Magner, Ted: Remembering the forgotten manager

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Derby County were the toast of Derbyshire when they won the FA Cup in 1946 under manager Stuart McMillan. But was it really “his” team which lifted the famous trophy or should someone else take the credit? Peter Seddon pays tribute to the Rams’ “forgotten manager” Ted Magner.

ON April 27 it will be 60 years to the day since Derby County won the FA Cup on a memorable Saturday in 1946. Despite winning two League Championships since then, the 4-1 Wembley triumph against Charlton Athletic remains the most celebrated victory in the club’s history.

The manager who sits proudly in the official team photograph, taken to celebrate the triumph, is Stuart McMillan.

Most keen Derby County followers recall his name, even many who are much too young to remember the final itself.

But far fewer Rams fans realise that McMillan had taken over the hot seat only four months prior to that Wembley final date.

So, in many ways, the victory belongs to his predecessor, a man few supporters could readily name – he was Ted Magner.

Edward “Ted” Magner was born in Newcastle on January 1, 1891. Like many youngsters in the North-East, he took to football purely for recreation.

But Magner was one of the rarer breed who proved himself good enough to consider a professional career.

At the age of 17, he signed for the Second Division club Gainsborough Trinity and his second League appearance was against Derby County in 1909.

After five games as Trinity’s centre-forward, Magner moved to Everton in 1910 and again faced the Rams.

The occasion was an FA Cup tie at the Baseball Ground on February 25, 1911. Perhaps Magner learnt something that day or even acquired a sneaking admiration for the Rams, for Derby hammered Everton 5-0 with two of the goals scored by Steve Bloomer.

Magner was soon on the move again. Indeed, his entire English League career comprised only 11 games and three goals, for he left Everton to join the Scottish club, St Mirren.

He did well there and, in one game, scored five goals against Queen’s Park to set a Scottish League Division One record.

But, like many footballers of his era, Magner’s playing career came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

During the conflict, he served in the Northumberland Fusiliers and contracted malaria.

When peace was declared, he turned back to the only profession he knew – the 27-year-old took up a coaching appointment in Amsterdam and later filled the same role with the French club, Metz.

The experience proved valuable for it was as a coach that Magner made a lasting impression.

On returning from the Continent, he entered the English system by enrolling as a tutor on FA coaching courses at Leeds and Loughborough.

In 1938, he was appointed assistant manager of Huddersfield Town, then manager in 1941-42.

And, in March 1944, the 53-year-old joined Derby County.

Perhaps the main reason why Magner is so little recognised in Derby County history is that he took charge of the club during the wartime period, an era when organised football was in a state of suspension and many male supporters had their minds on far more pressing matters.

When war had been declared in September 1939, the League programme was abandoned after three games of the 1939-40 season and the entire Derby County Football Club was effectively mothballed for several years.

The military even took over the Baseball Ground – the pitch being for Home Guard training drills and at one point sheep were allowed to graze there.

But, by the time Magner arrived in 1944, the club had again become engaged in some sort of meaningful competition and the new manager had great success.

In 1944-45 Derby won the Midland Cup, beating Aston Villa in a two-legged final. In the second leg at the Baseball Ground, the Rams won 6-0 and one of their “guest” players, Irish international Peter Doherty of Manchester City, scored five of them.

The success was a foretaste of more excitement yet to come.

Doherty was not the only star guest turning out occasionally for the Rams. Another was Sunderland’s Raich Carter. And it was those two players who were the subject of Magner’s best bit of business; for, after protracted negotiations, he managed to sign both of them permanently by December 1945 – just in time for the start of the FA Cup competition.

The 1945-46 competition was unique in being organised on a two-legged basis up to and including the quarter-finals. The whole competition acquired a significance beyond mere football. It represented the return to normal of a British way of life disrupted by six long years of war.

Magner’s side began the competition as if they meant business. In early January, Luton Town were beaten 6-0 at the Baseball Ground and 3-0 away.

Even Derby County’s most cynical fans began to believe that the Rams might win the FA Cup for the first time in the club’s history.

In the 4th round, on January 26, Peter Doherty scored the only goal of the game at home to West Bromwich Albion.

But some bombshell news clouded the result – it emerged that Ted Magner had resigned to take up the offer of yet another coaching post abroad.

Needing another manager quickly, the Derby directors turned to a former player who had helped out at the club as a general factotum during the war.

Such were the circumstances in which Stuart McMillan took up the reins.

He had no previous experience as a football manager and was, at that time, the landlord of the Nag’s Head at Mickleover.

Yet the rest, as they say, is history. West Bromwich Albion were beaten 3-1 in the second leg and then another Albion, the hapless Brighton and Hove, were thrashed 10-1 on aggregate.

As interest in the competition reached fever pitch, Aston Villa were beaten 5-4 over two legs and then the Rams disposed of Birmingham City in the semi-final after a replay.

Charlton Athletic were swept aside 4-1 in the Final and Derby lifted the FA Cup for the one and only time in their history.

As far as is known, Ted Magner was not at Wembley on April 27, 1946, but could anyone truly deny that it was really “his” team that performed that day?

And who were the two players most instrumental in getting Derby to the Final? They were Magner’s inspired twin-signings. Raich Carter scored a remarkable 12 goals in the competition that year and Peter Doherty notched up 10.

The rest of the team between them managed a mere 15 to the pair’s 22.

Such are the vagaries of football that Stuart “on the spot” McMillan took all the managerial plaudits for the Cup triumph.

Magner was quickly forgotten by supporters, journalists and football historians in the euphoria of the moment. But some of the players of that era did go out of their way to give him credit.

In May 2001 one of his signings, Bert Mozley, gave an interview in which he said: “Ted Magner was undoubtedly the best manager I ever played under. He was the sort that stripped off and joined in with training.

“All the players responded and related to him. Stuart McMillan never commanded the same respect.”

But the most fulsome praise of all was lavished by Peter Doherty. In his autobiography Spotlight on Football, the Northern Ireland international reflected: “It was unfortunate that Ted Magner left just as the Cup run started. He was a fine man and his man-management was superb.

“In fact, he was a brilliant and vastly under-rated boss. I don’t want to take anything away from Stuart McMillan because he took us to Wembley after all. But it was Magner who fashioned that team. He was a genius.”

That is a powerful statement coming from a man as highly-respected as Doherty. Indeed, there can be no better or more lasting testimony to Ted Magner.

Derby County’s “forgotten manager” died, aged 57, in July 1948, at his home in Sunny Hill Avenue, Derby, and was buried in Sunny Hill Cemetery.

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