Derby County: Derby's 'Wembley of the North'

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As Derby County supporters make their way to Pride Park this Saturday, they might reflect on the fact that they could instead have been travelling to the Municipal Sports Ground to watch the Rams, had a breathtaking scheme come to pass 50 years ago.

Just after the Second World War, with English football looking for a so-called “Wembley of the North”, Maxwell Ayerton, architect of the original Wembley’s Empire Stadium, drew up plans to transform the Municipal on Osmaston Park Road into just such a venue.

His scheme provided capacity for 78,600 spectators and under the main grandstand there would have been housed a swimming pool, an indoor sports centre, gymnasium, dance hall and catering facilities.

A vital part of the plan was for Derby County to leave the Baseball Ground, where they had played since 1895, and transfer to the Municipal Sports Ground. Eventually, the Rams decided to stay put and the scheme foundered although, nearly 30 years later, an indoor sports centre and a swimming pool were finally constructed on the site.

By 1946, the Municipal Sports Ground was already almost a quarter of a century old. It had been built by unemployed men, who returned to Derby from the First World War to find that, instead of the promised “land fit for heroes”, there were no jobs waiting for them.

The stadium, erected on farm land, was opened in August 1923 and was soon the centre of controversy when several international cyclists declared the concrete track around the arena’s banking unfit for top-class racing because high speeds could not be reached due to the positioning of the bends.

But from 8am until dusk, local residents were allowed to race their cycles or motorcycles free of charge around the track, while people from outside Derby’s borough boundary were charged 3d (1.5p) an hour for the same privilege.

At 8pm on Wednesday, September 12, 1923, just one month after its opening, the Municipal Sports Ground was struck by tragedy.

Baden Marples Masters, a 23-year-old from West Bridgford, riding a 2.5HP Blackburn-Massey motorbike, was thrown 60ft over the safety rails and landed on his head. He died in the DRI seven hours later – only two weeks after his wedding day.

Later in 1923, there was talk of the Rams paying the council an annual rent of £500 for the Municipal Ground, together with a percentage of any increase over the average Baseball Ground gate money. A year later, however, the club bought the Baseball Ground outright from Sir Gordon Ley.

The late 1920s and early 30s saw a golden age of Derby sport and the Municipal shared in the revival. Athletics, cricket, open-air boxing, soccer and rugby were all staged there.

After stopping play at the outbreak of war in 1939, Derby County first resumed at the Municipal, in 1941, before moving back to the Baseball Ground later that year.

In 1946 came the grandiose, albeit aborted, “Wembley of the North” scheme, involving another Rams switch. After it failed, the Municipal languished for almost 30 years, its one solitary stand a rusting monument to local government’s lack of ambition.

Indeed, shortly after the Municipal was opened, the then mayor, Alderman Oswald Ling, said scathingly: “The Municipal Sports Ground is the greatest example of bungling by a corporation which undertakes ventures that a private individual could do much better.”

He added: “Just like Topsy, it just grew – without any properly preconceived idea.”

Although the highly successful Derby and County Athletic Club made the ground its home, and, in the late 1960s, floodlights were installed, successive local administrations did not appear to learn from Alderman Ling’s attack.

In 1974, the £250,000 Derby Sports Centre was opened, across the car park from the swimming baths. Dry and wet sports were run from different buildings, 300 yards apart and with separate staff, thus duplicating many costs.

The sports centre was designed without a bar storeroom and, eventually, part of the adjacent weight training room had to be commandeered to store beer and spirits. Toilet and catering facilities were inadequate for any event which attracted a large number of spectators.

Improvements have been made in ensuing years, but the lost potential still cries out.

Could the Municipal Sports Ground complex, today known as Moorways, situated, as near as makes no difference, in the centre of England, on the city’s ring road and only a few miles from East Midlands Airport and the M1, still have been a contender for a new national stadium in the 21st century?

Given Derby’s huge traffic problems today, probably not. But if someone had been brave enough 50 years ago, who knows?