Derby County: Rams’ relics

'Peter Seddon reviews a new book which celebrates the nostalgic world of Derby County collectables.

From Andy Ellis' book Relics of the Rams, a page of pix of signage rescued from the Baseball Ground before demlition including Brian Clough's autographed manager's sign

WE’VE all heard the expression “everybody has a book in them”. And we’re also familiar with the time-honoured cynics’ response that “most of them should stay there”.

But thank goodness that Derby County fan Andy Ellis didn’t heed the doubters’ “advice”, for if he had he would never have researched and written the splendidly entertaining new book Relics of the Rams, published by Derby-based Breedon Books.

I’m a great fan of publications about collecting as long as they are well researched and full of colour pictures – and Andy’s 200-page hardback lavishly delivers on both counts. I’m also a Derby County supporter of long-standing, so a book on Rams’ memorabilia is manna from heaven to me.

Andy’s book is packed full of colourful artefacts and evocative memories, accompanied by a very readable and well informed text.

He proceeds with a chronological approach by dealing with a different era in each chapter: so Chapter One is The Early Years 1884-1919 and Chapter 10 is 2000-2005.

I defy even the most youthful Rams’ fan not to be fascinated by some of the souvenirs and keepsakes which Andy has unearthed from over a century ago.

One which encapsulates the very essence of the club’s being is the fixture card from Derby County’s first ever season, that of 1884-85, which lists both first and second team games. Some of the club names may not be familiar today – Great Lever, Blackburn Olympic, Stoke Town, Stafford Road, Heanor Templars and Derby Diocesan – but the folded card has survived the years remarkably intact.

That very fact says something particularly important about football fans, or at least those motivated by sentiment and nostalgia – they are inveterate custodians of anything and everything linked to the game.

Who knows how that fixture card survived, but someone alive in 1884 must have been sufficiently affected by Derby County’s infant beginnings to squirrel the item away for future generations to gaze upon.

And that’s the basis of Andy’s approach too – he has hunted down what has been saved, and presents the items afresh in a single showcase for us all to wonder at. Browsing through the book is a bit like wandering around a Derby County Museum (wasn't there going to be one once?!).

There are some great contrasts between ancient and modern too. Consider the age-old rivalry between Derby County and Nottingham Forest.

Believe it or not, the most recent souvenir connected to the fixture is a plastic coffee cup which played a crucial part in Derby’s 4-2 home victory over Forest in 2003-04. On a blustery day at Pride Park the cup encroached unbidden onto the pitch to freakishly divert the ball as Forest’s goalkeeper attempted to clear.

Paul Peschisolido gleefully tapped the bobbling ball into an unguarded net for Derby’s second goal as the hapless Reds’ goalkeeper rued his nightmare miskick.

Such is the value of a win over Forest that the cup was rescued by a quick-thinking steward and put on display in Derby’s trophy cabinet.

Would that have happened years ago? Possibly not. A paper napkin commemorating a big FA Cup fixture between the East Midland rivals at the Baseball Ground in 1909 included a rhyme which suggested a gentler form of joshing altogether: “Dear old pals, right glad we are to greet you – Friends we have been and friends we will remain – If fortune favours us and we should beat you, we will wish you luck next time you try again.”

Andy thinks the message was from Forest to Derby – shame it backfired then, since Derby had the last laugh with a thumping 3-0 victory!

At a quick count, Relics of the Rams must include close to 1,000 pictures of Derby County collectables in all the genres imaginable, and some which are scarcely credible – naturally there are programmes, books, postcards, cigarette cards, gum cards, ceramics, badges and medals, but who could imagine that Derby County would feature on a stamp issued by the island of St Vincent? Well in 1987 they did.

Other quite unusual items are turnstiles and signage from the Baseball Ground, including the simple sign “MANAGER” which was autographed by Brian Clough on his very last visit to his old stamping ground before it was demolished – surely the most poignant item in the whole Rams’ collection.

The book also pictures beer bottles, stadium models, matchboxes, jigsaws, autographs, moneyboxes and even an old-fashioned school bell which one supporter drove everybody mad with at the 1946 Cup Final, when Derby famously beat Charlton Athletic.

Relics of the Rams is on sale now priced £16.99, ISBN 1 85983 466 3.

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