Derby County: Birth of the Rams

The Rams team in that first season of 1884-85

IN 1884, local football in Derby was well established, writes Anton Rippon.

The Derbyshire Football Association was a year old, and Derby Midland, the works team of the local railway company, had reached the third round of the FA Cup, while another local club, Staveley, went one stage further before bowing out to Blackburn Rovers, the eventual winners of the trophy that season.

It was against this background that hard-up Derbyshire County Cricket Club, desperate to raise funds, formed a football section.

The Derbyshire FA ruled that the new club could not be called Derbyshire County FC, as only the DFA itself could field a team purporting to represent the whole county.

And so it was that Derby County FC was born.

Our photograph this month is a particularly historic image; it shows a Rams team in that first season of 1884-85.

They are pictured on the steps of the old pavilion at the County Ground, where the football pitch was so good that, before the century was out, an FA Cup final replay, several semi-finals, and an international match between England and Ireland would all be staged there.

The cricket club had come to the conclusion that football would bring in much-needed cash after the 1884 Derbyshire Cup Final between Derby Midland and Staveley had attracted more than 7,000 to the County Ground, “the largest attendance ever seen at a football contest in Derby,” according to one local newspaper.

The first colours of Derby County were the cricket club’s amber, pale blue and chocolate.

The honour of becoming Derby County’s first player fell to Haydn Morley, a Derbyshire cricketer and son of a club committee member.

Alas, there is no way of knowing if Haydn Morley is pictured here, but we can say that the man second from the left on the middle row is Benjamin Ward Spilsbury, a 20-year-old Old Reptonian, whose father was a vicar at Findern.

It was Spilsbury whose name went down in history as the scorer of Derby County’s first-ever goal.

He scored twice in the 4-3 defeat by Blackburn Olympic at the County Ground on September 27, 1884.

The Rams’ first-ever game had ended in a 6-0 defeat at the Bolton club, Great Lever, two weeks earlier.

Within six months, Spilsbury also became Derby County’s first-ever England player.

The Rams had to wait until their fifth match for their first victory, when they beat St Luke’s in the first round of the Derbyshire Cup.

They also beat Nottingham Forest 6-1 in this first season, although their first foray in the FA Cup ended in a 7-0 defeat at another Midlands club, Walsall Town.

Do you know the identity of any of the other players on this team photograph? If so please click on the discussion link at the top of the page to add your memories.

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