television? The boys who are playing for the Rams today could be a truly great team in a few years' time.
They, too, need a Famous Five (to come up from the youth teams in the circumstances that govern English football today).
And they have to stay together and fill out their slender frames. When they played Leicester City, they were boys against men.
There could be another Wayne Rooney on the fringes of this team. Mason Bennett is his name (although it will be a miracle if I am still around to see him fulfil his promise!).
Who, then, are my greatest team of all-time to wear Derby County shirts? I would have to include Steve Bloomer, the only one I have never seen play. The others, in my opinion, are as follows: Vic Woodley, Cooper, David Nish, McFarland, Barker, Mackay, Crooks, Carter, Bloomer, Doherty and Duncan.
I could fill another second 11 team with other great players. Many of them have appeared in other people's great Derby teams of all time. It's only my opinion.
Back to the present. I hope they ask Cardiff to sell John Brayford back to us. I don't expect Liverpool or Chelsea to sell us two of their current stars on loan to us.
Many supporters would like to see the Rams in the Premier League next season. For me, that would be two years too soon. It is a very hard league, as they found out before.
In the future, everything depends on management and six or seven of the current players staying together.
There is, in my view, the distinct possibility that this might happen. I do hope so, and I wish them well.
