loweman2

6 hours ago, Mick Harford said:

Also liked your input into Glove Story 2 with the GK shirts.

Was chatting to Eric Steele about his red top v Plymouth in the week, apparently was a proper GK top although to me still looks like a training top. Also sad to realise that he only has a Brighton shirt in his collection at home, as he's given away his shirts to various charity organisations.

Can you possibly tell me what the  Umbro keepers top was in 1991/92 season? As I cannot remember what I wore for the under 16's in my only ever appearance for an official Derby side! (the other keeper, a good good friend of mine cannot remember either, yet I can remember the Chesterfield and Norwich shirts I wore)

Shilton obviously still wore his uhl sport shirt and Martin Taylor and Steve Sutton wore the green Umbro with the black pattern, I think the yellow shirt was the second keeper shirt or that may have been the following season ?

1 minute ago, Mick Harford said:

Seriously, this is a magnificent book if you are a) A Derby fan and/or b) a Kit saddo it brought back so many memories looking at the different shirts and remembering incidents I remember in them, plus the additional information about why and how for shirts is amazing.

Fiver in the post to me now @loweman2?

excellent post@Mick Harford! (cash is on its way !!) jokes aside its deffo worth getting a copy and it hasnt been done as a money making excercise, the three of us make bugger all from it, its just done through a passion for putting our history down into print in a more interesting way !! plus it had never been done before !! cheers to everybody who has already brought a copy !!

Just to let you all know that the excellent book the Colours Of The Rams is on offer on Amazon for just £12.97 !

An essential part of the club and the definitive guide to the colours, styles, manufacturers, sponsors etc etc from our roots of 1884 ! 

i am a little biassed but its a great book that you can pick up time and time again and learn something new from !

grab a copy whilst it is on offer.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Colours-Rams-colours-County-Football/dp/B099C5LNPR/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=colours+of+the+rams&qid=1628334817&sr=8-1

After years of work and research here it is the Derby County shirt worn in the inaugural season of 1884 by the pioneers of our club, brought to you by @phillowe1 & @DCFCEst1884 the Cambridge Blue, Amber and Chocolate Brown the first colours of the Rams.

May aswell add a little distraction from the modern day happenings to add a little bit more to this thread.

Strolled down to the Racecourse this morning to take a look where the the Rams played their very first competitive games as part of the Derbyshire Cricket club, there is no official recognition but the grass is still there! The floodlights of the cricket ground in the background.

50 minutes ago, Ramslad1992 said:

Don’t say that… your DM’s will be flooded with @loweman2and @Quangy! 

Colin is a good friend of the family, that’s my lad in his pool ?

2 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

@loweman2is clearly actually a time traveller who can pop back to any date in the history of Derby County and pick up what he wants.

“When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it’ll never end. But however hard you try you can’t run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever for one moment, accepts it. Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. Then he raises his hand, and stands there poised like that for a long moment. Finally he snaps his fingers. The doors open. He smiles slowly and walks in. Then he snaps his fingers again, and the doors close. 
Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair, and the Doctor comes to call… everybody lives and we find nice things.

6 hours ago, Stockport Ram said:

Superb thread. I love this sort of stuff. It is what first got me fascinated with the early modern Olympic games, in particular the athletics.

 

Brilliant work from Loweman and Macintosh, many thanks to you both.

Thanks @Stockport Ram great to know that is getting people thinking ! The past is where we evolved from ! 

1 hour ago, Macintosh said:

I hope people reading this thread now realise the amount of hours and dedication that goes into something that seems so simple, yet is a minefield to navigate and usually with very little help. You'd think one of those early player's relatives has a shirt somewhere in the loft. I wonder if Ben Spilsbury had anything to do with it, I know he was a Cambridge Blue.

Funny you say that, on the team photo that we got colourised the gentleman by the name of Phil Martin who it turns out was the actual source behind the national football museum who picked up on the green in the new spare report of the first game back in 2001 got in contact, he had never seen the team photo but studied it and said it was odd how there were 12 players in it, he then deduced it would have been the game in January 1885 where Derby County played Cambridge university and if you look closely you can see that spilsbury isn’t in fact wearing a Derby kit he is actually wearing his Cambridge university kit, and there is a newspaper report showing that he did actually play for Cambridge in that match ! That is very clever research at its finest, so we know when the oldest known team photo was taken

48 minutes ago, Macintosh said:

I was looking up Cambridge Blue to try to gauge exactly what colour it is, this image here threw me because it looks a lot bluer than the others that do look green. The fourth image on the first page looks a perfect match on my screen to my Pantone book. It is described as Pantone 557, a medium tone of spring green. Even Cambridge University cause confusion, that the rugby team Cambridge Blue colour is different from the rowing team Cambridge Blue colour which has more yellow added to distinguish them. If you compare the rugby and rowing you can see the very slight difference.

 

its definitely the greener that last image it was the light, but they did switch to that more blue colour on the following shirt, we traced the cambridge colour right back 

2 hours ago, Spanish said:

maybe it is the slight resemblance to jockey silk?  Might look less flashy in heavy cotton

These shirts are made of a very heavy drill cotton as used at the time.

1 hour ago, Macintosh said:

Winters still have the glass plate negative and could enlarge it huge, maybe there is a date on one of the caps? They did play a game against Kent in 1878. Winters also discovered a bricked up cellar a few years back with undiscovered glass plate negatives. I'm not sure if there were any Rams images amongst them.

 

Here's my Bloomer picture, against Southampton in 1899, in the cup at the Dell. We won – obviously – 2-1. He's in there somewhere, and we'd be in the striped shirts back then.

love that, must be an away game due to the stripes and also the proximity of that church, look at them all on the roof !

11 minutes ago, Macintosh said:

Interesting that the Winter's image shows opposite colours for the sleeves and the collars are all-chocolate. The guy in the middle row with a jumper on has the alternative version underneath with edging, possibly? Socks look chocolate, one has stripes though (he won't have bought those from the club shop!). The only way to date this is to identify the players. I think the guy seated far left is William Chatterton who played in the first season and was a Test cricketer.

sorry i didnt finish the previous post correctly, it certainly is a few of the Derby players but we concluded that it could be a mix of opposition players one is wearing a kentcricket jumper so could have been a touring side friendly. would be great to identify more of the players.

35 minutes ago, Macintosh said:

I remember digging through dusty glass plate negatives in Winter's cellars decades ago and unearthing an early Rams image thought to be around 1885, an assortment of shirts they had on; it was printed in the Winter's Collection book. So sad that during the Second World War many of their negatives were cleaned and used for greenhouse glass, such was the need back then, those images lost forever. And if you look at the 1946 Cup Final shirts and shorts the players had to wear, tatty and having seen many seasons' wear – one size fits all – nothing like the official kit with collars they had on for the posed team photo later.

Love that image , is that the old pavilion ? The picture below we studied with Peter Seddon and Andy Ellis and came to the decision that it is not Derby County, it used to in the main entrance but after research was agreed to take it down, have you got any more images that you could please pm me about @Macintoshplease !

A little further documentation from that very first game !

54 minutes ago, Ellafella said:

Stunning. Well done. You are bringing history to life @loweman2and strengthening a connection we have to those Victorian chaps who started it all. < Goose bumps >. 

Thanks @Ellafella, it’s exactly that, bringing history to life, no more black and white, there were only a couple of photos anyway, would love to find an original print of the team photo ! It’s nice that people are taking the time to click into the link and have a look, it’s something that every rams fan should be aware of, a bit like how man uninterested sprang from the Newton Heath team and there shirt of green and yellow became a symbol for them, there are always going to be the derisory comments from those who have no intrest of the history of our club, always a bit disappointed when I see those. You are also doing great work behind the scenes to bring history back to life ! It’s where we all came from !

1 minute ago, Inverurie Ram said:

Stunningly fantastic, brilliant shirts @loweman2. Surely you can make a few more to sell in the Rams Heritage Shop?

And I promise I'll be quicker to buy one, than I was with the previous shirts the Rams Heritage Shop sold.

1923 - 1926 Home & Away Shirts.

Any more of the 1923 - 1926 home shirts coming back into stock? or does anyone on here, have one to sell?

Thank you @Inverurie Ramthe cost of these came to £160 each so a bit much, especially if any profit is to be made, maybe look through doing something through the heritage and a more cost effective top if possible as it has gone down well. Thanks for the support.

27 minutes ago, Baj said:

With all the recent doom and gloom happening around the club at the moment this is just the thing that this forum needs.

Wonderful effort to research and go to the trouble to have the shirt made up, true supporter and put a smile on my face, incredible guys.

Top man and thanks for the appreciation of the efforts, that’s all my posts are about trying to offer something different from the gloom and doom and things that we can do nothing about but most posts are skipped past or overlooked, nice when somebody takes the time to nod their head or doth their cap ! Thanks ??

2 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

Great work. out of interest, Do you know how many times the colors changed, roughly? And was black and white eventually adopted?

Hi ! I do but it would be far more interesting for you to buy this great little book and learn about the history of the colours of the rams, it’s a brilliant read, thanks for showing an intrest.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1727616618

3 minutes ago, Turk Thrust said:

I like the fact that one of the players in the old photo is wearing a cap in half brown and half Cambridge blue, but reversed from the shirt. Unless he’s wearing it backwards of course. Odd. But I want one.

as caps were part of the playing outfit back then, any chance of having one made to go with the shirt?

The team was made up of a number of cricketers, the football club was an off shoot of the cricket club, the colours were the colours of the cricket club, the cricketers wore caps.

18 minutes ago, Needlesh said:

We were lied to in 1984 with the stripey shoulder? Noooooo!!

Aaaaanyway, HOW did you discover that was the proper colour? Why are you so certain?

A lot of reading of 1884 news papers, dedication to the job in hand, I put up a post last week about where it all came from but just for you here it is, also read Peter Seddons great book the men who made the rams ! It’s brilliant !

50 minutes ago, NC--RAM said:

Fabulous, and now you have just made me dig out my copy of  "The men who made the Rams" to indulge in a bit more nostalgia.??

Brilliant, the best response I have seen ! That’s what it all about, engaging in the clubs history,learning a bit and then telling somebody else, rather than droning on about the rubbish we can’t change at the club presently ! 

1 hour ago, Rev said:

What material was it originally made from @loweman2?

A heavy duty drill cotton, would have made you sweat a bit ??

After years of work and research here it is !
The Derby County shirt worn in the inaugural season of 1884 by the pioneers of our club, Cambridge Blue, Amber and Chocolate Brown the first colours of the Rams, it was thought that the early colours were blue but it was a shade of blue called Cambridge Blue which is actually more of a green. The badge was the badge of the Derbyshire FA that a player was permitted to wear if they had been selected to represent the Derbyshire FA.

we have had two made by a local tailor after we sourced the correct colours and the materials, the embroidery was done separately, even down to mother of Pearl buttons, it is to add further integrity to the book but moreover to show where the club evolved from, the team that wore these colours set the precedent for all those that have followed, the shirts will be on display at our Rams Heritage roadshows later in the year.

brought to life after 137 years by Phil Lowe & Jason Shardlow.

They were forced to change from Derbyshire County to Derby County to avoid confusion with the Derbyshire FA.