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You can almost feel the hairs on the back of your neck start to tingle !!!

Promotion days were always special !! Oooh aaah Robin Van de Laan 

This day was special !

You can almost feel the hairs on the back of your neck start to tingle !!!

I know we all have different thoughts on Steve Bloomers Anthem but something that's often overlooked is the crowd overlay from the BBG that does capture the spirit, indulge yourself in a quick bit of BBG whilst the mrs isn't around.
the 1st 20 seconds, 43 seconds and 1.33 seconds !!
 

Regardless of what you think of that song it really does sum up what being Derby County is all about, be it as a supporter or as a player. Gary Rowett could do a lot worse than put that video up on a large screen and make the players read the words. Every single successful side we've had in my memory, the principal attribute it has had is pride in wearing the badge. I remember perfectly the Brian Clough, Dave Mackay, Arthur Cox and Jim Smith teams. First and foremost they played 100% every game. They gave their all. They won their personal battles. After that their class shone through, but they worked hard and with pride to allow that to happen. Nigel Clough was also big on that aspect (but that's for another, hopefully long ago written, thread). If Rowett can get his team playing with pride in the badge, something which he always did, then that bit of class which these players supposedly have should be more than enough to make them serious contenders for promotion. Derby Pride, let's start showing it EVERY game. After that que sera, sera. What will be, will be! For me this is the "Derby Way".

I know we all have different thoughts on Steve Bloomers Anthem but something that's often overlooked is the crowd overlay from the BBG that does capture the spirit, indulge yourself in a quick bit of BBG whilst the mrs isn't around.
the 1st 20 seconds, 43 seconds and 1.33 seconds !!
 

I know we all have different thoughts on Steve Bloomers Anthem but something that's often overlooked is the crowd overlay from the BBG that does capture the spirit, indulge yourself in a quick bit of BBG whilst the mrs isn't around.
the 1st 20 seconds, 43 seconds and 1.33 seconds !!
 

R.I.P. BBG

You can almost feel the hairs on the back of your neck start to tingle !!!

Promotion days were always special !! Oooh aaah Robin Van de Laan 

This day was special !

I know we've done this before but its sort of compulsory when it pops up again!
First game 1970 v Everton who were Champions at the time. Walking up to the ground as a 10 year old with the crowds, the smell of cigarette smoke, walking past pubs with that old stale beer smell wafting through the doors, being scared when grown men are shouting and threatening each other across the street, coppers keeping order with clips round the ear.
Get into the ground, feel the buzz, the sheer excitement and electricity of thousands packed in like sardines, swaying and singing, being lifted up by complete strangers and passed down to the front to sit legs crossed at the side of the pitch.....
I remember playing Leicester at home after Clough and Taylor had been sacked/resigned in 1973, it was the first game i went to with mates rather than with an adult. I was on the Popside, i thought i was a proper grown up, its hard to explain, but  i was a skinny little lad who took confidence from being old enough to get the train into Derby, walk up to the ground and be part of the masses singing their hearts out every game. I turned from a timid lad to "one of the boys" at a school that was mainly Stoke fans. Never did get bullied or picked on after that point and have always worn my Rams colours/badges etc since. Still do now.
!974-75 season was unbelieveable, we took on every club with total football. Colin Boulton in goal (got to be the best ever English keeper not to get a cap), Toddy, Nish, Thomas and Peter Daniel (standing in for the injured Roy Mac) at the back, Bruce Rioch, Henry Newton and Archie Gemmill in midfield, Gladys, Zak, Big Rog and Frannie Lee smashing the goals in......went every game, home and away. The Vulcan Street Popside was the place to be back then. Away fans would try and "take" it,  never happened....Tottenham, West Ham, Man City, Arsenal.....all got a good kicking a few seconds after the initial gap opened up on an already packed terrace.....fair play to them, can't remember any other fans trying to take the Popside, How those gaps opened up is amazing but once the bloke with the cap (from Ilson), or the big Dutch lad, Johann, piled in, it was all over for the away lads who thought little Derby were an easy touch. This was 7 or 8 years before the DLF were even heard of.
We are the Derby, the Midlands we rule....
 
 

This day was special !

You can almost feel the hairs on the back of your neck start to tingle !!!

I know...it's probably been done to death but...oh it was special...
How apt: the very final game at the famous old Baseball Ground was against the Arsenal. I am minded of a game some years earlier against the same opposition, for it was an occasion that really brought home to me just how special the place was; a true theatre of football:
The date: 8th September 1979. A sultry sunny September Saturday of an Indian summer. Sweat, cig-smoke and the smell of alcohol-breath fused with hot-dog onions filled the Pop Side air. Arsenal were in town, a side replete with silky, star-studded names that dripped from the tongue like golden syrup: Pat Jennings, Liam Brady, Sammy Nelson-the bum-show-er, O’Leary, Hollins, Rix, Talbot, Stapleton and Alan Sunderland, all perm and moustachioed; the latter two had, in May, ripped the FA Cup from Man Utd in the final of the century. For Derby there was no longer a Gemmill, a Hector, a McFarland or Todd, or even a Charles George. In rapt contra-distinction we had a ring of Irish: Aiden McCafferey, Vic Morland, David Langan, Andy Crawford, and a liquorice-assortment of stalwarts like David Webb, Steve Powell and Steve Buckley, all honest triers but in truth it was thoroughbreds v also-rans, giant oak trees against mere saplings.  We did though have John Duncan, Scottish International all handsome and broad, and neat, and the winger called Gordon Hill, who had killed Rams at Hillsborough in the FA Cup semi just 3 years before. The Baseball Ground was synonymous with trench mud but even that was no more. But there wasn’t a blade of grass either. Instead the surface was 35 tonnes of hard golden sand; had the ref entered the arena carrying a beach-ball nobody would have batted an eye lid. In the pre-match kick-in, wisps of disturbed sand danced on the air. The first half was a foregone conclusion long before 45 mins was up with Arsenal commanding a 2-0 lead.
Then during the break, something strange began to occur. As sun and heat and alcohol combined, the Pop Side found its voice and songs of deep Derby irony began to fill the air...”You need SAND to hold a lit-tul bay-bee, you need SAND to wipe away a tear...” and “Mr SAND-Man,  bring me a dream (bung, bung, bung bung...”). At first, it was a mere ironic acceptance of the Derby team’s fate, but as the 2nd half kicked-off, with Rams attacking the Ossie End, what started to unfurl was a truly remarkable 45 mins. If only we could get one back. Suddenly, Buckley, with lump-hammer left peg, drove the ball at Jennings from 30 yards. The ball, zipped, and dipped, and hit the ground, leather travelling and bouncing on sand, and, smacked the back of the net with Jennings flapping on the floor; 1-2, Pop Side all erupting in Vesuvian delight, a deafening Derbyshire din of high decibel noise. The sound became a continuous stream; the sun, sand and black and white, wall-to-wall volume, a crescendo-ing cacophony of a collective consciousness was stirring the Rams to gargantuan efforts. Arsenal began to cower and fear took hold. I don’t remember Vic Moreland’s equaliser, but I do remember the rocket-propelled roar and the terrace surge as pure pandemonium broke out in the Pop Side. Now, with clock ticking down, 43 minutes had flashed by, we sung to kingdom come. Last minute, Langan...to Carter...Carter in the corner, crosses to Duncan and bullet-header...Jennings’s dustbin-lid sized hand parries...on to the post... and out for a corner....Ohhhhhhh! How we re-coiled....
But wait...Carter’s corner, inch perfect...Duncan again...bullet forehead, ball bulges onion-bag...Goallllllllllllll, the roar again...3-2...mayhem....Final Whistle....Oh fffffff...foot-balll!
As I walked from the ground, outside an Arsenal fan exclaimed, “Liam Brady walks on water, but he can’t run on sand!”. I’d been to the Baseball Ground many times before, but now as a 14 year old, I properly realised how the combination of the architecture – tight, compact stands that trapped the sound, sending it ping-ponging around the entire ground, the proximity of the pitch, and how the fanatical Rams fans, touched by the memory of magic, Real Madrid floodlit nights, - could all combine to fuel an energy that transmitted from the terraces to the men in white just yards away.
Outside, I watched as the Gooners’ team coach drove away...Pat Jennings saw me stare from his front window seat and tipped me a wink. Monday’s Daily Mail match report described how Arsenal bemoaned that Derby had transmitted the sound of the 16,429 fans through the PA system, in amplification. As if... It was just a special place; and I was there.
What's yourn?

Love this ....... C STAND CSTAND CSTAND!!!   Check it out on 12:00, classic stuff! 

Promotion days were always special !! Oooh aaah Robin Van de Laan 

You can almost feel the hairs on the back of your neck start to tingle !!!