Derby County: Toff opponents for early Rams’ teams

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Early in Derby County’s history, the club played regular fixtures against the celebrated amateur side Corinthians. Peter Seddon looks back at the “team of toffs” and the unwitting role they played in shaping the Rams’ destiny.

MOST people will have heard of the phrase “the Corinthian spirit”. It suggests that an attitude of scrupulously fair play is being upheld, often to a point of decency well beyond what might reasonably be expected, especially in the cut and thrust of the modern-day sporting arena.

Needless to say, Corinthian spirit is rather thin on the ground in today’s highly-paid world of professional football.

But it was once the proud watchword of the team in whose honour the phrase was coined. The fine band of fellows who played football for The Corinthians adhered to a strictly amateur ethos, taking no payment for their playing services.

Nor for many years did they countenance competing in any professional contest – friendly games were their only fixtures.

As for their play, they favoured a stylish approach and were renowned for being “robust but always fair” – indeed so genuine that their gentlemanly antics could at times appear quaintly eccentric.

If they conceded a penalty, for example, they believed the offence should be punished in the only manner truly befitting the crime – so their goalkeeper would stand aside to deliberately allow the spot-kick to enter his net.

It’s hard to imagine Alex Ferguson instructing Manchester United’s ’keeper to fall on his sword in such an honourable fashion.

So who exactly were The Corinthians? Why were they formed? And how did they come to play Derby County? The club was formed in 1882 at the behest of Nicholas Lane Jackson, the assistant secretary of the FA universally known as “Pa Jackson”.

He was a staunch opponent of the then looming spectre of professionalism, in other words playing for money.

His ideal was to create a club where educated men who had graduated from the public schools and universities could continue to play football in the “right spirit”.

He also hoped the club could serve as a training squad and development school for potential English international players.

The Corinthians, rather incongruously named after the male inhabitants of the Ancient Greek city of Corinth (renowned for their lustiness!), were duly formed.

But while the “team of toffs” began playing in 1882, the lesser mortals of Derby County had yet to be conceived. The industrial town club was formed in 1884.

Yet only seven months from Derby County’s opening fixture, the two sets of players from opposite sides of the tracks were meeting in a game for the very first time. And from that occasion was forged a friendly alliance which was to last almost 50 years.

It wasn’t the done thing to challenge The Corinthians to a game. They did the asking – and then only if they thought a side was good enough. Also, the clubs they challenged needed to be well organised and hospitable – The Corinthians took a dim view of not being looked after.

So, to be invited to play against The Corinthians signified a football club’s acceptance by the hierarchy – and the fledgling Derby County Football Club was first thus honoured on Tuesday, April 7, 1885.

Derby had earlier that season beaten Nottingham Forest 6-0, a result that raised eyebrows in football circles.

But what arguably further facilitated the arrangement of the Corinthians’ fixture was that one of Derby County’s own players in their very earliest seasons was also a “man of Corinth” – it was the habit to both play for Corinthians and to turn out ad hoc for a commercial club, usually close to one’s permanent abode.

The man in question was Benjamin Ward Spilsbury, a native of Findern and an Old Reptonian, the player who had scored the very first goal in Derby County’s history.

And when The Corinthians came calling, Derby did themselves proud by holding the amateur giants to a 3-3 draw at the County Ground – considering Corinthians had recently beaten the might of Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End, the draw helped immensely to secure Derby’s reputation as a power in the land.

Indeed, so impressed were the Corinthian committee that they invited Derby down to London on November 6, 1886, to play a prestigious away game at the Kennington Oval, a venerable venue only released for four football matches a season.

Despite Derby’s familiarity with cricket grounds, the Rams this time lost narrowly by 3-2. Later in the season, though, Derby clinched a 2-1 win when The Corinthians again visited the County Ground.

That landmark victory signified a definite coming of age for the Rams, since many of the Corinthian men were established England internationals.

The die was duly cast – Corinthians generally organised a Christmas and Easter tour, and for many years hence Derby County became regular and popular opponents.

The fixtures led to friendships being formed, and in time the boundaries between professionals and amateurs became less marked.

Steve Bloomer, for example, the epitome of a working class paid professional, formed a brilliant attacking partnership for England in tandem with Gilbert Oswald Smith, an Oxford graduate, headmaster, and confirmed Corinthian amateur.

Yet, despite a yawning difference in social background, both men respected each other’s game – even so, it was common practice for Bloomer to address Smith as “Mr Smith” while the superior being would always refer to the football mercenary as plain old “Bloomer”. Such was the way in late-Victorian England.

Bloomer considered Smith the best centre-forward he had ever played with, and Smith, in turn, described The Destroying Angel as “one of the finest inside-forwards I have had the pleasure to partner”.

Considering the amiable relationship between the Corinthian and Derby clubs, an incident which occurred in Derby County’s mid-1890s’ heyday might have caused much embarrassment.

In the event, though, The Corinthians invoked the usual spirit of decency, and the blip merely sealed Derby County’s ultimate destiny.

The crisis arose when Corinthians were due to play at the County Ground over the Easter period of 1895 – but the Nottingham Road enclosure also served cricket and racing besides.

There had already been fixture clashes and niggles between the factions, but on this occasion the racecourse owners refused to allow Derby County to fulfil the fixture because it clashed with a race meeting.

The outcome altered the course of Derby County’s history – embarrassed at apparently spurning the famous Corinthians, the Derby board hastened a permanent move to the Baseball Ground.

The Rams never looked back.

Many celebrated sportsmen of the late-Victorian and Edwardian age turned out for Corinthians against Derby County, among them the famous all-rounder C B Fry, who like Spilsbury before him was an Old Reptonian.

Eventually, the “Golden Age” was destined to pass. When The Corinthians merged with the Casuals in 1939, their days of splendour were already behind them.

Full records of their friendly encounters with Derby County remain patchy, but the two sides faced each other around 30 times in all. Derby’s finest hour occurred at the Baseball Ground on Boxing Day 1902 when their illustrious visitors were hammered by 6-0.

Perhaps, for once, the “team of toffs” had rather overdone the “Corinthian spirit”...which some Derby fans outrageously suggested had come from a bottle the day before!

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