DCFC in Europe scrapbook

[LeedsCityRam]

Following our first title in 1971-72, this season marks the 50th anniversary of Derby’s European Cup debut & the start of 4 very eventful European campaigns up to the end of 1976. Like the 1971-72 season scrapbook last season, I’ll be looking to mark each game 50 years on with match reports, TV footage (if available) & as much info and memorabilia as I can glean. Of course, nothing will beat having been at the games themselves so recollections & memories are most welcome.

To set the scene, Derby’s qualification for the European (Champions) Cup was at a time when only the league winners (and the European Cup holders) qualified for the tournament. At that stage, only one English club had even reached the final, let alone won it – that being Manchester Utd in 1968 under Sir Matt Busby. Therefore Derby were bidding to become only the second English club to be crowned Champions of Europe – no small challenge considering our European debut had been delayed following disqualification from the 1970-71 Fairs Cup for ‘financial irregularities’.

50 years ago today then, we began our 1972-73 European Cup campaign against the Yugoslav champions FK Zeljeznicar at the Baseball Ground. Zeljeznicar were based in Sarajevo in what we now know as Bosnia & like Derby they had also won their maiden title the season before, beating the challenge of illustrious names such as Red Star Belgrade, Dynamo Zagreb, Partizan Belgrade & Hadjuk Split.

Here are the beaming first XI of Zeljeznicar with their suitably austere Communist-era title trophy;

 

Onto the game - despite the pretty physical opponent, Derby were able to secure a 2-0 advantage going into the second leg in Yugoslavia - goals coming from Roy McFarland & Archie Gemmill either side of half time. Match report below;

 

 

John O’Hare closely marked by two Zeljeznicar defenders during the match;

 

Programme from the match to mark the occasion;

 

Full round up of results elsewhere in Round 1 – second legs due to be played two weeks later on 27th September;

[BramcoteRam84]

If only Marseille had hung on to that lead in the second leg against Juventus……

[Guest]

The Rams had made an indifferent start to their first season as the reigning Champions with two wins, two draws and four defeats in their first eight League games. They stood 16th in the table, having suffered three defeats in the last four games. Equally, Zeljeznicar were not impressing in the Yugoslavian League. According to the Slav national press, ‘Zeljo’ would have preferred to have been drawn against any other club, rather than the Champions of England and they knew very little about the Derby squad. Their manager had watched the Rams 2-1 home defeat to Chelsea on 19th August and the poor performance would not have fooled him. During his visit, he and his companions were shown various practice grounds, hotels and beauty spots.

Zeljeznicar’s team was not packed with stars, their national success had been achieved by methodical teamwork with the reputation of being one of the fittest sides in Eastern Europe. The squad was young and the coach, Milan Ribar, only made changes due to injuries or suspensions. Although they had little familiarity with the Rams, the feeling from within the Yugoslav camp was summed up by their star player and regular centre-forward for the international team, Josip Bukal, who said, “we couldn’t get it tougher than drawing English opponents. To be the best in England means you have to be an excellent team.” They were clearly worried and the Yugoslav press opined that ‘Zeljo’ would have to raise their game beyond anything they had ever done before, if they were to have any chance of reaching the second round.

‘Zeljo’ flew into the country on the Sunday before the game and based themselves at the Newton Park Hotel in Newton Solney and would return home on the Thursday morning following the first leg on Wednesday night. On Tuesday evening a pre-match banquet was held at Ristorante la Gondola on Osmaston Road where the visiting directors were presented with a specially commissioned silver ram. That evening the ‘Zeljo’ players would have their opportunity to train on the Baseball Ground pitch.

Although the match highlights were televised on the BBC, who paid £4,500 for the privilege, the Yugoslav FA would not allow the game to be broadcast back home. As well as the BBC the game attracted many of the heavyweights of the national football press - Brian Glanville (Sunday Times), Reg Drury (News of the World), Alan Williams (Daily Express) and Jeff Farmer (Daily Mail).

In England, referees brought in strict new rules on tackling that were not the same in Europe; tackling from behind, deliberate trips and shirt-pulling were still the norm and it all came as a bit of a shock during the first-leg. Zeljeznicar came to defend from the start and they never really threatened the Derby goal. At the other end, goalkeeper Janjus was struggling to cope with the stream of Hinton corners, crosses and free kicks.

There were good opportunities for Gemmill who shot narrowly wide, O’Hare who had a header turned round the post for a corner and Hennessey whose header was cleared off the line. Hector had three openings (one when he directed a Hennessey shot back towards goal) and the defenders were unable to keep him under control - Spreco was the first one to be booked following a tackle from behind.

Hennessy scraped a post when a header on target would have scored and he also had three other headers and two shots all in the first half hour when Derby totally dominated; the corner tally at that point was 15-1.

McFarland had come close to scoring on several occasions and he had the honour of scoring Derby’s first ever European goal in the 38th minute, a strike that he later described as ‘a-once-in-a-lifetime goal.’ In actual fact the slow motion television replays showed that Spreco handled the header as it was going in. As Derby began to make claims for a penalty kick, the ball spun over the line before a defender cleared. Both the linesman and referee gave the goal.

Having been totally outplayed in the first half, Zeljeznicar made two substitutions at half time, but these made little difference. Five minutes into the second half, Hector crossed from the right and Gemmill’s right-foot shot hit goalkeeper Janjus and the ball landed in the net. Then for the next twenty minutes Derby streamed forward and should have added to the scoreline on several occasions. Hector had a shot saved at the foot of a post, Gemmill had a shot blocked following a Hector through-ball and two Hennessey headers went close before the same player sent a thunderbolt shot which beat everyone only to miss the goal by a fraction.

Bukal, one of the long-standing international players, was getting very frustrated with the whole game and was booked for retaliation after Todd had taken the ball off him.

This was the best performance of the season so far and if there was a criticism, it was that for their near-total dominance of the game, Derby had only had two goals and a host of missed chances to show for it. The Derby Evening Telegraph summed it up by saying, ‘Derby County reduced Yugoslavia’s champion club to tatters’ and the visitors showed nothing to suggest that the second leg would be too difficult, given that Derby had a two goal advantage and the Yugoslav defence were unable to deal with Hinton’s crosses and Hector’s pace.’

Man of the match was Hennessey who had several attempts at goal and with his tackling, passing, covering and forward runs made his best performance in a Derby shirt. Other notable performances came from his midfield partners, Gemmill and McGovern. Also effective was Peter Daniel who came into the team to replace David Nish who was ineligible to play, having been signed from Leicester City past the transfer deadline for European matches. John Robson was unavailable through injury.

One disappointment on this historic night was the attendance for the game which was 27,350 (generating receipts of £18,367.43), one of the lowest home attendances during the whole season. A major reason for this was resentment from some supporters that Derby, in line with all other clubs competing in the European Cup, had chosen to raise the price of match tickets above the level charged for domestic games.

For those choosing to stay at home, they missed a never to be forgotten night in the history of Derby County.

[TimRam]

Great write-up. Answered, what was going to be, a question about the low attendance at the end. I've searched in vain for the footage unfortunately. Did not realise that Nish could not play.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, TimRam said:

Great write-up. Answered, what was going to be, a question about the low attendance at the end. I've searched in vain for the footage unfortunately. Did not realise that Nish could not play.

Nish was ineligible for the first two rounds and did not become available until the quarter-final.

[loweman2]

[Eatonram]

At the first game in Europe, I was on the Pop Side with my Dad as usual, but also, because of the special occasion, my mum came along too. On this night the Club did what was an unusual gesture, the Stewards just before the game, walked around the pitch side with beauquets of flowers to give to female supporters....my mum, not one to stand back, got to the front of the terrace held out her hands and claimed the flowers. Strange memory but true. I saw all the home games of that first European campaign...what days.

[LeedsCityRam]

European Cup 1st Round 2nd leg – Wednesday 27th September 1972 & Zeljeznicar v Derby in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia

The Rams had won the first leg at the Baseball Ground 2-0 but had to defend that lead in front of 50,000 in the Kosevo Stadium in Sarajevo. Despite being welcomed onto the pitch with rockets from the crowd, Derby silenced the home support with 2 early goals from Hinton & O’Hare to put the tie beyond Zeljeznicar’s reach & book their place in the next round. Match report below;

 

 

Programme for the match from the Kosevo Stadium – for those of you who wondered what Derby County was in Bosnian, its ‘Derbi Kaunti’. You’re welcome ?

 

Full round up of results from the rest of the 1st round matches – all the big guns got through including Juventus, who beat Marseille comfortably despite trailing from the first leg. There was also something of a furore in Greece where the referee called a penalty shoot out victory for CSKA Sofia one penalty too early, necessitating a replayed match which Panathinaikos lost anyway;

 

The draw for the Second Round saw the introduction of reigning back to back European Champions Ajax to the competition. Even more exciting was Derby being drawn against Benfica – the 1961 & 1962 European Champions (runners up in 1963, 1965 & 1968), with the legendary Eusebio still in their ranks. First leg was to be played at the Baseball Ground on 25th October;

 

Edited September 27, 2022 by LeedsCityRam

[admira]

This is how Europe's top club competition should be run - just the Champions.

Quite ironic that the Champions League contains teams that weren't champions. That and the European Cup should swap titles.

[Guest]

Zeljeznicar Sarajevo 1 Derby County 2

At the weekend, Derby had been beaten 3-0 at bottom-of-the table Manchester United.

Steve Powell was still just 16 years old and Derby had to obtain special permission and a licence from Bow Street Magistrates Court to allow him to travel and ‘play for profit’ while abroad. The team and the press contingent were staying at the Terme Hotel in the centre of Sarajevo, having flown to Yugoslavia on the Monday. The Rams team was scheduled to fly home at 9.30am on Thursday to prepare for the home game against Spurs on Saturday.

Chairman Sam Longson was a collector of teapots and was delighted to receive a large oriental teapot as a gift from his counterpart at one of the receptions held prior to the game. It is still on display in a cabinet at Pride Park. The game was scheduled to be televised by ITV, but at the last moment, Zeljeznicar refused permission for the transmission, denying Derby fans at home the sight of their team playing away in Europe for the first time. ITV had negotiated a contract with the Yugoslav national television organisation and commentator Hugh Johns and a production crew had flown out with the team. In the end ITV switched their coverage to the Leeds United v MKE Ankaragucu UEFA Cup Winners Cup tie. Hugh Johns said that the decision “left me angry and speechless.”

Two planes flew us supporters to Sarajevo. One was a day trip, which I think left East Midlands later on the morning of the match. I went on the other, which was a two days trip, costing £35, which roughly equated to the national average weekly wage at the time. We were up at the crack of dawn on the day of the game to board coaches from the BBG to take us to Luton Airport.

The trip was organised by a specialist sports travel company called 4S Sports, pioneered by David Dryer, who continued in that line of business for the next 30 years.

We headed for the return leg in Yugoslavia, wondering what lay ahead in this great new adventure, that none of us could have possibly imagined in our wildest dreams just a few short years before. This happened to the very big clubs, not us surely?  Remember that unlike today only the champions of a country were allowed to enter this competition. So, we were the sole English entry. It was an exclusive competition for just the champions and not the pretenders.

We arrived at the Europa Hotel in Sarajevo city centre in the early afternoon. After sampling the local brew we were taken on coaches to the stadium where, among the 60,000 spectators I sat next to the young Michael Dunford. He was my age and worked in the club ticket office at the time. He later rose to be the club secretary and then CEO. 

We travelled from the hotel to the Kosevo Stadium by coach. While the stadium looked impressive, the area around it was a sea of mud, in which several cars had become stuck. There was little cover in the stadium and the wooden benches which were our seats were sodden from persistent afternoon rain.

Following the defeat at Old Trafford, Derby made two changes with the young Steve Powell and the ineligible David Nish, being replaced by Peter Daniel and John Robson in the full back positions. The local newspaper, Strana, spelt the names in the Derby team in their own modified way as ‘Bolton, Deniel, Robson, Henesi, Mackfarland, Tod, Mackgovern, Gemel, O’hara, Hector, Hinton.’

The kick-off was at 8.30pm local time. The pitch was not in good condition and the goalmouths had been returfed the day before the game. During the pre-match warm-up, the players rolled shots across the new bumpy turf to give Colin Boulton an idea of what would happen during match conditions. If the the first leg was anything to go by, then Derby knew to expect a rough time and not to expect too much protection from the referee. It was important not to give the home crowd too much to cheer about. But fear not for the tie was settled in the first 15 minutes with goals from Alan Hinton and John O’Hare, meaning the home team then had to score five to have any chance of going through to the next round.

The first goal came in nine minutes when Hector raced clear down the left; his cross was only cleared as far as McGovern who squared the ball to Hinton whose ground shot from the edge of the area beat the helpless Janjus. Just six minutes later, McGovern broke on the left to cross for O’Hare who didn’t have to break his stride to score with ease. The goals were cue for us to dodge a volley of bottles and flares thrown by the disappointed home supporters standing in adjacent pens.

Katalinski was booked when he deliberately tripped Gemmill. Derby were in complete control of the game and their calm, controlled passing and ability to break forward was a constant threat, The Yugoslav forwards hardly had a kick with McFarland marking Bukal out of the game and Todd sweeping up everything else.

With half an hour left, the home team managed to score when Spreco evaded a Daniel challenge to shoot past Boulton, despite a suspicion that he had handled the ball. Bozo Jankovic, who went on to play for Middlesbrough in 1979 to 1981, was sent off four minutes from time for kicking and punching Colin Todd from behind. In some ways it was too little too late from the referee as others deserved to have been dismissed over the two legs for the constant body-checking, hacking down from behind, thigh-high tackles, shirt-tugging and punching.

It is usual in some countries to light fires in the stands as a sign of surrender to show that the fans had lost faith. With Derby comfortably in front this happened with scarves, newspapers and even the wooden benches being burned, all of which was deemed a dangerous act by UEFA who subsequently fined Zeljeznicar for failing to control the crowd.

Gerald Mortimer for the DET was full of praise for the performance, ‘The Rams display must be ranked as one of the finest an English side has ever produced away from home and it exposed the tatty cynicism of the Yugoslavian tactics.’

The Yugoslav press were very complimentary about Derby over the two legs, having been ‘slaughtered’ in Derby, and overall they concluded that Derby was ‘the best they had seen from a foreign side….Colin Todd tonight was wonderful but you won’t let him play for England! And McFarland….what a player!’ This was a reference to the fact that Todd and Alan Hudson (Chelsea) were banned by England for refusing to tour with the England under-23 team during the summer.

At the end of the game we were taken back to the hotel where dinner awaited us. As we sat at our tables enjoying pre-meal drinks, we were amazed to unexpectedly see Brian Clough and Peter Taylor walk into the dining room followed by the team. Cue for us all to stand and cheer them in. Cloughie walked around the room and stopped and spoke to the fans at every table. He certainly knew how to keep the people happy.

When he arrived at our table, one of my mates sat there with a solemn look on his face. He was quite shy and probably awestruck at what he was witnessing. Noticing his demeanour, Cloughie asked him “What’s wrong young man? Cheer up. Are you a Forest fan?” With the benefit of hindsight, that remark now seems so horribly ironic.

It later emerged, that not being happy with the over-physicality of the opposition players, Brian had snubbed the post-match reception, explaining that he and his team had to go to thank their fans, saying to the waiting press, ‘you can’t ignore fans like that.‘ This apparently caused some offence to the home club who were left to host just our board of directors. I bet that tickled Cloughie.

We who were lucky enough to be present loved that night in the hotel in Sarajevo, mingling with our heroes. When the bar closed, Clough and Taylor slipped away into the night, leaving the players, the younger fans and the national football journalists free to move on to a local nightclub, which stayed open until 4.00am. 

Our enjoyment continued but the music played by the local band was rather tiresome, wholly unlike our popular English music of the time, and the belly-dancers weren’t too pleasing on the eye. This became just too much for the most unlikely of our players. Just before the club was due to close, Kevin Hector put his treasured right foot through the drum skin. This caused some disquiet among the locals but Roy McFarland was able to calm matters and avoid an international diplomatic incident. A whip round was held and the damage was paid for.

We made our way back to the hotels with the journalists while the players left for the team’s hotel. Not a single written word appeared in the national press about that bloody drum. Haven’t times changed? But the King was right. The music was bloody awful.

Early on the Thursday afternoon, we left the beautiful city of Sarajevo, overlooked by the surrounding mountains. Despite the pyrotechnics and histrionics in the stadium, we had been warmly welcomed by the local inhabitants and the Zeljeznicar football supporters. Our hotel was close to the bridge where Archduke Ferdinand had been assassinated in the event that precipitated the First World War and close to the exotic Markale market.

On a more sombre note, the siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces from April 5, 1992, to February 29, 1996, during the Bosnian War was the longest siege in modern European history through the 20th century. Before fighting broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 1992, Bosnian Serbs constructed reinforced artillery positions in the hills overlooking Sarajevo, reasoning that if they could crush resistance there, they might crush it everywhere. Once the conflict began they occupied the positions and some of the city suburbs and imposed a total blockade, denying Sarajevo food, power, and water. Although far better armed than the militia defending the city, Serbian forces lacked the numbers to storm it, so they settled in to pound it into submission. The militia, despite superior numbers, lacked the weapons to break the siege. It became a contest of endurance.

Serb artillery inflicted great damage: on average more than 300 shells struck Sarajevo every day, and targets such as schools, hospitals, and homes were not spared. Nearly every building in the city was damaged. Snipers added to the dangers, and nowhere in the city was safe. Sarajevo came near to starvation before the United Nations, in control of the international airport, organised humanitarian relief. A tunnel, completed in mid-1993, connected city and airport, allowing supplies through. But malnutrition became a serious problem, and in winter the elderly perished in unheated homes. The shelling, especially two ugly incidents at the Markale market, infuriated world opinion.

In May 1996 NATO launched air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops, eventually forcing them to accept the Dayton Accords, which lifted the siege.

During the war, the auxiliary football ground of the Kosevo Olympic stadium was turned into a cemetery because there was not enough space to bury the dead in ordinary graveyards. The football pitch became a mass grave. After the siege was ended, the bodies were moved to a newly purpose built war cemetery adjacent to the stadium.

That all came about two decades after Derby County went to Sarajevo. The people I met in Sarajevo welcomed us and were friendly towards us, almost envious of us; they didn’t deserve what came their way in the 1990s. Who did deserve that? Sectarianism has a lot to answer for.

The draw for the second round was made on 2nd October in Rome with Derby being allocated No. 14. Sam Longson, Mike Keeling, Stuart Webb and Peter Taylor were in attendance as Derby were drawn against the Portuguese champions, Benfica, with the first leg at home. The Fleet Street journalists wrote off Derby’s chances as soon as the draw was made, citing the pedigree and experience of the Eagles from Lisbon. They expected Benfica to cruise past Derby - ‘Easy prey for the Eagles’ was one of the headlines in the sports pages. Peter Taylor kept those newspaper cuttings and used them to help motivate the players in the run-up to the game. After the draw, Brian Clough said ‘I am absolutely over the moon about this one and so are the lads. This will pack our ground with as many outside trying to get in.’ Peter Taylor echoed those thoughts - ‘this will be something special for our players.’

Edited September 27, 2022 by Brailsford Ram

[strawhillram]

2 hours ago, LeedsCityRam said:

European Cup 1st Round 2nd leg – Wednesday 27th September 1972 & Zeljeznicar v Derby in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia

The Rams had won the first leg at the Baseball Ground 2-0 but had to defend that lead in front of 50,000 in the Kosevo Stadium in Sarajevo. Despite being welcomed onto the pitch with rockets from the crowd, Derby silenced the home support with 2 early goals from Hinton & O’Hare to put the tie beyond Zeljeznicar’s reach & book their place in the next round. Match report below;

 

 

Programme for the match from the Kosevo Stadium – for those of you who wondered what Derby County was in Bosnian, its ‘Derbi Kaunti’. You’re welcome ?

 

Full round up of results from the rest of the 1st round matches – all the big guns got through including Juventus, who beat Marseille comfortably despite trailing from the first leg. There was also something of a furore in Greece where the referee called a penalty shoot out victory for CSKA Sofia one penalty too early, necessitating a replayed match which Panathinaikos lost anyway;

 

The draw for the Second Round saw the introduction of reigning back to back European Champions Ajax to the competition. Even more exciting was Derby being drawn against Benfica – the 1961 & 1962 European Champions (runners up in 1963, 1965 & 1968), with the legendary Eusebio still in their ranks. First leg was to be played at the Baseball Ground on 25th October;

 

"DERBI KAUNTI" - - - -  could have been worse !

[swanny]

 love the fact that the Tutbury and District Dominos league results were next to the match report. 

[admira]

2 hours ago, Brailsford Ram said:

Zeljeznicar Sarajevo 1 Derby County 2

At the weekend, Derby had been beaten 3-0 at bottom-of-the table Manchester United.

Steve Powell was still just 16 years old and Derby had to obtain special permission and a licence from Bow Street Magistrates Court to allow him to travel and ‘play for profit’ while abroad. The team and the press contingent were staying at the Terme Hotel in the centre of Sarajevo, having flown to Yugoslavia on the Monday. The Rams team was scheduled to fly home at 9.30am on Thursday to prepare for the home game against Spurs on Saturday.

Chairman Sam Longson was a collector of teapots and was delighted to receive a large oriental teapot as a gift from his counterpart at one of the receptions held prior to the game. It is still on display in a cabinet at Pride Park. The game was scheduled to be televised by ITV, but at the last moment, Zeljeznicar refused permission for the transmission, denying Derby fans at home the sight of their team playing away in Europe for the first time. ITV had negotiated a contract with the Yugoslav national television organisation and commentator Hugh Johns and a production crew had flown out with the team. In the end ITV switched their coverage to the Leeds United v MKE Ankaragucu UEFA Cup Winners Cup tie. Hugh Johns said that the decision “left me angry and speechless.”

Two planes flew us supporters to Sarajevo. One was a day trip, which I think left East Midlands later on the morning of the match. I went on the other, which was a two days trip, costing £35, which roughly equated to the national average weekly wage at the time. We were up at the crack of dawn on the day of the game to board coaches from the BBG to take us to Luton Airport.

The trip was organised by a specialist sports travel company called 4S Sports, pioneered by David Dryer, who continued in that line of business for the next 30 years.

We headed for the return leg in Yugoslavia, wondering what lay ahead in this great new adventure, that none of us could have possibly imagined in our wildest dreams just a few short years before. This happened to the very big clubs, not us surely?  Remember that unlike today only the champions of a country were allowed to enter this competition. So, we were the sole English entry. It was an exclusive competition for just the champions and not the pretenders.

We arrived at the Europa Hotel in Sarajevo city centre in the early afternoon. After sampling the local brew we were taken on coaches to the stadium where, among the 60,000 spectators I sat next to the young Michael Dunford. He was my age and worked in the club ticket office at the time. He later rose to be the club secretary and then CEO. 

We travelled from the hotel to the Kosevo Stadium by coach. While the stadium looked impressive, the area around it was a sea of mud, in which several cars had become stuck. There was little cover in the stadium and the wooden benches which were our seats were sodden from persistent afternoon rain.

Following the defeat at Old Trafford, Derby made two changes with the young Steve Powell and the ineligible David Nish, being replaced by Peter Daniel and John Robson in the full back positions. The local newspaper, Strana, spelt the names in the Derby team in their own modified way as ‘Bolton, Deniel, Robson, Henesi, Mackfarland, Tod, Mackgovern, Gemel, O’hara, Hector, Hinton.’

The kick-off was at 8.30pm local time. The pitch was not in good condition and the goalmouths had been returfed the day before the game. During the pre-match warm-up, the players rolled shots across the new bumpy turf to give Colin Boulton an idea of what would happen during match conditions. If the the first leg was anything to go by, then Derby knew to expect a rough time and not to expect too much protection from the referee. It was important not to give the home crowd too much to cheer about. But fear not for the tie was settled in the first 15 minutes with goals from Alan Hinton and John O’Hare, meaning the home team then had to score five to have any chance of going through to the next round.

The first goal came in nine minutes when Hector raced clear down the left; his cross was only cleared as far as McGovern who squared the ball to Hinton whose ground shot from the edge of the area beat the helpless Janjus. Just six minutes later, McGovern broke on the left to cross for O’Hare who didn’t have to break his stride to score with ease. The goals were cue for us to dodge a volley of bottles and flares thrown by the disappointed home supporters standing in adjacent pens.

Katalinski was booked when he deliberately tripped Gemmill. Derby were in complete control of the game and their calm, controlled passing and ability to break forward was a constant threat, The Yugoslav forwards hardly had a kick with McFarland marking Bukal out of the game and Todd sweeping up everything else.

With half an hour left, the home team managed to score when Spreco evaded a Daniel challenge to shoot past Boulton, despite a suspicion that he had handled the ball. Bozo Jankovic, who went on to play for Middlesbrough in 1979 to 1981, was sent off four minutes from time for kicking and punching Colin Todd from behind. In some ways it was too little too late from the referee as others deserved to have been dismissed over the two legs for the constant body-checking, hacking down from behind, thigh-high tackles, shirt-tugging and punching.

It is usual in some countries to light fires in the stands as a sign of surrender to show that the fans had lost faith. With Derby comfortably in front this happened with scarves, newspapers and even the wooden benches being burned, all of which was deemed a dangerous act by UEFA who subsequently fined Zeljeznicar for failing to control the crowd.

Gerald Mortimer for the DET was full of praise for the performance, ‘The Rams display must be ranked as one of the finest an English side has ever produced away from home and it exposed the tatty cynicism of the Yugoslavian tactics.’

The Yugoslav press were very complimentary about Derby over the two legs, having been ‘slaughtered’ in Derby, and overall they concluded that Derby was ‘the best they had seen from a foreign side….Colin Todd tonight was wonderful but you won’t let him play for England! And McFarland….what a player!’ This was a reference to the fact that Todd and Alan Hudson (Chelsea) were banned by England for refusing to tour with the England under-23 team during the summer.

At the end of the game we were taken back to the hotel where dinner awaited us. As we sat at our tables enjoying pre-meal drinks, we were amazed to unexpectedly see Brian Clough and Peter Taylor walk into the dining room followed by the team. Cue for us all to stand and cheer them in. Cloughie walked around the room and stopped and spoke to the fans at every table. He certainly knew how to keep the people happy.

When he arrived at our table, one of my mates sat there with a solemn look on his face. He was quite shy and probably awestruck at what he was witnessing. Noticing his demeanour, Cloughie asked him “What’s wrong young man? Cheer up. Are you a Forest fan?” With the benefit of hindsight, that remark now seems so horribly ironic.

It later emerged, that not being happy with the over-physicality of the opposition players, Brian had snubbed the post-match reception, explaining that he and his team had to go to thank their fans, saying to the waiting press, ‘you can’t ignore fans like that.‘ This apparently caused some offence to the home club who were left to host just our board of directors. I bet that tickled Cloughie.

We who were lucky enough to be present loved that night in the hotel in Sarajevo, mingling with our heroes. When the bar closed, Clough and Taylor slipped away into the night, leaving the players, the younger fans and the national football journalists free to move on to a local nightclub, which stayed open until 4.00am. 

Our enjoyment continued but the music played by the local band was rather tiresome, wholly unlike our popular English music of the time, and the belly-dancers weren’t too pleasing on the eye. This became just too much for the most unlikely of our players. Just before the club was due to close, Kevin Hector put his treasured right foot through the drum skin. This caused some disquiet among the locals but Roy McFarland was able to calm matters and avoid an international diplomatic incident. A whip round was held and the damage was paid for.

We made our way back to the hotels with the journalists while the players left for the team’s hotel. Not a single written word appeared in the national press about that bloody drum. Haven’t times changed? But the King was right. The music was bloody awful.

Early on the Thursday afternoon, we left the beautiful city of Sarajevo, overlooked by the surrounding mountains. Despite the pyrotechnics and histrionics in the stadium, we had been warmly welcomed by the local inhabitants and the Zeljeznicar football supporters. Our hotel was close to the bridge where Archduke Ferdinand had been assassinated in the event that precipitated the First World War and close to the exotic Markale market.

On a more sombre note, the siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces from April 5, 1992, to February 29, 1996, during the Bosnian War was the longest siege in modern European history through the 20th century. Before fighting broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 1992, Bosnian Serbs constructed reinforced artillery positions in the hills overlooking Sarajevo, reasoning that if they could crush resistance there, they might crush it everywhere. Once the conflict began they occupied the positions and some of the city suburbs and imposed a total blockade, denying Sarajevo food, power, and water. Although far better armed than the militia defending the city, Serbian forces lacked the numbers to storm it, so they settled in to pound it into submission. The militia, despite superior numbers, lacked the weapons to break the siege. It became a contest of endurance.

Serb artillery inflicted great damage: on average more than 300 shells struck Sarajevo every day, and targets such as schools, hospitals, and homes were not spared. Nearly every building in the city was damaged. Snipers added to the dangers, and nowhere in the city was safe. Sarajevo came near to starvation before the United Nations, in control of the international airport, organised humanitarian relief. A tunnel, completed in mid-1993, connected city and airport, allowing supplies through. But malnutrition became a serious problem, and in winter the elderly perished in unheated homes. The shelling, especially two ugly incidents at the Markale market, infuriated world opinion.

In May 1996 NATO launched air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops, eventually forcing them to accept the Dayton Accords, which lifted the siege.

During the war, the auxiliary football ground of the Kosevo Olympic stadium was turned into a cemetery because there was not enough space to bury the dead in ordinary graveyards. The football pitch became a mass grave. After the siege was ended, the bodies were moved to a newly purpose built war cemetery adjacent to the stadium.

That all came about two decades after Derby County went to Sarajevo. The people I met in Sarajevo welcomed us and were friendly towards us, almost envious of us; they didn’t deserve what came their way in the 1990s. Who did deserve that? Sectarianism has a lot to answer for.

The draw for the second round was made on 2nd October in Rome with Derby being allocated No. 14. Sam Longson, Mike Keeling, Stuart Webb and Peter Taylor were in attendance as Derby were drawn against the Portuguese champions, Benfica, with the first leg at home. The Fleet Street journalists wrote off Derby’s chances as soon as the draw was made, citing the pedigree and experience of the Eagles from Lisbon. They expected Benfica to cruise past Derby - ‘Easy prey for the Eagles’ was one of the headlines in the sports pages. Peter Taylor kept those newspaper cuttings and used them to help motivate the players in the run-up to the game. After the draw, Brian Clough said ‘I am absolutely over the moon about this one and so are the lads. This will pack our ground with as many outside trying to get in.’ Peter Taylor echoed those thoughts - ‘this will be something special for our players.’

A fantastic write up. Have you ever considered writing a book of these memories?

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, admira said:

A fantastic write up. Have you ever considered writing a book of these memories?

I'm working on something around this era at the moment but can't say any more until I'm able to accurately assess the viability of the project - but I'm optimistic that it will come to fruition next year. Friends and colleagues have always remarked on my retentive memory and it's not showing signs of decline just yet. The beauty of that for me personally is that I can relive the joy of those great days as if they happened last year. There's a few on here who are of the same generation and their recall is pretty good too - we were young and impressionable and born at the right time to live the dream of our footballing youth at the right moment. I had to watch the pennies to do the European trips but I've never regretted it.

[blackNwhites]

9 hours ago, Brailsford Ram said:

Zeljeznicar Sarajevo 1 Derby County 2

At the weekend, Derby had been beaten 3-0 at bottom-of-the table Manchester United.

Steve Powell was still just 16 years old and Derby had to obtain special permission and a licence from Bow Street Magistrates Court to allow him to travel and ‘play for profit’ while abroad. The team and the press contingent were staying at the Terme Hotel in the centre of Sarajevo, having flown to Yugoslavia on the Monday. The Rams team was scheduled to fly home at 9.30am on Thursday to prepare for the home game against Spurs on Saturday.

Chairman Sam Longson was a collector of teapots and was delighted to receive a large oriental teapot as a gift from his counterpart at one of the receptions held prior to the game. It is still on display in a cabinet at Pride Park. The game was scheduled to be televised by ITV, but at the last moment, Zeljeznicar refused permission for the transmission, denying Derby fans at home the sight of their team playing away in Europe for the first time. ITV had negotiated a contract with the Yugoslav national television organisation and commentator Hugh Johns and a production crew had flown out with the team. In the end ITV switched their coverage to the Leeds United v MKE Ankaragucu UEFA Cup Winners Cup tie. Hugh Johns said that the decision “left me angry and speechless.”

Two planes flew us supporters to Sarajevo. One was a day trip, which I think left East Midlands later on the morning of the match. I went on the other, which was a two days trip, costing £35, which roughly equated to the national average weekly wage at the time. We were up at the crack of dawn on the day of the game to board coaches from the BBG to take us to Luton Airport.

The trip was organised by a specialist sports travel company called 4S Sports, pioneered by David Dryer, who continued in that line of business for the next 30 years.

We headed for the return leg in Yugoslavia, wondering what lay ahead in this great new adventure, that none of us could have possibly imagined in our wildest dreams just a few short years before. This happened to the very big clubs, not us surely?  Remember that unlike today only the champions of a country were allowed to enter this competition. So, we were the sole English entry. It was an exclusive competition for just the champions and not the pretenders.

We arrived at the Europa Hotel in Sarajevo city centre in the early afternoon. After sampling the local brew we were taken on coaches to the stadium where, among the 60,000 spectators I sat next to the young Michael Dunford. He was my age and worked in the club ticket office at the time. He later rose to be the club secretary and then CEO. 

We travelled from the hotel to the Kosevo Stadium by coach. While the stadium looked impressive, the area around it was a sea of mud, in which several cars had become stuck. There was little cover in the stadium and the wooden benches which were our seats were sodden from persistent afternoon rain.

Following the defeat at Old Trafford, Derby made two changes with the young Steve Powell and the ineligible David Nish, being replaced by Peter Daniel and John Robson in the full back positions. The local newspaper, Strana, spelt the names in the Derby team in their own modified way as ‘Bolton, Deniel, Robson, Henesi, Mackfarland, Tod, Mackgovern, Gemel, O’hara, Hector, Hinton.’

The kick-off was at 8.30pm local time. The pitch was not in good condition and the goalmouths had been returfed the day before the game. During the pre-match warm-up, the players rolled shots across the new bumpy turf to give Colin Boulton an idea of what would happen during match conditions. If the the first leg was anything to go by, then Derby knew to expect a rough time and not to expect too much protection from the referee. It was important not to give the home crowd too much to cheer about. But fear not for the tie was settled in the first 15 minutes with goals from Alan Hinton and John O’Hare, meaning the home team then had to score five to have any chance of going through to the next round.

The first goal came in nine minutes when Hector raced clear down the left; his cross was only cleared as far as McGovern who squared the ball to Hinton whose ground shot from the edge of the area beat the helpless Janjus. Just six minutes later, McGovern broke on the left to cross for O’Hare who didn’t have to break his stride to score with ease. The goals were cue for us to dodge a volley of bottles and flares thrown by the disappointed home supporters standing in adjacent pens.

Katalinski was booked when he deliberately tripped Gemmill. Derby were in complete control of the game and their calm, controlled passing and ability to break forward was a constant threat, The Yugoslav forwards hardly had a kick with McFarland marking Bukal out of the game and Todd sweeping up everything else.

With half an hour left, the home team managed to score when Spreco evaded a Daniel challenge to shoot past Boulton, despite a suspicion that he had handled the ball. Bozo Jankovic, who went on to play for Middlesbrough in 1979 to 1981, was sent off four minutes from time for kicking and punching Colin Todd from behind. In some ways it was too little too late from the referee as others deserved to have been dismissed over the two legs for the constant body-checking, hacking down from behind, thigh-high tackles, shirt-tugging and punching.

It is usual in some countries to light fires in the stands as a sign of surrender to show that the fans had lost faith. With Derby comfortably in front this happened with scarves, newspapers and even the wooden benches being burned, all of which was deemed a dangerous act by UEFA who subsequently fined Zeljeznicar for failing to control the crowd.

Gerald Mortimer for the DET was full of praise for the performance, ‘The Rams display must be ranked as one of the finest an English side has ever produced away from home and it exposed the tatty cynicism of the Yugoslavian tactics.’

The Yugoslav press were very complimentary about Derby over the two legs, having been ‘slaughtered’ in Derby, and overall they concluded that Derby was ‘the best they had seen from a foreign side….Colin Todd tonight was wonderful but you won’t let him play for England! And McFarland….what a player!’ This was a reference to the fact that Todd and Alan Hudson (Chelsea) were banned by England for refusing to tour with the England under-23 team during the summer.

At the end of the game we were taken back to the hotel where dinner awaited us. As we sat at our tables enjoying pre-meal drinks, we were amazed to unexpectedly see Brian Clough and Peter Taylor walk into the dining room followed by the team. Cue for us all to stand and cheer them in. Cloughie walked around the room and stopped and spoke to the fans at every table. He certainly knew how to keep the people happy.

When he arrived at our table, one of my mates sat there with a solemn look on his face. He was quite shy and probably awestruck at what he was witnessing. Noticing his demeanour, Cloughie asked him “What’s wrong young man? Cheer up. Are you a Forest fan?” With the benefit of hindsight, that remark now seems so horribly ironic.

It later emerged, that not being happy with the over-physicality of the opposition players, Brian had snubbed the post-match reception, explaining that he and his team had to go to thank their fans, saying to the waiting press, ‘you can’t ignore fans like that.‘ This apparently caused some offence to the home club who were left to host just our board of directors. I bet that tickled Cloughie.

We who were lucky enough to be present loved that night in the hotel in Sarajevo, mingling with our heroes. When the bar closed, Clough and Taylor slipped away into the night, leaving the players, the younger fans and the national football journalists free to move on to a local nightclub, which stayed open until 4.00am. 

Our enjoyment continued but the music played by the local band was rather tiresome, wholly unlike our popular English music of the time, and the belly-dancers weren’t too pleasing on the eye. This became just too much for the most unlikely of our players. Just before the club was due to close, Kevin Hector put his treasured right foot through the drum skin. This caused some disquiet among the locals but Roy McFarland was able to calm matters and avoid an international diplomatic incident. A whip round was held and the damage was paid for.

We made our way back to the hotels with the journalists while the players left for the team’s hotel. Not a single written word appeared in the national press about that bloody drum. Haven’t times changed? But the King was right. The music was bloody awful.

Early on the Thursday afternoon, we left the beautiful city of Sarajevo, overlooked by the surrounding mountains. Despite the pyrotechnics and histrionics in the stadium, we had been warmly welcomed by the local inhabitants and the Zeljeznicar football supporters. Our hotel was close to the bridge where Archduke Ferdinand had been assassinated in the event that precipitated the First World War and close to the exotic Markale market.

On a more sombre note, the siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces from April 5, 1992, to February 29, 1996, during the Bosnian War was the longest siege in modern European history through the 20th century. Before fighting broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 1992, Bosnian Serbs constructed reinforced artillery positions in the hills overlooking Sarajevo, reasoning that if they could crush resistance there, they might crush it everywhere. Once the conflict began they occupied the positions and some of the city suburbs and imposed a total blockade, denying Sarajevo food, power, and water. Although far better armed than the militia defending the city, Serbian forces lacked the numbers to storm it, so they settled in to pound it into submission. The militia, despite superior numbers, lacked the weapons to break the siege. It became a contest of endurance.

Serb artillery inflicted great damage: on average more than 300 shells struck Sarajevo every day, and targets such as schools, hospitals, and homes were not spared. Nearly every building in the city was damaged. Snipers added to the dangers, and nowhere in the city was safe. Sarajevo came near to starvation before the United Nations, in control of the international airport, organised humanitarian relief. A tunnel, completed in mid-1993, connected city and airport, allowing supplies through. But malnutrition became a serious problem, and in winter the elderly perished in unheated homes. The shelling, especially two ugly incidents at the Markale market, infuriated world opinion.

In May 1996 NATO launched air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops, eventually forcing them to accept the Dayton Accords, which lifted the siege.

During the war, the auxiliary football ground of the Kosevo Olympic stadium was turned into a cemetery because there was not enough space to bury the dead in ordinary graveyards. The football pitch became a mass grave. After the siege was ended, the bodies were moved to a newly purpose built war cemetery adjacent to the stadium.

That all came about two decades after Derby County went to Sarajevo. The people I met in Sarajevo welcomed us and were friendly towards us, almost envious of us; they didn’t deserve what came their way in the 1990s. Who did deserve that? Sectarianism has a lot to answer for.

The draw for the second round was made on 2nd October in Rome with Derby being allocated No. 14. Sam Longson, Mike Keeling, Stuart Webb and Peter Taylor were in attendance as Derby were drawn against the Portuguese champions, Benfica, with the first leg at home. The Fleet Street journalists wrote off Derby’s chances as soon as the draw was made, citing the pedigree and experience of the Eagles from Lisbon. They expected Benfica to cruise past Derby - ‘Easy prey for the Eagles’ was one of the headlines in the sports pages. Peter Taylor kept those newspaper cuttings and used them to help motivate the players in the run-up to the game. After the draw, Brian Clough said ‘I am absolutely over the moon about this one and so are the lads. This will pack our ground with as many outside trying to get in.’ Peter Taylor echoed those thoughts - ‘this will be something special for our players.’

Fantastic post, thanks for the good read.

[Guest]

The build up to Derby County v Benfica

While Zeljeznicar in the first round had introduced Derby supporters to a relatively new name in the European footballing arena, they needed no introduction to Benfica or their star player, the legendary Eusebio. The Portuguese champions ranked alongside the most famous club sides in the world - Real Madrid, the two Milan clubs and Ajax of Amsterdam, led by their world star player, Johann Cruyff. Benfica had been the first club to win the European Cup following the total denomination by Real Madrid in the first five years of the competition. Between 1961 and 1968, the Eagles of Lisbon had reached the final five times; winning the trophy in 1961 and 1962 and being runners-up in 1963, 1965 and 1968. Furthermore, their players had formed the majority of the Portugal team who had lost in the semi-final of the World Cup to England in 1966.

As the first leg tie against Benfica loomed, Derby continued to struggle in the League, Having won just one of their previous five games - including a 5-0 drubbing at Leeds United and also being knocked out of the League Cup by Chelsea. On Saturday 21st October, they fell to a 3-1 defeat at Ipswich Town (exactly 50 years later they lost 1-0 at the same venue on Friday night!). This left the Rams in 16th place after 14 games, which was just three points clear of the bottom teams - Crystal Palace, Manchester United and Stoke City. They had lost six successive away League games.

Brian Clough had missed the game at Ipswich, having travelled to Lisbon to scout Benfica. The home game against Belenenses was reported in the Daily Mirror.

EUSEBO'S HAT TRICK: ‘Eusebio, obligingly, scored three goals here today—the first with his left foot, the second with his right, the third with his shoulder blades—to elevate his total, in six matches this season, to sixteen.  And, inevitably, Benfica swamped, overwhelmed and annihilated Belenenses, the next best club side in Portugal, 5-0 to polish up an already glittering drive towards another championship . . . played seven. won seven, goals for 33, goals against 2.

‘And only two people in the exulting crowd at the Estadio da Luz (Stadium of Light) remained stubbornly unimpressed. One was Brian Clough, manager of Derby County, who have to beat Eusebio and Benfica to go further in this season's European Cup. And Clough hadn't come to be impressed. The other was his eight-year-old son Simon. " I was bored stiff," said Simon (wonder where he gets his outspokenness). "Derby play much more exciting football." An eight-goal forecast as a warning to Derby? Could be just that from Eusebio, who has rattled in sixteen goals in six matches. Clearly he's the man Derby must watch.’

This report was typical of what we had to suffer from the cynical national press since the draw for the second round had been made.

My first recollection of the European Cup was as a five-years-old in February 1958 when news of of the Munich air disaster stunned the nation. We lived in Cornwall where my dad was stationed in the RAF. My mum was from Manchester and I remember how upset she was as news of the deaths of the United players was broadcast on our 14” black & white box TV; one of her brothers played in goal for United during the Second World War but his football career had ended when he lost a leg serving in the British Army.

My first realisation of the importance of the competition didn’t come until 1961-62, by which time we had settled in Derby and I had started watching the Rams. Spurs were the reigning double winners and driven on by Dave Mackay, they battled to an epic two-legged European Cup semi-final against Benfica; having been on the wrong-end of dubious refereeing decisions where goals were disallowed in both legs, Spurs went out, losing the first leg in Lisbon by 3-1 before winning the second in London by 2-1, when Mackay’s shot hit the bar in injury time.

There then followed two disappointing seasons in the competition for Ipswich and Everton until English clubs embarked on a long trail of achievement in the competition, which has continued ever since. Semi-finals were regularly reached before Manchester United won the trophy in 1968, beating Benfica 4-1 after extra-time at Wembley. Since then Derby had surpassed United in their standing in England and Europe and Benfica’s long run of European success in the 1960s had faded. The English press had long supported the performances of the English champions chances in the competition but for some reason when Derby were drawn against Benfica, that all changed with the football journalists widely writing off any chances of the Rams progressing to the next round. This was in stark contrast to how Zeljeznicar had approached meeting the Rams whom they knew little about. The Yugoslav press had feared the worst, simply because any team who were champions of England simply had to be feared.

The English critics became the Rams’ spur as they they prepared for the first leg against Benfica. Following the defeat at Ipswich, Peter Taylor who was left in charge while Brian Clough watched Benfica in Lisbon, pinned abusive letters and dismissive newspaper reports on the home dressing room notice-board at the Baseball Ground, telling the players ‘Read them, get mad about them - and then go out and prove them all wrong.’

The poison-pen letters ridiculed the team’s chances of getting further along the European road. Headlines included YOU’RE FOR IT DERBY and EASY PREY FOR EAGLES. Taylor commented:

‘I usually tear up anonymous letters, but these could do us a great favour. One of them says we will lose by a cricket score and all of them, along with many recent headlines, recon we will be easy meat for Benfica. But I am using all this stuff to help us make those responsible look silly. When the players see those letters and headlines as they walk in and out of the dressing room in the next few days it will put them in exactly the right frame of mind for the game. There’s nothing like a sense of grievance to make proud men respond by producing the goods, and I believe that Derby are entitled to feel that anyone writing us off is being unjust.’

On past form, Benfica were indeed a formidable proposition. They were firmly established as a national institution, winners up to that point of the Portuguese League title 19 times and their country’s cup competition on 18 occasions. In 1950, they had also won the Latin Cup, forerunner of the European Cup, under the management of Ted Smith, a former Millwall player who later coached the Portugal national team, and they had broken Real Madrid’s grip on the European Cup by carrying off that trophy in 1961 and 1962. They had also been runners-up three times since then. But by now as they met Derby County in their 66th European Cup tie (as against the Rams’ third), they, like their star player Eusebio, were no longer such a fearsome force.

On the Monday before the first leg, when Clough returned from Lisbon having watched Benfica win easily against the second best team in Portugal, he was of the opinion that that they were so out of touch that he dared not give Taylor his true impression for fear that word would get back to his players and put them in danger of becoming complacent. Instead, he made no reference to what he saw as Benfica’s shortcomings but took the precaution of having the Baseball Ground pitch well watered

On Tuesday, 24th October, Taylor once again paraded himself before the footballing press:

On the morning of the game, the Daily Mirror sports pages led with the headline ‘Roy will knock spots off the Panther - Taylor,’ saying ‘the seething European battleground of Derby will tonight parade the greatest footballer in the world. That is the carefully-weighed view of County's assistant manager Peter Taylor, a level-headed administrator not given to wild exaggeration.

‘If you believe that Brian Clough's adjutant is referring to Eusebio, the Black Panther of Benfica, you are forgiven. But no. The legendary Portuguese striker, according to Taylor, is due to be overshadowed tonight by the richly talented Roy McFarland. With Clough still en route from Lisbon, where he mapped out the blueprint for Derby's greatest single challenge since the 1946 Cup Final, Taylor said: I believe McFarland is the greatest player I have even seen —and I reckon I have had a look at them all in - my time. "This is the perfect stage for Roy to prove what I believe. Sir Alf Ramsey is  sold on him and it is matches like this one which will prove it to everybody else.

“You could play him anywhere in any side in the world and he would be the star man. They used to say Sugar Ray Robinson was the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Well I believe in terms of overall skill in any position on the park, Roy McFarland is the best footballer.

Speaking of the Derby squad, Taylor said “They are in a perfect frame of mind. Only bad teams need cash incentives to win matches like this. With good players like ours, they react when their pride is at stake. These rounds are all won or lost in the home legs. We will go out like lions and put them under tremendous pressure. Derby are basically a skilful side but this game will be no place for faint hearts. We will play it fair as we always do. But Derby’s players are in the mood to battle for every inch of ground.”

Looking back now 50 years on, Taylor’s prediction somehow seems dangerously reckless and at the time there were many neutrals willing for his words to blow up in his face. Taylor was sure it wouldn’t and his words show the unquestioning faith and confidence that Clough and Taylor had in their players’ ability to take on Europe’s best sides and beat them. That faith was not shared by many of the country’s leading football journalists, not yet anyway.

Were Clough and Taylor right to go nose to nose and toe to toe with the might of the country’s footballing press to defy the ‘journos’ predictions of pending disaster for the Rams?

To find out, be sure to return on Tuesday when LeedsCityRam introduces you to what happened next at the Baseball Ground.

[LeedsCityRam]

European Cup 2nd Round 1st leg – Wednesday 25th October 1972 & the visit of mighty Benfica to the Baseball Ground

Fair to say that short of Real Madrid & Ajax, Benfica were probably the most glamorous & storied European club Derby could have drawn in the 2nd round of the European Cup. In the 17 years the European Cup had been in existence, Benfica had won the title twice (the first winners of the tournament other than Real Madrid) & had been runners up on 3 other occasions.

On top of that pedigree, Benfica were in the middle of a 29 match consecutive winning run domestically which saw them clinch the 1972/73 Portuguese title without losing a single game (still a European record) & still had the great Eusebio in their ranks – he would win the European Golden Boot at the end of the season.

All that said, Benfica stepped onto the (soggy) Baseball Ground pitch 50 years ago today & were promptly torn apart on one of the greatest nights in Derby County’s history. Action from the game;

 

 

 

Pre match copy of the Ram;

 

Summary of results from elsewhere in Round 2 – Gerd Muller scored 5 as Bayern Munich crushed Cypriot minnows Omonia 9-0 whilst there was a surprise in Romania, as the mighty Real Madrid were beaten 2-1 by Arges Pitesti. Second legs to be played 2 weeks later on 8th November;

[RoyMac5]

1 hour ago, LeedsCityRam said:

...All that said, Benfica stepped onto the (soggy) Baseball Ground pitch 50 years ago today & were promptly torn apart on one of the greatest nights in Derby County’s history. Action from the game;

 

 

 

Pre match copy of the Ram;

 

Summary of results from elsewhere in Round 2 – Gerd Muller scored 5 as Bayern Munich crushed Cypriot minnows Omonia 9-0 whilst there was a surprise in Romania, as the mighty Real Madrid were beaten 2-1 by Arges Pitesti. Second legs to be played 2 weeks later on 8th November;

The Baseball Ground really rocked that night. Memorable.

[Guest]

Derby County 3 Benfica 0

In the previous round, Benfica had eliminated Malmo of Sweden by a 4-2 aggregate, losing away 1-0 but then winning the return leg 4-1 at home.

Benfica arrived in Derby on Monday, staying at the Pennine Hotel in the centre of town and they would return home on the Thursday after the game; they had requested to train on the Baseball Ground on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. The referee and linesmen, all from Sweden, were staying at the Midland Hotel for their two-nights stay.

There was a huge demand for tickets for this game and to meet the extraordinary needs of the European media, an additional press box was created behind the dugouts. The BBC was present to broadcast edited highlights of the game in their late-night mid-week Sportsnight programme; the corporation had taken over a room in the Baseball Hotel to create a makeshift sports studio. The TV gantry in the Leys Stand roof was also extended to accommodate additional commentators from France and Austria.

The match was all-ticket with the best seats priced at £1.50 , Popside terrace tickets 50p, the Paddock, Normanton End and Osmaston End terraces at 60p. Benfica had sold 320 tickets for the game, returning 80 terrace tickets but selling all of their allocated seats. Having safely negotiated the first round, the Derby management realised that the small pitch, closeness of the crowd and high stands at the Osmaston and Normanton Ends meant that the Baseball Ground became a valuable asset compared to continental stadia, which were typically large with athletics tracks surrounding the playing area. Brian Clough had ordered groundsman Bob Smith to saturate the pitch for the day of the game to make it heavy and no members of the press were allowed inside the ground until after 5.00pm.

Derby’s Mayor, George Guest, held a civic reception on the evening before the game where Benfica president, Señhor D. Borges Coutinho said, ‘We are overwhelmed by the generosity and the friendliness of everyone in your fine town….My club has travelled worldwide, but never have we received such gestures, such friendship.’ It had been agreed in advance that the pennants exchanged before the start of the game would be reused for the return game in Lisbon.

Archie Gemmill returned to the team after missing the previous two games with a groin strain and John O’Hare returned after missing the Ipswich defeat with a bout of tonsillitis. Kevin Hector had been struggling to walk in the build-up to the game due to a back strain, but was fit to play and summed up the mood in the camp, recalling that, ‘we did nothing different in our preparation and treated it as if it was a normal game.’ John Robson switched from left to right-back to replace Ron Webster with Peter Daniel coming in on the left. It was little known that Robson, an England under-23 player, was actually two-footed and converted to a left-back by Clough. Confusingly for the times, in this game Robson still played in his usual number three shirt.

John McGovern revealed that before the game, ‘Like the rest of us, Brian was obviously aware that Eusebio was a great player, but in the build-up to the game he never mentioned him once, instead it was all about what we were going to do. “If we’re on form, we win the game,” was all he said about what was needed.’

The pitch was greasy on top and soft underneath following the soaking it had received during the afternoon and it took Derby just seven minutes and forty two seconds to score the first goal. Gemmill’s fine run forced a corner on Derby’s right and Hinton flighted his kick beyond everyone to the back post where Roy McFarland, having timed his run from the back of the penalty area to perfection, headed home past Jose Henrique in the Benfica goal. On 27 minutes, another Hinton corner from the left was again aimed at McFarland in the centre of the goal, but it glanced off his head and the ball looped and dropped beyond the penalty spot to an unmarked Hector. As the ball dropped, Hector hit a left-foot volley that dipped into the top corner of the net with no defender able to get near it. I was sat in Normanton Upperbjust above the ‘King’ and that moment has remained indelibly embroidered in my memory as one of the the most wonderful images of all my time watching Derby County.

Henriques, just like his counterpart from Sarajevo in the first leg, found Hinton’s crosses and corners unlike anything else he had come across before and was not sure how best to deal with them. Five minutes before the break, things were to get even better with a simple but devastating move starting with Peter Daniel who made a long clearance downfield where Hector won it in the air and flicked it on. McGovern, running through the middle, controlled the ball and hit a fine shot into the corner - reminiscent of his title-winning goal against Liverpool in May.

Although that was the end of the scoring and the second-half was much more even, there were still further good opportunities for Derby (in particular Hector) to score again. In the first instance he was well placed for what seemed a routine header but missed, and in the second he beat two men along the goal-line at the Osmaston End and tried to shoot from a near impossible angle while there were other players in front of goal waiting for a cross. As Taylor had confidently predicted, Eusebio, on the back of his 16 league goals in just seven games, was easily contained by the impenetrable combination of Roy McFarland and Colin Todd.

A 3-0 advantage after the first leg would stand them in good stead for the return at the formidable Estadio da Luz in two weeks time and a place in the last eight of the competition was within sight. George Edwards wrote in the DET that the supporters ‘were paralysed by brilliance in 35 minutes in a reaction to the first half performance. Eusebio, a man of few English words, said ‘Derby good, very good,’ although he was less than complimentary about the state of the pitch! Benfica’s sportsmanship shone through, despite the torrid time they suffered in the first half and never resorted to any rough tactics that other European clubs may have tried.

Malcolm Allison, manager of the Manchester City team that included such household names as Francis Lee, Colin Bell, Mike Summerbee, Joe Corrigan and Tony Book, could only muster one word at half-time - ‘unbelievable.’ At the end of the game he said, ‘Derby were simply magic and I can’t see them dropping this sort of lead to any side in the world.’ David Coleman, BBC commentator, said ‘this was the best all-round performance I have seen from an English side in the European Cup. And that first half was sheer vintage stuff!’ The senior writer for the Portuguese football paper, Bola, reported, ‘It’s a long time since I saw Benfica so outplayed….I’ve never seen Benfica made to look so bad.’

Roy McFarland said that, ‘the atmosphere was cracking with tension….and this team of ours thrives on the big occasion. Without doubt I have never played in a Rams team which played such good football for 90 minutes.’ Kevin Hector said, ‘We played out of our skins and they never got a kick!’ Jimmy Hagan, the Benfica manager who started his professional playing career with Derby in 1935, said, ‘I was very disappointed with our display in the first half but we are not without hope.’

In his autobiography, Brian Clough had this to say about the game: ‘The Portuguese giants, Benfica - Eusebio and all - were not in the same league as that Derby side of ours….. They had no chance at our place, absolutely no chance - especially after I arranged (with the help of Derby Fire Brigade I recall) for half the River Derwent to be piped onto the pitch the night before the game. On match night itself the old FIFA president, Sir Stanley Rous, was sitting next to me in the directors’ box. ‘Er, Brian,’ he said, ‘I didn’t know there had been a downpour last night. I wasn’t aware of one at my hotel.’ So I put him right. ‘Oh yes, Sir Stanley.’ I said. ‘It rained extremely heavily, here.’ Early in the game, he had another little dig at me, this time for bellowing instructions as I was inclined to do. By the time we were 3-0 up the old bugger leaned across and said: ‘There you are Brian, you see, there really is no need to shout, is there?’ People like him, all charm and diplomacy, don’t have a clue about the passion and heartbeat of sport. We murdered Benfica. I’ve never known an atmosphere, before or since, to compare with the Baseball Ground, packed for a big-match night. The opposition couldn’t live with it - a howling crowd almost within touching distance of a small pitch. The press boys used to joke that they loved covering Derby matches because they could get quotes from the players while the game was in progress. If any journalist had wandered onto that sludge-heap that night his weekly expenses would have included the cost of new shoes!’

So there we have it, at half-time in the second round, the score stood as follows:

Derby County 3 Benfica 0. Clough & Taylor 10 The English Football Journalists 0.

The Yugoslav press had paid Derby the compliment of describing the Rams performance as the best by a European side in their country and David Coleman, who to his credit was always fair to Clough and Derby, followed that by describing Derby’s performance as the best he had seen by an English side in the European Cup. So what was the generic disrespect and insulting pessimism of our national football reporters all about? Did they long to see Clough lost for words? That was never going to happen.

I cannot remember the national football media predicting so heavily against the English champions in Europe before that night nor at any time since. Maybe they learned a very painful and never to be forgotten lesson because Clough, Taylor and their team made them look so silly. Their collective agenda has shamefully never been explained but thankfully it has never been repeated.

Whatever, this match still ranks with me as the greatest European game at the Baseball Ground and stands alongside the 3-1 League Cup replay victory over Chelsea in 1968 as my all-time favourite game watching the Rams. It was the night that the English national football pundits were humiliated and the leading teams in Europe became aware of the force of Derby County.

But already, the dark local forces that would soon bring the rise of Derby County to an end, were active behind the scenes at the Baseball Ground to bring about the removal of Clough and Taylor. It was sheer lunacy at the height of the club’s rise to its highest moment in its history.

[GB SPORTS]

With the possible exception of the Chelsea 3-1 League Cup victory the greatest night of football i have seen for Derby at home.

Bill Shankly said, the first half performance was the best he had ever seen by an English Club.

Stood in the Normanton End (rare for us ) with my late old man.

The night is just unforgettable for anyone who witnessed it.