Derby County: A Christmas game to remember in wartime Derby

Tommy pictured at the Baseball Ground during the annual pre-season photo shoot in the mid-1950s

A young Tommy Powell pictured in the wartime Derby team that beat Nottingham Forest 5-0 at the Baseball Ground in September 1944. Back row (L to R): John Marshall, Reg Trim, Jimmy Bullions, Ray Bilton, Leon Leuty, Chick Musson. Front row: Peter Doherty, Sammy Crooks, Fred Tapping, Tommy Powell and Dally Duncan

Tommy admires the long-service award presented to him by the Football League

CHRISTMAS Day always held an extra special memory for Tommy Powell. It was during the dark days of the Second World War and Tommy, then a 16-year-old pupil at Bemrose School, had been earning rave reviews as a lanky inside-forward with the top local club, Derby Corinthians, whose ranks also included two other budding stars, Reg Harrison and Leon Leuty.

Derby County, meanwhile, were just starting up again. When the Football League closed down at the outbreak of war in September 1939, the game took a few weeks to sort itself out. By October, regionalised competitions using guest players were under way, a sort of ersatz football to fill the void. Not for the Rams, though.

In October 1939, a home friendly against Leeds United had been used to test public opinion; when less than 2,000 bothered to turn up, the Rams’ directors decided to shut up shop for the duration and the Baseball Ground was turned over to the military.

Early in 1941, however, a scratch Derby County team, under the managership of pre-war full-back and skipper Jack Nicholas, was playing matches at the Municipal Sports Ground. By the end of the year, the Derby board had decided to re-enter competitive football the following season.

So, in preparation for that, on Christmas Day 1942, the Rams returned to the Baseball Ground for a friendly game against a strong Royal Air Force team.

There were three sorts of professional footballer during the Second World War.

There were men like Dally Duncan and Sammy Crooks who went into civilian war work – in their case at the Carriage and Wagon Works – and were still available to their pre-war club; players like Raich Carter and Peter Doherty, who joined the forces – both were in the RAF – but as PE instructors and were thus available to guest for clubs near their bases; and men like Jack Stamps and Tim Ward, who also joined up but found themselves in the front line, Stamps at Dunkirk, Ward through the Normandy campaign.

So, despite some absences, there was plenty of top talent available for service teams and the RAF side that faced the Rams, some 64 years ago this month. It was no line-up of awkward young erks but comprised experienced pre-war professionals.

Derby, meanwhile, included three promising young amateurs – Jack Parr, Chick Musson and Tommy Powell, the young Bemrose School boy. Pre-war regulars Nicholas, Crooks, Duncan, Jack Bowers, Peter Ramage and Ralph Hann also played, but they were unable to prevent the RAF winning 3-1.

The most significant thing about that Christmas Day, however, was the Baseball Ground attendance. More than 10,000 watched the match in a ground where the capacity had been greatly reduced following damage to the Osmaston Stand during an air raid in January 1941, Derby’s heaviest of the war.

Despite the result, for young Tommy Powell the day had been a real success. The Derby Evening Telegraph told readers: “Tom… a big lad with a long stride, need not feel too downhearted if he felt out of it before the course was run… he did at least get one chance to show that he had a fine shot in his gun.”

That truncated 1941-42 season saw the Rams play only friendly games against such diverse opposition as Birmingham, Anti-Aircraft Command, Pick of the Derby and District Senior League, and the Belgian and Czechoslovakian Armies. There was certainly no shortage of entertainment and the Czech Army XI was beaten 11-4.

It was not the first time that Tommy Powell had appeared at the Baseball Ground. In the mid-1930s, he had played there for Firs Estate, the school near his Sherwood Street home, in a local cup final. Now he was going to make it his second home.

Tommy played regularly for the Rams throughout the war, although Army service delayed his peacetime League debut until 1948. By the time he retired, in 1961, he had played more than 400 games in the Rams’ forward line from the top flight to the Third Division North, when his immaculate ball control made him the outstanding footballer in the Northern Section. His son, Steve, would himself play more than 400 times for the Rams.

Tommy was to play on a few more Christmas Days for, until 1957, fixtures were regularly staged then. On December 25, 1948, he scored in a thrilling 3-3 draw with Arsenal before a 40,000 crowd at Highbury.

Tommy was my favourite player and, in 1965, I asked him to play in a charity match, which he was delighted to do. Then, I plucked up courage and asked him to play regularly for my club, Redfern Athletic, in the Derby Sunday League. Again, he said “yes”.

By then, he was working as a turf accountant in Abbey Street and living in Sunnyhill Avenue. Every Sunday morning, he could be found overseeing an unofficial soccer “school” on Browning Street recreation ground, where boys of all ages were treated to a weekly master class. Eventually, he went to work in the accounts department at the Evening Telegraph until he retired.

He also became a good friend and we’d often bump into each other in the centre of Derby as he made his daily visit to the bookies.

Our chats tended to be lengthy businesses as, every few minutes, some Rams supporter would want to come up to shake his hand. He came from a generation of footballers who were truly part of their local community.

In his pomp, Tommy could have moved to a bigger club, but his Derby roots proved too deep and he would never leave the town he loved. Towards the end of his playing days, he would rise at dawn and go down to the wholesale market with his pal, a greengrocer from the Boyer Street area, to help load his cart.

He was angry when a modern star once turned up his nose at playing for England.

“Do you know,” he told me, “if they’d have asked me to play for my country, I would have walked from Derby to Wembley and played for nothing.”

It was a huge shock when, in September 1998, returning home after addressing a meeting of disabled Rams supporters at the old Baseball Ground, Tommy collapsed and died at the age of 73. His funeral saw a huge turnout of Derby fans. Not many of them would have seen that wartime Christmas Day debut, but they knew that a true Rams legend had left their midst.

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