Have you already seen the best Derby County?

[Mucker1884]

4 hours ago, superfit said:

26 April 1975

Derby v Carlisle

Baseball Ground 

Popside 

My very first match. I should have known it was all downhill from there 😂

Same for me.  

 

[MickD]

Since Div 3, mid-50s Jack Parry, Geoff Barrowclough, Bill Curry, Reg Mathews, Barry Hutchinson etc,

The 70s take some beating, Clough and Taylor beating Real Madrid, Benfica, outplaying Juventus, but not the bent ref.  I won't see the likes again in my lifetime. 😟

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

41 minutes ago, MickD said:

Since Div 3, mid-50s Jack Parry, Geoff Barrowclough, Bill Curry, Reg Mathews, Barry Hutchinson etc,

The 70s take some beating, Clough and Taylor beating Real Madrid, Benfica, outplaying Juventus, but not the bent ref.  I won't see the likes again in my lifetime. 😟

Watched the home game on you tube.  Davies sent off and Hinton of all people missing a penalty. 1 goal and they'd have gone .  I've a feeling the ref for the home reported an approach and I think nowadays that would have been enough to see them suspended

[MickD]

5 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Watched the home game on you tube.  Davies sent off and Hinton of all people missing a penalty. 1 goal and they'd have gone .  I've a feeling the ref for the home reported an approach and I think nowadays that would have been enough to see them suspended

Gemmil and McFarland were suspended due to cautions (yellow cards) in the first leg.  The only ones in danger of missing the return.

Old news but still rankles.

[FlyBritishMidland]

Born in ‘71 so whilst our glory years were in my lifetime I have no memory whatsoever.  By the time I really started supporting the Rams in the late ‘70s it was all downhill.  The best football was probably the first 3 years of Jim Smith.  But in my mind the best period was under Arthur Cox from ‘84 - ‘89.  Total rebuild, much like now, successive promotions and finishing 5th in the top flight only being denied European football due to the ban on English clubs.

I’m under no illusion that we will ever with the top division again but I live in hope we can get there again and hold our own.  Which, unfortunately, is probably the best a club our size can hop for.

Edited July 7, 2023 by FlyBritishMidland

[Ram-Alf]

1 hour ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Watched the home game on you tube.  Davies sent off and Hinton of all people missing a penalty. 1 goal and they'd have gone .  I've a feeling the ref for the home reported an approach and I think nowadays that would have been enough to see them suspended

In the away leg Juventus substitute Helmut Haller accompanied referee Gerhard Schulenburg to his dressing room at half-time...Haller and Schulenburg were from the same village/town in Germany, Peter Taylor walks into the dressing room to have a word with the ref and caught them in the act...no not that😁...sie/Sie unterhielten sich auf Deutsch 😉

[sunnyhill60]

Having had a season ticket in the early 1970s, yes!

DCFC have zero chance of another European Cup semi-final whilst I am drawing breath.

But since then there have been some great times, most recently the 2021/22 season when we saw on the pitch a totally commited squad and off it a united community fighting to ensure the club survived. Being in the Premier League is not the be all and end all for me so I continue to be a season ticket holder, not least as we have the best owner for many years

[ziggyram59]

I was fortunate to see both Clough/Taylor and Mackay's team that won the league in the 70's so doesn't get much better than that. 

But also loved the Cox/Smith teams who did well with some great players. I don't think we will see that again. 

[LeedsCityRam]

The bar isnt set very high for me. Started following Derby summer of 1987 upon our return to the top flight & that 36 year investment has seen the grand total of no trophies or major finals, 11 top flight seasons, 4 relegations, 2 financial implosions & 2 promotions, one leading to the worst ever season in top flight history.

Yes, the top flight days under Cox & Smith were great but all too brief.  We had one stellar season under Cox in 88-89 (great for playground rep in a Northern school but without a UEFA Cup place to show for it)  but our 4 year Division One stay was mostly spent at the wrong end of the table. Smith's side played some great football but never got the European place they deserved, dropping out of top 5 around April time in both 97/98 & 98/99.

Whilst it seems silly to talk about European football from where we sit today, there's no reason why it couldn't happen at some point in the next 10 years if we remain stable & well-run. Football can change very quickly...just ask Brighton, Luton or Coventry fans. Since I supported Derby, the following 'giants' of English football have won a major trophy; Sheff Weds, Leicester, Wigan, Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Blackburn, Swansea, Portsmouth, Wimbledon, Notts Forest. We're well overdue some silverware too.

Derby to win the Europa League one day? You can never take the hope away.

Edited July 8, 2023 by LeedsCityRam

[DavesaRam]

I’ve been a Ram since the arrival of Sir Brian, and have going to matches since the 5 - 0 thrashing of Spurs. What a first mat h ever!

And I have to state quite clearly that I have seen the best of Derby County ……. so far! I have seen the Clough, Mackay, Cox, Smith and Mac 1 teams, with the latter Mackay team which had George and Hector in tandem being the pick of the bunch, as IslandExile said.

But the game has changed so much since those heady days with levels of fitness a d technique being light years ahead of those 70’s teams. Quite a few of our teams since then, even during our demise, would have given them a good run for their money, despite being in lower leagues. So much so that it doesn’t matter which league we are in, it’s our club, our team that matters.

All we can do is stick around and enjoy the whole experience. Nothing else in football matters. I went on my son’s stag do at Easter, which was to watch a match at Borussia Dortmund. It was an incredible experience, and the standard of football was phenomenal. However most of the stag lads were from Newark and Eastwards, and with hardly anyone worth following in that wilderness they only followed the Premiership. They knew all the players in all the squads, including past squads from seasons ago, but I hadn’t git a clue - the Premiership doesn’t interest me one bit.

I will be sticking around waiting for the next revival (this one?) for as long as I can, till I shuffle of to the stadium in the sky with the best manager/owner in the universe.

[Raich Carter]

I started going at the end of the Arthur Cox era so had the pleasure of being there thorough the Lionel Pickering years. For me, they were great times and whilst I missed out on the true glory years, My son (who's 21) knows he missed out on Stimac, Ace, et al. Really exciting signings, some great players (relatively speaking) and a good mix of ups and downs.

The low point was the embarrassing post-Billy Davies Prem season closely followed by anything to do with the three amigos. Obviously the Mel Morris era tops that but we're now on the up and I think it's going to be a great season.