Derby County: Netminders are a breed apart

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Of all the players who have turned out for Derby County in the club’s long history, those most often labelled “characters” have been goalkeepers. Peter Seddon dips into the archives to remember some of the personalities who have stood manfully between the sticks for the Rams.

Charlie Bunyan, Derby County's goalkeeper when the club was first formed

WHEN the Chesterfield-born Arsenal and Scotland goalkeeper Bob Wilson wrote his autobiography he called it You’ve Got to be Crazy.

There is a novel entitled Goalkeepers are Different and a German feature film known in English as The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty Kick, in which the troubled number one turns murderer after being sent off.

Keepers have variously been labelled custodians, net-minders, guardians, goalies, number ones, watchmen, the men between the sticks and even knights of the citadel.

They play football with their hands, wear different coloured jerseys and are not averse to donning a natty cap or idly chatting to the crowd.

It has been said they are a breed apart with their own mythical goalkeepers’ union. So, little wonder that a smattering of such characters may be found in the ever-curious annals of Derby County.

The first worth a special mention has to be Charlie Bunyan who made his debut in March 1890. Quite simply, Derby had signed “the worst goalkeeper in England”, for Bunyan had been the Hyde custodian in October 1887 when the Lancashire side were beaten 26-0 by Preston North End in the FA Cup.

It remains the highest score in any English competitive senior match, yet Bunyan remained heartily upbeat about his nightmare day.

After the game, he calmly commented: “But for some of my saves, it might have been many more.”

Bunyan played only 11 games for the Rams before being supplanted by the Derby-born England international Jack Robinson. Yet he too had his quirks, not least his celebrated superstition for eating rice pudding before each game.

His catchphrase was “no pudding, no points” and his colleague Jimmy Methven once wrote that “many were the occasions, prior to away games, when we went to great trouble to secure the milky pre-requisite in order to forestall Jack’s anxiety”.

For a number of years, Robinson was undoubtedly the best goalkeeper in England. But, after 180 games for Derby County, he left for New Brighton in 1897.

His place was taken by Cromford-born Jack Fryer, nicknamed “String” on account of his gangly 6ft 2in frame.

In 199 outings, he often performed heroics but is forever remembered as the villain of the farcical game that proved to be his last ever for the Rams – the infamous 1903 Cup Final against Bury.

Despite nursing an injury, Fryer declared himself fit to play but, predictably, had to retire hurt part-way through, having already made costly blunders.

Derby were hammered 6-0, which remains a record Cup Final defeat, and the shamed Fryer was transferred to Fulham, where he starred afresh.

His place was filled for the next seven seasons by another in the remarkable sequence of Derbyshire-born goalies, Harry Maskrey, from Unstone, near Dronfield.

A huge character, his reach was reputed to be 6ft 7ins from finger tip to finger tip and his burly physique helped him into the Grenadier Guards in the First World War.

“Big Mass”, as he was suitably known, was capped by England in 1908 and stayed in Derby after his retirement. Some might say he met an appropriate end for a keeper – having spent so much time under the bar he died behind the bar, collapsing at his pub, the New Inn, in Russell Street, on April 21, 1927.

When Maskrey left the Rams in 1909 they again searched locally for a replacement and found one in Riddings-born Ernald Oak Scattergood, who missed only a handful of games up to 1915.

He too was capped by England. But his most enduring fame is as a “goalkeeper turned poacher”.

In 1912-13, he was elected Derby’s regular penalty-taker and continued in this role when he moved to Bradford Park Avenue after 192 games. In all, he scored eight goals in Football League matches, which no goalkeeper has ever bettered – yet another quirky honour for a Rams net-minder.

The First World War caused a suspension in League football. When games were resumed in 1919-20, Derby’s regular ’keeper was George Lawrence who had joined the club in 1910 but had taken a back-seat to Scattergood.

He was solid rather than flamboyant and was not known for either an obsession with milk pudding or for scoring goals.

Perhaps that figures, for he was born in Basford, Nottinghamshire, not widely-known for eccentric goalkeepers.

Nevertheless, he was signed after shining with Ilkeston United. So, from the arrival of Jack Robinson in 1891, Derby had relied on locally-produced guardians of the goal for almost 30 years.

But the seemingly magical production-line stopped at Lawrence, for the Rams’ next regular goalkeeper was London-born Ben Olney. Born in Stepney but raised in Birmingham, his arrival from non-League Stourbridge in 1920 seemed to signify the increasingly commercial approach to transfers which characterised League football as it raced towards its 40th year.

Olney was a solid performer without being spectacular, his chief claim to fame at Derby being his remarkable appearance record.

From February 1922 to September 1927 he missed only 11 games through illness and injury and, when he moved to Aston Villa in December 1927, had set an appearances record for a Derby goalkeeper of 240 games, which would survive for 40 years until surpassed in 1967 by the great Reg Matthews.

Like many ex-players, Olney settled in Derby after retiring from playing and he was working at Rolls-Royce at the time of his death in 1943.

Olney had left Derby after expressing dissatisfaction at being dropped in favour of Harry Wilkes who made the number one slot his own from October 1927 to December 1932, clocking up 220 appearances.

He too had a West Midlands background, having been born in Sedgeley. But, after leaving Derby for Sheffield United, he returned to the area to end his career at Heanor Town.

He died in Derby in 1984, aged 73, soon after proudly recalling in an interview his Rams’ debut against Arsenal in 1927: “We won 4-0 and I was a real little hero that night.”

Wilkes’ regular successor was a Derbyshire man, Overseal-born Jack Kirby, who is likely to be the first Derby County goalkeeper who senior Rams fans living today might clearly remember.

Kirby made his debut in 1932 and played the last of his 191 games for Derby in 1938. He gave many fine performances in a Rams jersey.

But the celebrated incident for which he is usually remembered was witnessed first-hand by only a handful of Derby enthusiasts, for it occurred on the club’s tour of Germany in May 1934. Adolf Hitler had decreed that the Derby County players should recognise his burgeoning regime by giving the Nazi salute prior to their games.

All reluctantly obeyed except Kirby, who not only failed to raise his arm but also turned away to show his disdain.

When war was declared in September 1939, Kirby might well have said “I told you so”.

His successor was Ken Scattergood, son of Ernald, but, after letting in seven goals on his debut at Everton on Christmas Day 1936, his Derby career lasted only 25 appearances.

Frank Boulton arrived from Arsenal in August 1938, but was to play for only one season before war again intervened.

Since Derby County had been formed in 1884, seven goalkeepers had averaged almost 200 games apiece, supported by a small cast of others who filled the occasional hiatus.

Stability had reigned between the posts, yet not a single major trophy had been won.

But that would famously change when play resumed after the war.

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