Pride

Ryan Hills

Description

Pride: The Inside Story of Derby County in the 21st Century is the fascinating story of one of Britain's most tumultuous football teams, as told by the people at the heart of the club. Ryan Hills gained exclusive access to almost 50 former players, managers and board members to bring you the Rams' modern history. The move to Pride Park in 1997 was supposed to mark an exciting new chapter for the club. But despite initial success, things started to go wrong. Relegation from the Premier League caused huge financial strife, leading to the arrest of three board members. On the pitch, a single promotion brought the worst season in Derby's history and a 362-day wait for a win. Since that fateful season, the club have been on a cyclical and so far fruitless mission to return to the Premier League, while dressing-room turmoil, car crashes and a man named Bobby have stood in their way. Pride gives you the inside track on a football club that refuses to accept obscurity, as revealed by those who know it best.

Sujets

• Derby
• Derbyshire

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785318061
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2020
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Ryan Hills, 2020
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785317279
eBook ISBN 9781785318061
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CONTENTS
Foreword by Jake Buxton
Introduction
The Beginning
West Before South
The Drop
Hurly Burley
Derby (Twinned with Panama)
Murdo
Los Amigos y Los Caballeros
A Three-Year Plan
That Season
Poor Choices, Cheap Pops
Nigel Howard Clough
The Clough Years: Part 1
The Clough Years: Part 2
Divided
Return of the Mac
Zamora
A Strong Dislike of Mike Ashley
The Derby Way
Four in One
Gary s Trainers
Hi, Spy, Cry, Bye
The End
Acknowledgements
FOREWORD BY JAKE BUXTON
I GAVE everything I could for Derby County, right from the minute I stepped in the door at Moor Farm until the minute I left.
It s probably why I built up a connection with all staff members within the club, because I made sure I treated people the same, right from top to bottom. It s a massive factor as to why I got the opportunity to succeed after a tough start.
As I ve said on many occasions, I am a slow burner as a player, and it took the best part of three seasons and a special night against local rivals to earn the respect of the fans.
From that day, the connection between myself and the supporters started to grow, and the impact they had on my life and performances was unreal.
I was a six out of ten before supporters warmed to me, and then they just improved. But it s all down to the fact they started to love me.
You started to sing my name. I was living the dream on the pitch and I loved it. I knew that when I got applauded for smashing people and working hard, that the fans were starting to realise what I brought to the team.
At the start I was a non-league player and it was unbelievable to turn it all around and to get the recognition.
Being loved by the supporters of your football club is an unbelievable feeling and one of the best feelings I ve had in football.
I will always be grateful for how the Rams fans made me feel. I have memories I will never forget.
INTRODUCTION
I REMEMBER the exact moment the idea for this book came into my head. I was sat in the caf at Amazon s Fulfilment Centre in Bardon, just down the road from Coalville, Leicestershire. At the time, my graduate role in communications had come to an end and I needed something to tide me over until January when I d move into something new.
My destination was the bubble wrap station. Day in, day out, I d be handed a cart of random products to wrap. CDs, rakes, all sorts of nonsense. Mid-wrapping, I d begin to consider how this book could look. It began as a potential children s publication (nope, me neither), then the thought of maybe speaking to some players crossed the mind. If I could get five or so, that would be great, I d think to myself.
I never really anticipated that this would turn into a project spanning three years. But to be frank, I m glad it did. In that time, I ve hopped between jobs, moved to Germany, sat through a worldwide pandemic and experimented with hair dye (not recommended).
It ll come as little surprise that, like you, I m a Derby County fan. If I wasn t, writing a book about this quite intriguing club would have bordered on torture. My first game was back in 2000, a 2-2 draw against Charlton. Malcolm Christie and Simo Valakari put us 2-0 up, before we threw the three points away. In many ways, it was the preparation for everything that was to come and no doubt will in the future.
Growing up in Leicestershire, there weren t many Derby fans around. So when I would tell my school friends that Izale McLeod was a future England international, the conversations would not take off. I was also too na ve at that young age to realise wearing black and white when walking around Morrisons was a questionable choice. I put it down to fearlessness today.
For some reason, just like you, I adore this club. In the 20 years since I walked in to Pride Park for the first time, there haven t been many reasons to adore them. And yet, I, again like you, keep coming back for more. What is it about them? Because, if we look at the club in this time, there really haven t been many reasons to keep that level of infatuation.
Pride begins where my Derby relationship did. The tales of Wanchope and Stimac, the days when the Bald Eagle would soar. I feel I was sort of cat-fished by this introduction to the soon-to-be Europe-challenging Premier League side. Because, as Pride will cover in depth, the darkness begins almost immediately afterwards. The turmoil, the financial crashes, the, well, other crashes. I opted to cover this spell because it s the one that I have grown up with but also because, when taken fully into account, it s crazy.
Producing Pride has been an honour. It has been a privilege to be able to tell the story of the club across so many turbulent years, with so many key components. The good times and the bad, all in one place, and all told by those we have watched on in awe at, with the occasional bit of frustration. I hope that through the voices featured, you feel just that little bit closer to the club.
THE BEGINNING
THE BASEBALL Ground. An old, decrepit, wooden stadium. Squeezed between houses, backed on to a railway track. No executive areas to attract major international businesses; facilities that would never pass health and safety tests in the modern era. A shadow of what it once was. A stadium no longer fit for purpose.
The Baseball Ground. The home of Derby County. A place where generations had gathered, where families were united, where grandparents would reminisce with grandchildren. The place where Brian Clough and Peter Taylor did the unthinkable, where Dave Mackay followed on. The beating heart of football in a city dedicated to its club.
They don t make stadiums like the BBG anymore. Primarily because they re not allowed to by law, but more so because the game of football has moved beyond. Gone are the days of it being the sport of the working class, when supporters and players could mix freely and the divide was minimal. Instead it has been replaced by a corporate event, where money drives everything and supporters are an after-thought. Where players don t interact with those in the stands, wearing those same shirts as they do.
The moment the doors closed on the Baseball Ground, football in Derby changed. Twenty-three years have now passed since that final first-team outing against Arsenal in 1997 and the landscape of not only the club but the sport as a whole is in another dimension to what the 18,287 experienced that day.
The Baseball Ground had been witness to Derby s rise through the divisions under Arthur Cox in the 1980s, going from the dreariness of the Third to the glamour of the First in successive seasons.
This culminated with Cox s side finishing fifth in 1988/89, the club s highest position since the glory days of the 1970s.
They were unable to progress further but the successful ousting of Robert Maxwell as chairman after relegation in 1991 lifted the shackles, though Wembley heartache against Leicester in 1994 was the closest they came to a return to the top flight in the next four years.
Enter James Michael Smith - Jim, as he was more commonly known. Or, to be more precise, the Bald Eagle.
When Smith took charge at the Baseball Ground in the summer of 1995, Derby had somewhat begun to stall. Unable to kick on from that day in the capital, a ninth-placed finish spelt the end of Roy McFarland s tenure and Smith, giving up his desk job with the League Managers Association, returned to the dugout. Chairman and local millionaire Lionel Pickering, having already ploughed his fortune into the club, closed the wallet in favour of blooding youngsters into the first team.
Smith s entry into Derby saw him inherit the likes of Dean Sturridge and Marco Gabbiadini, but it was his summer activity that ultimately brought success. Robin van der Laan, Darryl Powell and Gary Rowett were inspired captures that led the club on the journey to the Premier League for the first time since its inception, especially following the October arrival of Igor Stimac.
It was in February 1996, during a 20-game unbeaten run sparked by the signing of Stimac, that the big news broke. Chief executive Keith Loring announced that the club would be moving for the first time since 1895.
* * *
Today, modern, soulless bowls are commonplace in football. We re somehow at a point where a visit to Turf Moor is almost a welcome treat; a throwback to a different era of the game, with wooden seats, and rickety stairs. In Burnley, they even still have those TVs with the enormous backs; prehistoric. But the Taylor Report, issued after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, changed the game. No longer could grounds accommodate standing supporters stuck into pens and with crush barriers holding them back. All-seaters, it was clear, had to be the future.
For Derby, too, there was the wooden factor of the stadium to contend with. Following the 1985 fire at Valley Parade, there became an increas