loweman2

6 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Blimey my eyesight is failing, who's the one on the lhs without hat on?

John O’Hare 

2 hours ago, Unlucky Alf said:

I built a wall once using mortar which consisted of 3 parts sand and 1 part cement to bind the bricks in place.

naff all to do with Derby County but 100% more constructive and fact based and not inane mumbling drivel  ! well done !

When was the last time a constructive comment was left on this thread ? 
 

@Mucker1884I reckon you have managed to find the original 1972 sombreros, I will have one off you to add to my collection ! How much ? ??

32 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

Sincere apologies for the intrusion, @loweman2.
I've now attempted to divert any potential further sombrero-talk to it's purpose-made thread here...

 

??

no intrusion, its a great idea, could maybe get a plank smuggled in a set up a diving board off the upper tier of the south stand !!

A shirt put together and signed by my mate Jon Davidson the Kit man, if we make it this will be a very special memento of what a season 2021/22 has been, if we don’t then what a memento it will be of what a season 2021/22 was !
We fight till the end !

Krystian Bielik, came back from a nightmare injury, forced his way back into the Poland team and has been a rock, thrown right in at the deep end, who can forget that last second equaliser v Birmingham City, shut them right up and gave us a belief to fight to the end !

Phil “jags” Jagielka, was immense up until his sudden enforced departure in the new year, another huge asset to Rooney both on the pitch and off it, using his wealth of experience in bringing a belief and a calming influence to the Dressing room, a top professional at all levels ! 

Richard Stearman, been a rock when called upon and a massive influence on the young lads in the changing room, top professional! 

I was privileged to be asked by @Matt_Barlow_DM of the Daily Mail to assist him in putting together a full double page article celebrating the 50 year anniversary of Derby County becoming the Champions of England, please share its a great write up, so great to see something positive about our great club.

#SaveDerbyCounty

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10677815/amp/Derby-legends-trip-memory-lane-50-years-winning-league.html

On 27/03/2022 at 11:20, Brailsford Ram said:

If you carry on reading this thread which now has only about six weeks to go, you will come to see that Roger Kirkpatrick redeemed himself somewhat for his shocking decision at Stoke. However, I will always prefer the referees who are more comfortable in avoiding the limelight. It is the players and managers that supporters go to see in the main, not the referees. That's one of the great things about being a football fan; it leaves us each with our own divergence of opinions for discussion. It would be much more mundane if we were all thinking the same.

I feel much the same way about the many good and some quite average players who I have watched playing for Derby during the past 25 years who became millionaires through their offerings. I do not begrudge them that but times evolve and I find a sense of injustice in the fact that many of the legends we are discussing in this thread had to work hard into their retirements because the game had paid them less than they deserved because of the miserly directors who dealt with them in the 'master and servant' regime that prevailed at the time. Some supporters will still try to tell you that when Kevin Hector joined Derby County from Bradford Park Avenue in 1966, he was paid £100 a week. He was not. When he left Derby the first time in 1978 to join Vancouver Whitecaps, after playing at the very top of the English game for a decade, he was earning a meagre £105 a week, which was about the same as I was earning as a probationary police constable.  Alan Hinton, who was the Whitecaps coach, revealed that figure in his recent autobiography. Today, Tom Lawrence earns more in a week than many PCs do in a year. But I guess that's life and evolution for you.

The legendary players we are talking about here are all at the very top of the tree among the hundreds who have played for Derby County since 1888 when the League began. They were the only ones who took us to the pinnacle of the English and European game. Right up to the time that Lionel Pickering owned the club, all of the ex-players were entitled to a complimentary ticket to watch the Rams at home - the last three survivors of the 1946 FA Cup winners, Jack Howe, Jim Bullions and Reg Harrison, were entitled to a seat alongside Lionel in the directors' box. That revered hospitality is no longer considered. If it had been I do not honestly believe that Mel Morris would have known who most of them were. The championship winning players, with the exception of Roy McFarland, collectively feel that the club has forgotten them. Phil Lowe@loweman2 of Derby County Heritage fame, discovered that when he and his father made the effort to meet the Legends in recent years, as expressed in his excellent threads on this forum.

The whole history of our club is so important and we are lucky that so much of it has been recorded in various formats over the last 50 odd years. It is important that this is continued in our lifetimes. I would like to suggest to Boycie and David the idea of creating a sub-forum of the History of The Rams where threads such as this can be moved and added to so that younger supporters can share their memories from the post-championship winning years. Then our memories and those of others will live on to be shared by the future generations.

As for future seasons, I have committed to supporting LeedsCityRam in what he is doing up to 1975-76. At my age I only want to plan that far ahead but I do hope I'm still around for an extension or two.

COYR 

I completely agree that to create a sub section where we can record the history of the club is an excellent idea, the story of how we got to where we are is something that all fans should know, the interest in such things normally arrives in the middle years, a time where it becomes your duty to pass on the the next generation the encumbrance of a life long duty of following the Rams so it would be good to have a section that can be referred to, a number of readers on the forum will find the tales of our history boring and of little interest but their time will come!

As the forum has grown over the years there are literally thousands of threads on so many topics but a great percentage of them bare no interest now and are based on hearsay at the time and they are intermingled with a few rare golden topics but all are buried in the trash.

Jim Walker the forgotten man

As many of you know I have been for the last 18 months meeting up with the old brigade, the proper DCFC legends, the ones that put us on the map in footballing terms, the ones that made us the best team in England and got us to the European Cup semi finals, the teams of 71/72 and 74/75.

It started off as way to spend time with my Dad who was a bit lost after the loss of my mum, he is a season ticket holder now and was back in the day so I started off out on a journey that has lead us to meet most of them, one of them remains elusive and one didn’t wish to participate.

All of them have been fantastic, eager to tell stories of the great Brian Clough and the amazing fortunes of Derby County who in those bleak years of three day weeks, power blackouts, strikes and Rolls Royce nearly going under taking thousands of local jobs with it gave the people of Derby something to be proud of.

Upon meeting one of those legends, Jim Walker I was particularly struck by how at peace he was with the world, very relaxed, very friendly and by far the best story teller of them all.

Jim had not long ago lost his wife to illness so immediately him and my dad had something in common other than the love of football, he made us very welcome and gave us an open invite to go round when ever to continue with the tales.

Now most people may remember Jim as the guy who was signed by Clough & Taylor from non league football to play for Derby County and was a major part of the team that won promotion from division two in 1968/69.

He lost his place in the team to John Mcgovern but captained the reserves and stepped in when required to cover injuries of suspensions, this meant that he played only a few games in the 1971/72 season but it was his goal in a 1-0 win against Crystal Palace in late march that gave Derby both points and if you remember we won the league and finished first above dirty Leeds who were just one point behind and had a greater goal difference, so in effect Jim scored the goal that won us the First Division Championship.

Aswell as a footballer Jim is probably better known as the Aston Villa physio, he was there for around twenty years and served under many managers including Graham Taylor, Ron Atkinson, Brian Little and John Gregory, he was also the man charged with looking after Paul McGrath for many years both on and off the pitch and is spoken of in very high regard in Pauls autobiography.

He had a private practice at the Belfry for the golfers and was also the go to man at the NEC when any pop stars suffered an injury or needed attention from a physio, he worked with George Michael, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Michael Hutchence and Kylie to name a few hence him having so many fantastic stories.

Jim has also had illnesses this however does not dampen his spirit or take a smile from his face.

One thing that I was amazed to hear that Jim did not receive a medal for winning the league title despite being only one of sixteen players in that 71/72 season to have donned the shirt and scoring such a valuable goal.

When ever you see the pictures of the team celebrating and holding up their medals jim does not have one.

I approached Andy Ellis the club historian and the writer of many Derby County books and the fount of all knowledge and he confirmed it.

So we the approached the club and asked if they would support an application to Gordon Taylor of the PFA to ask if he would inturn support an application to the football league to present Jim with the medal that he should have received 46 years ago.

The club agreed and they sent the letter to Gordon Taylor who gave it his blessing and the approach was then made to the football league, this was back in February this year after the ball was started rolling in June of 2017 so it took a while.

I am delighted to say that the agreement was given and Derby County approached the very same jewellers who had made the original ones to make one for Jim, to the exact specifications of the original medals and in the same box and made from 9ct gold with all of the hall marks.

For some reason the club at this time can not be seen to publicly present Jim with the medal which is a great sadness as I thought that he was going to be able to step out on the pitch at Pride Park on the opening home game against Leeds (quite fitting as he stopped them winning the league with his goal), it is a litigious matter so I will comment no further other than to say that they did everything that they could.

So to wrap up the story I had the great honour of going to Jims house today with my dad and my son and presenting him with his long overdue medal, he had no idea that it was coming and to say that he was over whelmed is an understatement.

It was great to see his face and to have the privilege to do something like that, I had the medal at my house for a while but obviously didn’t want to post any pictures until now as it was a secret.

Not very often that you get to present a league championship winning medal on behalf of Derby County and to one of the few from those great days and can be called the legends.

We are hoping that Jim will still be able to have amore public presentation at sometime in the season at Pride Park when what ever issues are resolved.

Up the Rams !!

A good time to revive this post, for those who may not have seen it from four years ago, one of my proudest DCFC related achievements!
50 years ago Jim got that goal v Palace in a 1-0 win and the points that carried us over the line.

Really brings it into context what a great guy he is and how important he knows that his role is within the team to keep on playing through a very personal passage of time  he certainly deserves to get the accolade this season, especially after being frozen out by the previous management regime, top man Curtis ! You have my vote !

A few should be landing with the excellent supporters of the project to bring to live the first five shirts from our club, the racecourse years, thanks for your ongoing support and your interest in the history of our club.

Thought this could do with a bump and a re read, some great days ! The man who dragged us out of the dark days and onto great things, a rich owner coming in, paying off the debts and rolling our sleeves up and starting again, everything is cyclical! The time has come ! Roll on the good times !

2 hours ago, Ramrob said:

Brilliant work @loweman2and friends. ?

Often thought that we should make use of our original colours on a special edition shirt. Your concept looks great, although I also like the idea of a collared version too. Thinking some of our puma shirts from the 90s.

yes lets hope that the club and umbro take some intrest and try to get a bit of our heritage back into the shirts, some thought behind it

So we also wanted to see how the 1888 football league shirt stood up to the test of time, very well I think, let’s hope that the club think so and get it made, this is the concept shirt.

The club colours from 1891/95 bit of a surprise there for you, long before we wore black and white !

The first football league shirt from 1888 founder members.

As many of you know I have been trying over the past twenty years to preserve as many of our shirts from our proud history as possible, the goal has always been to find a home hopefully within Pride Park to have them on display, along with other like minded collectors to form a timeline along with as many other artefacts as possible, I first saw this done at the Arsenal Emirates stadium, all about their history not what they have won.

we came close to it with MM and can hopefully see it through to fruition with the new owners.

The next progression was to document as many of the shirts as possible within the book “The Colours of The Rams” this continues to sell well and we update it once a year.

Then we set up The Rams Heritage Trust, a registered charity with the intention to do as many displays as possible at events, Covid 19 has hampered that obviously but we will be back this summer.

I have spent the time considering along with Jason Shardlow and Rich Wilkinson what we could do next, we hit upon the idea of using the research that we had done for the book and bringing it to life by recreating the shirts from our early years, right back at the beginning in 1884 and then through the racecourse years, there are five in total, we have done three so far, 1884 the very first, 1888 the football league shirt and 1891/95 the first shirt that Steve Bloomer would have worn.

we have had a great deal of help along the way especially from Peter Seddon and Phil Martin of the National Football Museum and from Andy Ellis our partner with the book.

I only really post stuff on my Twitter account these days @phillowe1

if anybody has anything if our history to share with me then please send me a private message.

I hope that you find the work that we have been doing interesting.

there will be two more shirts to do over the next few months.

McFarland…….McFarland……. Mr Derby County, player, captain, asst manager, manager, Director done it all !! 

12 hours ago, cannable said:

So the same colour scheme but for the season after’s home shirt. 
 

But as I say, did it really exist or, as a 10 year old did I just see the above shirt and think it was the 06/07 design?

I think you have got it mixed up as you say, the following season was the yellow and blue one and then we went to adidas once promoted after the play offs, that away shirt was black.

6 hours ago, davenportram said:

Are you thinking of the time we wore black v Brighton in the cup in 2008?