Our best free transfer

[Elwood P Dowd]

1 hour ago, Dean (hick) Saunders said:

That’s a great story… I never new that.. 

Tha

In the early very early days Derby was full of football clubs Derby Junction, Derby Swifts etc.

Perhaps this is where the phrase “A Derby match” came from 🐏🐏

If you go to St Thomas’s Road, between the bottom of Wallbrook Road and Portland Street, there is a group of houses called Shields terrace. The house have a very ornate shield in the brick work, it celebrates the winning of a football shield by team containing Steve Bloomer

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Elwood P Dowd

[Rich84]

8 hours ago, Brailsford Ram said:

O'Hare cost us £20,000 - Clough's first signing.

And, no doubt, a rather large brown envelope.......

[G STAR RAM]

On 01/05/2023 at 14:09, therealhantsram said:

To change the thread slightly, what's the biggest profit we have made on a free transfer? 

I am thinking it might be Lee Grant. Sold for £1.2m.

Is there any better?

Not sure if you would class them as a free transfer because they came through the ranks but Carsley, Hendrick and Hughes all generated 6 figure profits for us.

[Raich Carter]

20 hours ago, Sparkle said:

Tough question this one but in relatively modern times - Eranio was total class but Chris Martin turned out surprisingly to do extremely well over a decent period of time 

Sorry but CM was not on the same planet as Eranio. Totally, completely, massively different class for me. Eranio was, as they say, a Rolls Royce (or a Pagani if we want an Italian link) of a player. CM was a higher end Vauxhall Vectra - perhaps a CDTi with leather seats and heated front screen. Obviously we're talking different times, different game, etc so I appreciate relatively speaking CM was a decent signing but let's not put him in the same sentence eh! 😉

When I first saw Eranio play, my jaw dropped. He just had that touch and vision that very, very few players have. TBE made many great signings but Eranio has to be his best all round signing. Whilst Ace and Stimac are up there, they were flawed (a bit mad, etc) so understandable why we we able to take a risk on them where others daren't but Eranio was zero risk - solid personality, great player, great pedigree, etc - just an amazing coup for us.

[Sparkle]

11 hours ago, Raich Carter said:

Sorry but CM was not on the same planet as Eranio. Totally, completely, massively different class for me. Eranio was, as they say, a Rolls Royce (or a Pagani if we want an Italian link) of a player. CM was a higher end Vauxhall Vectra - perhaps a CDTi with leather seats and heated front screen. Obviously we're talking different times, different game, etc so I appreciate relatively speaking CM was a decent signing but let's not put him in the same sentence eh! 😉

When I first saw Eranio play, my jaw dropped. He just had that touch and vision that very, very few players have. TBE made many great signings but Eranio has to be his best all round signing. Whilst Ace and Stimac are up there, they were flawed (a bit mad, etc) so understandable why we we able to take a risk on them where others daren't but Eranio was zero risk - solid personality, great player, great pedigree, etc - just an amazing coup for us.

It wasn’t based just on ability more like about length of service season after season - one of them played in the premiership and one didn’t 🤷‍♂️

[Chopper]

All of these have been mentioned but:

Eranio a big one for me, at the centre of the wonderful Derby team of the late 90s and I reckon almost universally liked to this day. 

May not have come if we had have gone down in 96-97, hats off to McGrath another free.

Honorable mention to Seth-lad part 2 purely as we had sold him to Leeds for a profit, he came back on a free and put his body on the line and beyond for one last shot at glory, helping to drag us to the premier. Perhaps not the most analytical choice, but pulls on my heartstrings a bit.