BBG and PP best memories.

[ramAnag]

Two more stand out memories from the BBG that are slightly lost in the mists of time. One in the old Div 2 I think, against Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United. They had at least two players sent off - as well as Keegan himself I think - and we battered them...4-1(?)

The other in the old Div 1 against Chelsea. Looked like we were onto a hiding and my memory is of Ruud Gullit striding through the midfield looking odds on to score and finish the game. From out of nowhere Daryl Powell stretched out a seemingly telescopic leg to win the ball and, sadly, end Gullit’s match and career. That was the turning point and Derby went on to win...3-2(?)

[Andy_Faber]

9th May 1986. Trevor Christie, Man Of Steel

Derby reached its modern-era nadir as Peter Taylor guided them into the third tier ('Top Six By Christmas' my arse), and Mr Cheerful Arthur Cox was given the task of turning the tide. His secret weapon was Derby's most exciting signing for years, Bobby Davison, but there were other heroes to be had

After a season of consolidation, I sat in the Ley Stand on a friday night, 40 games gone in the season and three points needed to guarantee promotion. Rotherham were the opposition, whipping boys under previous Derby regimes but not now, and it was bloody hard going, and deep, deep into the game it was still one-all. I was in amongst a group of late 50s and above moaners (a bit like we are now) and I was getting more than a little worried that this game, and Derby's season, was about to go to ****, just like the pitch had.

Then out of nothing I could see, following a wasted direct free kick, the ref gave a penalty. Years of decline had changed my feeling about a penalty from one of expectation to trepidation, and the high stakes made this one even worse. Bobby Davison may have been the goal machine but there was no doubt who was taking the pen - Trevor Christie, for the whole season Davison's straight man. I was still worried - the pitch was slippery, were his studs long enough? Could he even find the penalty spot? And he was left footed, how could that work?

No worries. He plonked the ball down, ran up, keeper one way, ball the other, GOAL! We were on the way back to the big time, the celebrations after the game were such that there's even a photo of Arthur Cox smiling if you search hard.

I decided to follow the faithful for a rare away match all the way up in Darlington the following monday where the team, freed of the season's tensions, could really put on a show. We lost 2-1

[Andy_Faber]

Liverpool, the holders/ IFC Cologne/ Ajax/ Hamburg ?

you'll see from my other posts it ain't bitterness, just a bit of good natured joshing. You should read my book, Forest get a good showing, they even get more attention than Leicester

[wessoram]

Lets move forward to 1983. Derby were on the slide, and languished in division 2 whilst rivals Forest crushed all before them, Brian Clough's loss of bottle in returning to Derby meaning that what could have been an all conquering Rams team instead ran out in red and rampaged twice through the weakest European opposition in history. Then came the FA Cup third round draw. By then estranged, who knows what the former Morecambe and Wise of football, Clough and Taylor, REALLY thought about the match-up, scheduled for January 8th. Both towns were buzzing, tickets were in high demand. It was bloody freezing on the day, and I had blagged a ticket in the pop side. The pitch was the traditional mudbath, and from minute 1 it was clear it was going to be a big leveller - Forests silky skills didn't translate well onto mud, Derby's artisan team were at least used to it. The crowd was in a feisty mood, the Pop Side was as mobile as ever and not for the faint hearted - a senior manager where I worked, a big round jolly man, stood near me at the start, but last time I saw him he was on his back, eyes full of fear, and just being hoyed around by the ebb and flow of the crowd, on top of which he had his pocket picked.

From that first minute, I was never in any doubt we'd win, just one of those days where it was just a matter of time. Mid-second half, Archie Gemmill curled a free kick round the wall for goal one, and the icing on the cake came when Derby's finest slaphead Scottish midfielder of the 80's, Mick Brolly, slipped one through for Andy Hill to score. On balance, Derby played just above their current shocking standard, Forest well below theirs, and apart from the result I recall the game for it being Archie Gemmill's last great game - his legs had gone by then, but from somewhere, for just that game, he managed to summon up the drive he had in the mid-70s

Regretably, this was no new dawn for The Rams, there was a long way to fall yet

First game I ever went to at BBG, beat Chelsea in next round then lost to Man U, if I remember correctly.

[Trickytreesreds]

you'll see from my other posts it ain't bitterness, just a bit of good natured joshing. You should read my book, Forest get a good showing, they even get more attention than Leicester

I never saw it any other way Andy.
Though I have heard it before from County and Leicester fans.

You had to win your own league to be in it, like every other country in Europe. Then not **** up. Mistakes meant you was out.

[Andy_Faber]

First game I ever went to at BBG, beat Chelsea in next round then lost to Man U, if I remember correctly.

Correct. The Man U goal featured on TV for ages after mainly due to the commentary - 'Whiteside, far side, onside!'

[Ram59]

[QUOTE=ramAnag;39485752]Two more stand out memories from the BBG that are slightly lost in the mists of time. One in the old Div 2 I think, against Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United. They had at least two players sent off - as well as Keegan himself I think - and we battered them...4-1(?)

Wasn't that the game when a young Paul Gascoigne played and right from the first minute seemed to have lost it. He soon got his marching orders and I think they ended up with 8 men?

[Andy_Faber]

[QUOTE=Ram59;39485815]

Two more stand out memories from the BBG that are slightly lost in the mists of time. One in the old Div 2 I think, against Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United. They had at least two players sent off - as well as Keegan himself I think - and we battered them...4-1(?)

Wasn't that the game when a young Paul Gascoigne played and right from the first minute seemed to have lost it. He soon got his marching orders and I think they ended up with 8 men?

I think that was in a 2-1 win. And yes he looked like he WANTED to be sent off

[Ram59]

[QUOTE=Andy_Faber;39485820]

I think that was in a 2-1 win. And yes he looked like he WANTED to be sent off

Your right, the 3 were sent off RA's game in 1992,but not Gascoigne. Mcdermott was the assistant manager who got his marching orders.

Gascoigne's sending off was in 1988.

[Andy_Faber]

95-96. Apart from the Championship seasons, probably my favourite. health and professional commitments kept me away from most games, so I followed a lot on the radio and TV highlights. We all wondered after the Tranmere defeat if Stimac would just set straight off back to Croatia. Then the run started. I had cancer at the time but was smuggled out of Notts City Hosp, just post-op, with pipes and drips haging out of me, for night at home but especially to watch a 4-1 away win at Brum on the ITV highlights. I got a feeling that night that something was afoot. Then there was the pre-Christmas game, where we hammered Sunderland to go top, what a good Xmas prezzy that was! A trip to t'Huddersfield Boxing Day, a boring 'why the **** did I bother' bore draw transformed by a piece of Willems (my player of the year) poaching. 20 games unbeaten til Sunderland did us over, then an announcement at half time in the following wednesdays Watford draw that the plans to refurbish the BBG had been abandoned, and the club would move to chaddesden sidings instead. We stuttered during the run-in, and needed all the points on a sunny Sunday 28th April against Palace to be sure. Not usually superstitious, I'd asked specifically for the Ley Stand seat I'd sat in for the Rotherham match and to my joy the grumpy old 50-plusses had changed-they'd become grumpy old pensioners. Not much to report about the match itself, other than they reinforced the impression I'd had all season that the whole team seemed to be just that much fitter and more determined than any given opposition, and when the skill deserted them they could bludgeon their way to a result. Sturridge scored early, Palace equalised, then near the end our other Dutchman, the gritty Robbie Van Der Laan, caught the Palace defence dead beat and disorganised and nodded in the winner. Cue the celebrations, and hopefully the moaners who were calling for Jim smith's head earlier in the season hanging their heads in shame - what a glorious, exciting team he was building. But my big feeling as I left the BBG that day, apart from elation, was that the ground had had its day and we needed something to be proud of, not a period piece