Derby County, the Premier League title race and the death of variety

On the night of April 23, 1975, the players of Derby County gathered at a popular local disco on Colyear Street in the town centre called Baileys. They were there for Derby’s Player of the Season award. It was a black tie affair and a serious moment of recognition.

But Derby’s players were also ready to dance. Their 42-game league season had just one fixture left. They had done their bit. When news from elsewhere landed, dance is just what they did.

The news was relayed by Radio Derby, who were stationed in Baileys for the evening and their bulletins were, until 10 o’clock at least, of greater interest than the sound of Barry White or whoever.

The news being forwarded came from Maine Road, home of Manchester City. There, Ipswich Town, the only team who could catch Derby at the top of the First Division, were playing their penultimate match. When Colin Bell put City 1-0 ahead early, Derby’s players could relax a little. But when Bryan Hamilton equalised for Ipswich, there was fresh tension. And there were 23 minutes left.

Ipswich could not score again, though, and so for the second time in four seasons, Derby County were champions of England.

Roy McFarland is 77, a Derby County legend — one of the club’s greatest players with over 500 appearances, its former manager and, more recently, a director. In 1975 he was a 27-year-old returning from injury sustained playing for England. He was operated on by a man called Doctor Trickey.

Smiling at the memory of the scene in Baileys, McFarland says: “All of a sudden someone shouts: ‘We’ve won it’. Someone else says: ‘What do you mean we’ve won it?’

“Then they said: ‘Let’s sit down, take it in’. And then: ‘Yes! We have won it’.

“The room went up. That’s when Franny Lee got up on the stage and started skipping and dancing. It was hilarious.

“It was weird. It doesn’t happen like that any more. We still had a game to play and it was against Carlisle who had been relegated. We drew 0-0 and the majority of our players, I hate to say it, were, eh, worse for wear. It had just carried on from Wednesday.”

In Baileys they had let the music play, the champagne flow and photographers from the Derby Evening Telegraph capture the moment. The next day, above a series of pictures, was the headline: ‘The Happy Champions’.

The sub-headline declared: ‘Rams take title for a second time.’

See more

On this day in 1️⃣9️⃣7️⃣5️⃣, Derby County won the First Division title. 🏆

What a team. 🖤 pic.twitter.com/D7Xi4jNSps

— Derby County (@dcfcofficial) April 23, 2020

In 1972 Derby had won England’s league title for the first time in the club’s then 88-year history. Derby County were a force in the land and the second title broadened their impact. In the 1975-76 European Cup they hammered Real Madrid 4-1 at their home, the Baseball Ground.

Real Madrid being Real Madrid won 4-1 in the return leg and scored a fifth in extra time. But the company Derby were keeping, and the first-leg result, showed their talent and status.

Of wider significance, what Derby County’s league titles in 1972 and 1975 demonstrated was the variety of English football.

It is startling now to look at the champions of England from 1959 to 1972 and see 11 different clubs winning the title in the space of 14 seasons. Not one retained it. Wolves had kept their 1958 title in 1959 but it was not until Liverpool won in 1976 and 1977 that another club won consecutive titles.

When the 2025 version of Liverpool seals the Premier League shortly it will bring an end to the six-titles-in-seven-seasons domination of Manchester City. But Liverpool are one of only seven clubs to win the Premier League since its breakaway in 1992. Three of those clubs — Liverpool, City and Arsenal — will be favourites to win it again next season.

“The variety was great, absolutely,” McFarland tells The Athletic. “Every season was competitive; without doubt, it felt like that every season. It’s not like now when you know the teams who are going to win it.”

---

Formed in 1884 as the football branch of Derbyshire County Cricket club, Derby County’s home since 1895 was the Baseball Ground. The local industrialist Francis Ley, who took ownership of the football club, had returned from the United States fascinated by baseball.

Derby — ‘the Rams’, a nickname and badge taken from the Derbyshire Regiment of the British Army — were competitive quickly and finished runners-up in 1896. In the 1930s they were runners-up twice more but there was a dip into the third tier in the 1950s and, when a brilliant whirlwind from the north east swept into town in 1967, Derby were in a 12-year spell in the Second Division.

The whirlwind was Brian Clough.

By 1969 Derby were Second Divisions champions, in 1970 they were fourth in the First Division and in 1972 champions of England. Derby County — “a provincial club,” as McFarland calls them — joined others such as Leeds United, Burnley and Ipswich Town in challenging and overcoming the big-city clubs of Manchester, Liverpool and London.

They could do so because, while those bigger clubs had greater income through gate receipts, the gap was not overwhelming. It could be bridged, as McFarland says, by the sort of football intelligence within a figure like Clough or his Leeds nemesis, Don Revie.

We do not have access to detailed club accounts from then, just brief newspaper coverage of headline numbers. But, as an example, in reports from September 1968, Manchester City made a profit of £44,000. Gate receipts rose to £214,599 — City had won the title in 1967-68.

In November 1969 Derby County’s annual accounts revealed total income for the previous season was £214,130. Derby’s expenditure was £247,249. They made a loss.

In October 1967, City paid a club-record fee of £65,000 to Bolton Wanderers for Francis Lee — the same Lee who would dance for Derby in 1975. The famous Barry Davies’ ‘Just look at his face’ commentary is from this Derby season, Lee having scored at City.

See more

Francis Lee: ‘just look at his face’ ⚽️ pic.twitter.com/danlVnpHVH

— The Football Historian (@TFHistorian) November 8, 2024

The Rams were in the Second Division when City signed Lee in 1967. Within a year Derby signed Willie Carlin for £63,000 from Sheffield United. So £65,000 versus £63,000 in transfer fees, similar turnover numbers — these were clubs from two different divisions but they were essentially operating from the same ballpark budgets.

In 2023-24 club accounts show Manchester City’s revenue — £715million — was 37 times Derby’s £19.4m, and while some may argue Derby were in League One, the third tier, which they were, while City were Premier League champions again, the economic distortion and the resulting sporting inequality is obvious.

This is a longer and deeper story.

For instance, in 1983, eight years after Derby’s second title, the decision was taken to end the sharing of gate receipts. Until then Derby or Bolton or whichever club would receive 20 per cent of the gate money when visiting Anfield or Old Trafford and vice versa. This maintained a certain financial balance.

The same year England’s Football Association, nominally the governors of the game, allowed Tottenham Hotspur FC to be moved into a holding company. The holding company was not subject to the FA’s rules and could be bought and sold along with the football club inside it.

These seemingly small bureaucratic alterations changed the game and started it on a path to where variety, a cornerstone of professional sport, dwindled.

In 1975 the Derby Telegraph was relishing the league title triumph, noting that a local band, the Carl Wynton Sound, had released a seven-inch single, The Ram’s Song, in celebration.

The paper also wrote of increased ticket prices for the following season. “With the Football League having raised minimum admission price, it will cost at least 70p to watch the Rams.” Season tickets in the expensive seats were rising from £32 to £38. The club secretary Stuart Webb was quoted as saying: “We are at the top now and we need more money if we are to compete at this level.”

Derby did compete and in November 1975 paid Burnley £300,000 for Leighton James. It was a sum higher than anything Liverpool, Manchester United or City had paid and is another example of economic equality.

The progress of the British transfer fee record from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s is a further illustration — between July 1962, when Manchester United signed Denis Law from Torino for £115,000, until February 1974 when Everton paid Birmingham City £350,000 for Bob Latchford, eight different English clubs broke the British transfer record.

Leicester City were one, when they signed Allan Clarke from Fulham in 1968. Stoke City were another, when they signed Alan Hudson from Chelsea in 1974. These were provincial clubs able and confident enough to set records.

“It was a level playing field,” McFarland says, “though (on the pitch) Leeds were the favourites almost every year.

“Provincial clubs could win the league. Economically teams were level. When I signed for Derby from Tranmere Rovers (in 1967), Brian (Clough) said: ‘Stick with us, son. We’re here to win things.’ The same happened to Archie Gemmill and Colin Todd.

“No club was super-rich. It was about good management. The night I signed, I was at home in bed. I’d played for Tranmere. I was in bed 20 minutes and the next thing my mum is upstairs shaking me saying there’s two men downstairs and she’s sure one of them is Brian Clough. Peter Taylor (Clough’s assistant) was the other.

“They talked to me for at least an hour but, because someone had told me Bill Shankly had been to the Tranmere game as well, I didn’t want to sign for Derby. I was waiting for Liverpool — I’m from Liverpool.

“I asked if could leave it until Monday. I asked my dad and he said he thought Derby was a good option. So then they jumped on me. Peter Taylor gets the papers, gets the pen out of my hand and he’s basically signing for me. I went to see Liverpool the next day, stood on the Kop with my cousin and said to him I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. I made my Derby debut on the Monday.”

McFarland’s medals and England caps are proof he did not make a mistake. Plus, he entered Clough’s magic circle. Clough, Taylor and Dave Mackay — the player brought from Tottenham who became Clough’s successor at Derby and who was in charge in 1975 — provided McFarland with “a football education”.

“They were remarkable men, they gave me an understanding of the game. Clough was demanding, but he made a difference. Peter scouted the players. Brian stretched the level of ambition and achievement to the limit.”

Clough’s genius meant that provincial Derby could take on Shankly’s Liverpool and Harry Catterick’s Everton. “And don’t forget Manchester United,” McFarland says. “They had superstars — George Best, without doubt, was the best I ever played against. They had Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles. Christ almighty! These were players.”

Were United and Liverpool players not on much bigger salaries?

“We all felt we were on a similar wage. We weren’t conscious of the economics, of the comparative balance between clubs. What we saw was that we’d signed Dave Mackay. I mean, what a player.

“John O’Hare was the first signing, I was the second, then came Frank Wignall, Alan Hinton, Dave Mackay, Willie Carlin — Brian and Peter bought a team. But they weren’t spending big sums. And we were on poor wages, no doubt about it.”

When McFarland is shown the league table from April 1975, he sees one point separating the top five with four or five games remaining and says: “My God!”

But Clough, he says, would not focus on the league table and perhaps that reflects this is how it was. Tight, competitive finishes were not enjoyable, novel drama. In 1974-75 the final table showed Derby two points clear, just four covering the top six.

It was two points for a win then, so totals were smaller.

In 2019-20 Manchester United finished third in the Premier League, but they were 33 points behind Liverpool. In the two-points system the gap would be 19 points, but with four games fewer played.

The season before, as City and Liverpool battled it out, Chelsea came third, 26 points behind City (15 points in the two-points system).

But, dramatically, a single point covered the top four in Derby’s 1972 title, and Clough had grown up in a post-war era when close finishes were not uncommon. Only two points divided the top four in 1946-47, and in 1952-53 Arsenal and Preston North End both finished on 54 points. When Ipswich surprisingly won the title in 1961-62 there were only five points between a top four that included Burnley, Spurs and Everton.

In the last 10 years the closest the champions have been to third place was last season when ‘only’ nine points separated Liverpool from victors City.

In the Premier League era Blackburn Rovers and Leicester have brought variety to the winners’ list, but there were 21 years between those one-offs. We are 10 years on from the Leicester miracle next season.

---

Roy McFarland was speaking at Pride Park, Derby’s 33,000-capacity home ground since 1997. It was before Derby County 0-0 Burnley a fortnight ago.

Considering the absence of goals and Derby’s place in the Championship table — they were fourth-bottom with six games left — the night was loud and atmospheric. There were almost 28,000 there.

Promoted from League One last May, the Rams were combative against promotion candidates. Manager John Eustace has made a mark since his arrival from Blackburn in February. Since the goalless draw with Burnley, Derby have played three matches: W1 D1 L1. They are still fourth-bottom and have a relegation six-pointer at Hull City on Saturday, followed by a last-day home game against Stoke.

Businessman David Clowes has bought the stadium and the club in the past three years and brought stability. Relegation would clearly damage progress.

Derby-Burnley was a meeting of two former champions but few anticipate another title-tilt from either soon. Burnley have been in the Premier League for eight of the last 11 seasons and confirmed their promotion back on Monday — though as the Derby fans taunted them: “Premier League, straight back down.”

Burnley’s travelling support replied in kind: “Championship, straight back down.”

The world of English football has changed since either the Clarets or Rams could win the title. Burnley’s owner then was Bob Lord, the local butcher; Derby’s was Sam Longson, who ran a haulage firm.

“Longson had the kind of voice that could shake stone from quarry walls,” said Clough, that well-known wallflower. Two abrasive characters rubbed each other up the wrong way and Clough left in 1973. He re-emerged in 1975 along the A52 at Nottingham Forest, Derby’s derby-day rivals.

To Clough’s satisfaction, and to McFarland’s dismay, it was Forest whom Clough turned into European Cup winners, twice.

But in his 1994 autobiography, Clough was certain, and regretful, about what he had walked out on at the Baseball Ground: “Derby County should have been one of the biggest and most successful clubs, not only in Britain but in Europe. They should have achieved levels of triumph that Liverpool enjoyed for more than a quarter of a century. Oh, yes, Derby should have been as big as Liverpool — possibly even bigger.”

And when McFarland is asked if in 1975 he thought Derby County could be champions of Europe his one-word answer is instant:

“Yes.”

The delivery was emphatic.

Soon the night’s Radio Derby coverage would include bulletins from north London as Arsenal put three past Real Madrid. That was Derby County 50 years ago.

“But Brian and Peter had gone to Nottingham Forest by then,” McFarland says. “We knew through Brian that we’d get these trophies, these medals. But Nottingham Forest got them. Those two were unbelievable people.”

From near the bottom of the Championship it seems brutal to ask if Derby County can ever think about recreating those days, but McFarland answers.

“I would say that’s a tough call for the club at the moment. David Clowes has saved the club but has it got the wealth and the know-how?

“Will it happen again? I really do hope so. I’d love to see the club be successful again and be like we were in our era. But it’s harder now, the economics. I think if anybody changed it, Roman Abramovich ploughing money into Chelsea did it.

“I mean, I know Brian didn’t like Arsene Wenger — Brian said a few silly things about him — but I think Wenger was a magic manager.

“With Manchester City it’s become a little bit predictable. Will it ever happen again for a provincial club? I hope so. I’d be very disappointed if it didn’t happen in the next 10 years. Could it happen for Derby County? I pray for that. And if not Derby County, then some other provincial club.

“It’s not football magic in the sense of Brian and Peter, it’s pure money. It’s sad. It makes it harder for Derby County and the rest.”

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Getty Images)

This post was originally published on this site