Storer, Harry: Harry helped Rams climb back up to Division Two

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Anton Rippon looks back at the career of Rams manager Harry Storer who was mentor to future Derby managers, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor.

Harry Storer with Reg Ryan, his first signing for Derby County. Ryan proved to be an inspirational captain

Harry Storer in his Rams playing days

Champions: The Rams squad that won the Third Division North championship in 1956-57. Back row (from left): Manager Harry Storer, Martin McDonnell, Albert Mays, Ken Oliver, Terry Webster, Roy Martin, Glyn Davies, Ray Young, trainer Ralph Hann. Front row: Jack Parry, Tommy Powell, Gordon Brown, Ray Straw, Reg Ryan, Dennis Woodhead, Allan Crowshaw

FOR Derby County fans of a certain vintage, the name Harry Storer conjures up images of tough-tackling defenders who specialised in dealing out gravel-rash to forwards unwise enough to attempt to get past them.

Not that Storer himself fell into that mould. Far from it. He was a skilful wing-half or inside-forward (they call them midfielders today), good enough to win England caps when he was a Rams player in the 1920s.

As a manager, however, it was those uncompromising full-backs and centre-halves that Storer wanted in his team before anyone else. True, he also wanted plenty of skill, but, as he used to say to the late Tommy Powell as the team boarded the coach for away matches: “How many hearts have I got today, Tom?”

And to emphasise the point, the manager with the famously-square jaw would then thump his own chest.

Harry Storer became the Rams manager in the close season of 1955, after the club had sunk into the Third Division North for the first time in its history. It was a dreadful era – First to Third in three seasons.

A manager of considerable talent and personality was desperately needed.

Storer was that manager. As boss, he succeeded a Rams legend, although, if England international centre-half Jack Barker had been a great player, he had proved one of the worst managers the club had ever had.

Storer was, of course, no stranger to the club and no stranger to Derbyshire. He had played in the side that won the 1936 County Cricket Championship and both his father and an uncle had played for Derbyshire.

The uncle, William, had also played for the Rams.

As another former Rams and Derbyshire player, Ian Hall, now living in Spain, says: “Harry Storer knew a lot about sport and a lot about people. He knew a lot about many things and loved an argument about everything from literature to religion, although he was an avowed atheist.

“He detested coaching theories and when anyone attempted a technical breakdown of a player’s strengths and weaknesses, Harry would get impatient and say: ‘Yes, but can he play?’”

In his first season in charge at the Baseball Ground, Storer just failed to win promotion. Only one team went up in those days and the Rams were pipped by Grimsby Town.

The next season, however, Storer took Derby back up as Northern Section champions. Fifty years ago this month, they were well on their way to that title, as the likes of Gateshead, Southport and Workington were being swept aside.

But back in the old Second Division, Storer failed to change the side quickly enough. Old legs remained there for too long and the side struggled.

Eventually, though, the Rams settled down into a mid-table team and, in May 1962, Harry Storer retired to be replaced by another ex-Rams favourite, Tim Ward. Storer left a great impression on those who had played under him at the Baseball Ground.

Not least is the story about the manager’s fierce-looking dog, Billy, who sat growling outside his master’s office, daring any player who wanted to know why he had been dropped from the team to step over Billy and knock on Storer’s door.

Another tale concerns Sheffield United manager Joe Mercer, who complained to Storer that six Rams players had been over-physical and guilty of clogging.

“Give me their names,” demanded the Derby manager.

“Why, are you going to fine them?” asked Mercer.

“No, it’s the other five buggers I’m after,” Storer snapped back.

Ian Buxton, another of that extinct breed, the professional cricketer-footballer, recalls: “Us cricketers got on quite well with Harry. You just had to remember to turn the conversation to how to play off-spinners on a turning wicket.”

The late Reg Ryan, an Irish international who had just won the FA Cup with West Brom, was Storer’s first signing for the Rams and proved the club’s best captain since the days of Raich Carter.

Reg once told me: “Whenever I signed for a club, I also chose the man who was going to manage it rather than the club itself.

“I thought Harry Storer was a great man who would have been an outstanding manager in any era. He could command any situation but, although he was supposed to be a tough nut, he could also be kind and gentle in some ways. We used to travel together each day from Coventry, where we both lived, and on the journey, we’d work on our master plan to get the spirit back into Derby County. ”

Rams kit man Gordon Guthrie, who started out as a player under Storer before injury ended his career prematurely and he became a club physiotherapist serving a dozen managers, wonders how the blunt-speaking manager would fare today.

“I sometimes wonder what he would have said if he’d come into a treatment room and seen a sign about not having your mobile phone switched on. Then again, his was a different age. In those days, you were lucky if you owned a bike.”

Two men who were always ready to listen to Harry Storer were Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. They were teammates at Middlesbrough and, whenever the Rams were playing in the North-East, the pair would seek out Storer and sit talking football with him until the small hours.

Indeed, Storer had once tried to sign a young Brian Clough for the Rams. Now that dressing-room would have made for interesting listening.

Harry Storer died at his Littleover home in September 1967, just a few weeks after Clough had followed in his footsteps as the new Rams manager. He was 69.

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