If Derby County’s Third Division promotion season of 1985/86 had been memorable, the Rams’ first season back in the Second Division was nothing short of sensational.
The opening day, however, held no clue of what was to come. Oldham Athletic, supposedly an ordinary Second Division team, came to the Baseball Ground and pinned Derby in their own half for the first five minutes of the season.“I reckon we’re too good to go down,” said one supporter at that point, his black humour sharpened by the doldrum days of the early 1980s.
Oldham went on to win that game 1-0 and could have scored enough to retire.
Yet, as often happens, the opening day’s result was a poor predictor of final placing. This proved to be the Rams’ only home League defeat of the season, despite a few unsettling moments, like two-goal deficits to Sunderland, Barnsley and Birmingham City.
Once again Cox had improved the team with new signings, especially the two new full-backs, Mel Sage from Gillingham (£60,000) and Michael Forsyth, who came from West Bromwich Albion the previous March (£20,000).
Two other signings, Steve Cross from Shrewsbury Town (£60,000) and Mark Lillis from Manchester City (£200,000), had misfortune with injuries at first. Christie (valued at £100,000) went to Manchester City as part of the Lillis deal.
Phil Gee, a bargain signing from non-League Gresley Rovers at an eventual cost of £5,000, was brought in early in September after Lillis (knee injury) had a painful meeting with Crystal Palace’s Mickey Droy.
Gee, only 21 at the time, began to show a two-footed appetite for Second Division goals and found it more interesting than his old job as a painter and decorator.
The season began to spark at the end of September when West Brom visited the Baseball for the first-leg of a second-round Littlewoods Cup-tie. The Rams had stayed in the competition by virtue of away goals at Chester after losing the home leg 1-0.
Now they conceded a seventh-minute goal to Albion, before goals by Chandler and Davison, midway through the first half, brought them the lead. The task was helped when Albion’s Dickinson was sent-off, and the final score was 4-1.
The Rams won the second-leg 1-0 at The Hawthorns but, in between, lost a League game at the same venue.
Sunderland at home. Two down after 30 minutes. Goals by Sage, Forsyth and Davison turned the game. Derby County 3 Sunderland 2. And it wasn’t the last rescue of the season.
In mid-October, captain Rob Hindmarch returned after a cartilage injury to play at Shrewsbury.
In the dying seconds he headed down Micklewhite’s corner and Phil Gee prodded in the winner.
Against Ipswich, Bobby Davison scored a last-minute winner, again reminding supporters that an Arthur Cox side fought till the final whistle.
In fact it took an illegal whistle from a 17-year-old spectator to slow them down against Aston Villa in a third-round Littlewoods Cup game, Tony Daley giving the First Division side the lead after the Rams defence hesitated.
Graham Harbey, who had replaced Chandler in the number-11 shirt, cracked in a right-footed equaliser. The Rams lost the replay 2-1, claiming that Gary Thompson was offside when he scored the winner.
Inspired in midfield by Geraint ‘George’ Williams (Player of the Year) and John Gregory, who volleyed superb goals against Brighton and Sheffield United, the Rams were seventh at the start of November and fourth a month later.
It was the most open promotion race for years. Oldham Athletic and Portsmouth had a chance, and another contender, Plymouth Argyle, denied Derby two points with a last-minute equaliser at Home Park.
The day after Boxing Day. Barns¬ley at home. Two-down with the game barely begun. A quick reply from Phil Gee and second-half goals by Davison and Gregory pulled the game round. Derby County 3 Barnsley 2. Top of the Second Division.
After a quiet January, Nigel Callaghan arrived from Watford for £140,000, some of the money coming from Charlie Palmer’s move to Hull City.
Callaghan was moving to a club in a lower division, and, like Gregory, Micklewhite, Christie, Lillis, MacLaren and Wallington before him, said he was persuaded by the club’s potential.
Some financial wizards questioned whether the club could afford ‘First Division wages’. Then they also pointed out that the club’s main sponsor, Sportsweek magazine, had had a disastrous start with the Maxwell empire, causing the club to change sponsor – to Maxwell’s BPCC – late in the season.
However, most supporters were relieved that football, not finance, was making the news. The general feeling was that Ian Maxwell, now in his third season as chairman, had brought dignity to the club and more than a little success.
Birmingham City at home. Early in February. Two down at half-time. A couple from Phil Gee rescued this one. Derby County 2 Birmingham City 2.Recovery was becoming a habit.
On 18 March, the Rams went top of the table after beating Blackburn 3-2 – three goals in the first 32 minutes – and there they stayed until the end of the season. Good away form was again a feature of the team. The total number of away wins reached a club record 11 with a run of success in the New Year – at Oldham (4-1 on artificial turf), Sunderland (2-1), Millwall (Callaghan’s first goal), Brighton (Gee), Ipswich (started by Callaghan’s 25-yarder) and Sheffield United (Gee again in the 67th minute). In the previous 20 years, only Birmingham (1984/85) and Blackpool (1967/68) had won more away games as a Second Division side.
Unbeaten in 13 League games, the team lost at Blackburn, Simon Garner’s two goals taking him to 11 in nine games against the Rams.
But Derby County were awash in success and now the Reserves had lost only one of their last 18 games. A second successive Central League championship proved only a few points out of range.
Back in Division Two, a brave diving header by Lillis, his first and only goal for the Rams, beat Bradford City, and a 2-1 win against Leeds United made certain of promotion to the First Division, supporters once again able to celebrate on home ground.
It was more success for hard graft and honest effort, and Arthur Cox, Bell’s Second Division Manager of the Year, showed no sign of relaxing his grip on discipline.
“You can find my secret by wringing out my shirt at the end of every working day”, Cox told Ram Magazine editor Harry Brown, who had himself worked very hard to maintain the First Division standard of the club’s official matchday programme.
The Rams needed a point to ensure the championship. It was available at Reading in the penultimate game, but the players again showed a scriptwriter’s knack for a well-paced plot by losing 2-0.
One-nil down to Plymouth, they produced the season’s final recovery to score three times in the last ten minutes and win 4-2.
Although Wallington and Sage missed the run-in with injury, they had played a large part, as did their deputies, Steele and Blades. Gregory, MacLaren and Micklewhite were ever-present, the latter two having played in all 88 League games of two successive promotion seasons that had carried the club on a wave of success from Third to First.
Adapted from The Derby County Story by Anton Rippon and Andrew Ward
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