PendineRam

Aye, Merry Xmas one and all.

Let's hope next Xmas sees the Rams and the world in a better place. 

Rams 1 - 2 B'pool Lawrence

RIP and thanks for everything. Condolences to family and friends.

I wasn't overly worried until Margaret Becket appealed to HMRC for leniency! Now that's a worry for me, does she know more than us?? Let's hope she has some influence!! 

Clearly, Wayne is going for wins at every opportunity meaning some losses will become an inevitable consequence. They were better than us and deserved the win and have some classy players! They will feature up top at the end of the season. Very frustrating but at least we are giving our best with a mountain to climb, however, survival remains the top priority! 

'Good and decent', no way are the rags interested in such things. You're having a larf!

Anything with a sex angle and involving an MP, now you're talking! Headline news! 

2-2. Frgs Lawrence.  In your face team, can the young 'un's cope with that. Tough test this one! 

Who do we play next?? 

Rams 1 - 4 Bournemouth. frgs, og.

RIP

2 hours ago, Brailsford Ram said:

 

Thanks for correcting me Brailsford, it was Shacks!  The old memory beginning to clog up! 

At least, even though we are now almost certainly in the 3rd tier and my memory ain't what it used to be even the EFL can't re-write history!

Who knows, history might repeat itself, the club on its uppers but the future is brighter!! Fingers crossed. 

Great to see those old newspaper articles, just reinforces old memories. I have every copy of the 'Green Un' for 68/69, they are well stored up in the loft!  I must get them out sometime!

As Brailsford says, whilst this thread relates to 71/72 what happened in the 60's in many ways provided the building blocks for what was to follow. After the gradual but pernicious slide into the obscurity of the 3rd Tier that followed the FA Cup win it was evident that the Club needed a strong hand on the tiller to turn it's fortunes around! 

Fortunately, it only took two years for us to get out of the old 3rd Division North and then some stability (both football wise and from a financial point of view) followed. With Harry Storer as Manager and Sam Longson in the Chair they were, in many ways, the ideal characters to achieve this stability but, as the 60's leapt into life, there was a feeling that we were still underachieving and that DCFC had more to offer. When Tim took up the baton from Storer the fans hoped that a more positive future lay ahead. Looking back, Tim did begin to revamp the club but there remained a feeling that he lacked the dynamism needed to really get the ball rolling. There is no doubt that there was pent up frustration amongst the fans that we needed a stronger character than Tim to achieve this even though it's fair to say that he raised the quality on the pitch with imports such as Durban and Hector as well as with the development of home grown players like Webster. When Sam wielded the axe most fans felt that the decision to dispense with Tim was the correct one even though he was well liked and 'one of us'. Who would Longson go for we asked, I don't think Cloughies name was bandied about and it was certainly a surprise appointment. For that decision we have to thank Jimmy Armfield, the former superb England Full Back, who urged Sam to go for BC.

What still amazes me is the excitement that that decision caused amongst Rams fans and, indeed, the wider Derby community! Brian Clough, why Brian Clough we asked?? But as soon as he walked through the door there was a whiff of excitement, as if that pent up frustration was suddenly being released! Talk about going through the club like a dose of salts there seemed to be a new story to read about every day in the DET! What followed over the next few years still seems more like a figment of someone's imagination than reality but history shows that actually it did happen!  

This thread is about the success of 71/72 but it's beyond dispute that the previous decade was the catalyst for that success! A decade that saw unbelievable change in every aspect of life, a decade that begat an unbelievable change in the story of a founder member of the Football League and in the lives of it's supporters and the community that it represented! Unforgettable, unbelievable, but whichever way you look at it bloody wonderful! 

5 hours ago, Brailsford Ram said:

Love it Pendine. Are you exiled in Pembrokeshire now? My dad first taught me to drive on Pendine Sands when I was 14 in the summer of 1967 when we were on holiday down there. Brian Clough had arrived the month before. The players you mention were my starting point in 1961. From that time, I also remember Glyn Davies, who was Harry Storer's son-in-law, Mick Hopkinson, Don Roby, Bobby Stephenson and Des Palmer. I too was a boys enclosure apprentice. I have accumulated  a very large music collection over the years and I still am but my first two LPs were Christmas presents from my grandparents in 1963 - Please Please Me and With The Beatles. The next day the Big Freeze set in and that was the Boxing Day when Brian Clough suffered his knee injury playing for Sunderland against Bury at Roker Park. Derby's game was postponed that day and we didn't play again in the league until mid-February against Sunderland at the BBG. I didn't know of Clough's injury and I set off excitedly to watch the game and him in particular because his goalscoring feats were phenomenal. I was so disappointed when I got to the ground and found he wasn't playing. You're right about the Cup Final. I used to love listening to the guys that went. But I did get to meet Sammy Crooks (who was injured for the final), Jackie Stamps, Jim Bullions, Jack Howe and Reg Harrison over the years and I saw Raich Carter when he came to the BBG as Middlesbrough's manager in the 60s. He refused me an autograph. Anton Rippon's book, The Day We Won The Cup,is a good read.

But we're being greedy Pendine. We weren't dealt a bad hand were we?

No complaints, enjoyed every minute of it, the good, the bad and yes, at times, the ugly. It's all part and parcel! Two titles, pure football, Roy Mac, Dave Mackay, Toddy and Nish, Hector, O'Hare and Hinton! The list goes on and on and on. Bill Nicholson said, after watching us demolish his Spurs 5-0, I have just watched football the like of which I haven't seen before. We lost and I marvelled at every minute of It! Pure class! 

Pendine is like our second home, as soon as summer arrives off we go! Just me, the missus and the dogs now but our three kids loved it. My eldest learned to drive there as well and, of course, Saundersfoot and Tenby are just up the road! 

God, the big freeze! Now that was a winter, bloody cold all day. It never let up, frost on the trees 2 inches thick. 

Yes, it weren't too bad! Shame it had to end but I can say 'I was there'! 

Great stuff Brailsford, like you I am one of the lucky ones having first watched the Rams in the late fifties. My first match was a reserve game in '57 (Normo end upper tier) with my wonderful uncle Tom who was a Ram through and through. I graduated to the kids corner by '59 and barely missed a home game therefter. By 1960 I was going to a lot of away games and by '62 and earning a crust I hardly missed a game home or away (midweek fixtures like Plymouth being nigh on impossible for me in them days!)

Whilst the Clough/Mackay is obviously the highlight for me I have to say that I really enjoyed the early sixties. I remember those players (Parry, Powell, Oxford, Barrowcliffe, Young, Curry, Hall, Hutchinson, Davies,  Conwell, Upton, Hughes (Billy and Gordon), Swallow, Buxton, Moore, Adlington, Havenhand  etal) with much fondness! Linked with the 'swinging sixties' of the Beatles, mini skirts and cheap ale the early sixties were just incredible and the Rams at that time were, for me and my mates, a significant part of the whole package! Let's hope it can be repeated one day. 

For all that my departed father in law did even better! Having been demobbed from the Air Force he managed to get hold of a ticket for the Cup Final,  hitchhiked to Wembley and saw our famous victory!

So he saw us win the Cup and then experienced 2 league titles,  not bad eh! 

1 minute ago, MackworthRamIsGod said:

We definitely need to steer well clear of Ronnie and Reggie.

Why, they'd sort the EFL out! We'd be given a 20 point bonus!

Millwall 4 - 0 Rams. We muster nil shots! 

Wolseley 4/44, Dark Blue with silver bonnet and boot. Built like a tank, all leather interior! What a car! 

2-1, Barnsley have the 'thank god he's gone, now we can play our way!' effect whilst we lack goals again! 

Rams 0 - 1 Blackburn

Lack of goals do us despite dominating! 

3 minutes ago, DCFC Kicks said:

Why is finish 6th and win the play-offs not an option in the poll?

The EFL have already earmarked 6th for themselves. They'd have gone for top but that might have looked a bit fishy!! 

3 hours ago, Rammeister said:

I might have imagined it, but I thought I heard ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ as I read that.

Capt Mannering here..... 

Very concerning if true,  and I don't doubt it. 

Well done SirBrian,  this needs to be public knowledge. You 

Let's hope want and do are the same thing! 

Having the original DCFC to watch and support. The survival of the true Rams means the survival of the true fan base means 'We will be back' wherever you heaps of dog poo dump us and........ we will not forget!! 

15 minutes ago, Beetle said:

Sorry for your loss. Having lost both of my parents relatively recently prior to covid and my father in law to covid I would be absolutely livid if I was you.

I genuinely hope and believe you will be seen right by the club though.

Keep us posted on how you get on. I'll show my support for you however I can if needed. I'm sure there are a few fellow Rams out there that will do the same.

 

Most definitely!