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GEORGE BAKEWELL - DERBY COUNTY'S FIRST FORWARD SIGNING

Among the substantial number of sportsmen featured on You & Yesterday are some of the very earliest Derby County footballers. Here Peter Seddon adds another to the ranks - Derby-born George Bakewell, the first forward player ever to sign for the Rams.

Derby County's first two players pictured in 1884. George Bakewell stands with a friendly arm on the shoulder of number one signing Haydn Morley. Bakewell sports the original Derby County colours then shared with Derbyshire County Cricket Club - the splendid combination of chocolate, amber and sky blue shirts with white 'knickers'

George Bakewell in close-up, revealing his gimlet gaze and luxuriant walrus moustache to best effect

When Derby County Football Club was formed in the summer of 1884, the honour of becoming their first ever player fell to full-back Haydn Morley, who is featured in his own article on this site.

Blessedly he was not the only man to throw in his lot with the fledgling Rams - he was quickly followed by second signing George Bakewell, and the duo posed together for the camera in the picture shown here.

George Bakewell was a right-winger, and as such the first of a somewhat glamorous breed always likely to cause a stir on joining a football club - a forward signing.

Not a great deal has been written of George Bakewell - here is what is known of him.

George Bakewell was born on 13 May 1864 at 46 Queen Street, Derby. Consistent with the family surname, that address housed a baker's shop, for George's father - also George Bakewell - was by profession a master baker. He had been born in Loughborough and had married Derbyshire-girl Emily Ellis, who hailed from Hallam. Together the couple raised a family of at least four.

The family business did sufficiently well for their son George to be sent to Derby School - he was a pupil there from the age of 14 in January 1879 until he left to begin work in 1881.

Derby School were pioneers of the then still evolving sport of association football, and it was there that George Bakewell first played the game seriously and acquired a much above average proficiency at it.

On leaving the school he took his first job as a clerk with the Midland Railway, and through that connection began turning out for the very strong railway football team - Derby Midland F.C.

Only when Derby County was formed in 1884 was Derby Midland's dominance of the local football scene usurped - the club soon folded as the newly-formed Rams quietly lured away most of their best players. Winger George Bakewell was one of them.

As only the second player to sign for the club, he featured in the line-ups from the very start, making his debut on 13 September 1884 in Derby County's first ever game - a chastening 6-0 reversal away to the Bolton club Great Lever.

Bakewell continued as a regular in the pre-League era and was still with Derby when they played their first ever Football League game on 8 September 1888 away at Bolton. Again the trip to Lancashire proved disappointing - Bolton prevailed by 6 goals to 3, although George Bakewell had a personal triumph of sorts by netting two of the Rams goals.

George Bakewell became such an entrusted character that in June 1888 he was elected to the Derby County committee while still a player.

In July 1891 he was transferred to Notts County. The Derby County record he took with him was steady rather than spectacular - 64 appearances and 12 goals. His stay at Notts County was a short one - it embraced season 1891-92, in which he played only 5 League games and scored one goal.

Only scant details of George Bakewell's life beyond football have emerged.

By the time he was in his early twenties he had foresaken the railway to continue the family business as a baker. He had premises on Normanton Road, the address entered on the certificate for his marriage on 16 October 1887 to Florence Merville James. George was 23 and his bride 21 - her home address was entered as 139 Siddalls Road, Derby.

By the time of the 1901 census George appears to have been able to finish working, for he is then recorded as a 'retired baker' at the age of only 37 - perhaps he had inherited well.

But there the trail goes cold. No date of death or place of burial has ever been unearthed for George Bakewell - a great pity, as Derby County's first forward signing ought rightly to be documented more fully.

Perhaps someone can help - if you can add more detail to this article just click 'edit' or discussion' to make a contribution.

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County:  Derbyshire

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