Over recent days RamZone has published our two part look at what has made the Rams v Tree clash a beautiful but bitter spectacle. As kick-off looms we give it to you again in one handy volume!

Part 1 - Over A Hundred Years Of Rivalry by Duncan Harris

When the subject of football's fiercest local derbies comes up, it is usually Liverpool, Manchester, North London and Glasgow that dominate the conversation, but anyone with a little deeper knowledge will know that the rivalry between the Rams and Forest can be as bitter and deep as any of them.

Of course the very term 'local derby' comes from the town of that name - after the keenly fought street football matches played between different districts of Derby in the distant past.

Once football became organized in the later nineteenth century, this partisan spirit soon spread to the games between two of England's oldest league clubs - the evocatively nicknamed 'Rams' and the less imaginatively monickered 'Reds'. For some reason, there has never seemed to be quite the same animosity when Notts County was involved.

The East Midlands rivalry would have been sharpened by an early victory for Forest, in the 1898 FA Cup final, five days after Derby has thrashed them 5-0 in the league - Derby were to lose in the final again the following year.

By the post First World War period, this enmity had become very well established. In 1921, the Derby Evening Telegraph , reporting a 2-1 Second Division win for Forest at the Baseball Ground breathed a sigh of relief that the game had not descended into the chaos that had been feared:

" ...apart from the result perhaps the most pleasing features from the unbiased onlooker was the clean way in which the issue was fought out. Local rivalry often leads to players losing their heads... “

In those days, the players would often be local men themselves, with as fierce a sense of local pride and identity as the fans. Very different to today's itinerant pros!

Soon after that match, some of this rivalry would have been diluted by the fact that the two clubs hardly played each other for many years. Derby got promoted and established themselves as a top First Division club, winning the Cup finally in 1946 while Forest languished in the lower reaches [which are of course, where they belong].

Then in the fifties, the positions were reversed for a while, with Forest in the top division and winning the Cup [in 1959] and Derby dropping as low as the old Third Division, albeit briefly.

By the early seventies, when Derby got back into the First Division, perhaps the old enmity had softened a little. Plenty of players in this period played for both clubs, often moving directly between the two - something that rarely happened with Liverpool and Everton, Spurs and Arsenal or Celtic and Rangers. Alan Hinton, Terry Hennessey, Henry Newton and Frank Wignall all moved from Forest to Derby without too many cries of 'traitor'. 

The seventies, though, was when it all changed, and the rivalry between the two sets of fans became more sharp and bitter than it had ever been. Much of this is still fresh today and one man is at the centre of it: Brian Clough.

Clough had arrived at Second Division Derby from Hartlepool in 1967, bringing with him Peter Taylor - Sancho Panza to Clough's Don Quixote. They had quickly turned the side from dour mid-table nobodies to runaway champions of Division Two in 1969.

Clough and Taylor had not made too many changes to the team - although the arrivals of Dave MacKay and Roy McFarland were both masterstrokes - but had moulded the players already there into a team, none more so than Kevin hector who had blossomed into one of the best centre-forwards in the country.

Derby were soon challenging at the top of the First Division, winning their first ever Championship in 1972. This unexpected triumph was made even sweeter to many fans, as it coincided with the sad decline of Forest. They were relegated in that same season, the Rams did the double over them, and in the match at the Baseball Ground, Forest were outclassed so thoroughly, that Gerald Mortimer in the Telegraph wrote:

"[the fans were]...almost embarrassed by the ease with which Derby had shredded Forest and at watching the pathetic wreck of what was once a good side shamble a step nearer to inevitable relegation."

An extra bit of needle between the two clubs was also provided by Forest's one class player, Ian Storey Moore, who agreed to join Derby and was paraded around the Baseball Ground pitch by Clough. Moore was then persuaded by his wife to change his mind, and join Manchester United instead, leaving Clough red-faced.

The joke was soon on Moore though, as Derby went on to two Championships, while United were relegated [and how difficult is it to believe that now?]

Clough and Taylor then led the Rams into Europe, where they beat Benfica - then a genuine force in the game - but lost to Juventus in the semi-finals, a match Clough to this day insists was 'got at' by someone. During this golden period, the atmosphere at the Baseball Ground was second to none - and that is not just a partisan conceit.

The ramshackle old ground with its infamous mud bath pitch and echoing wooden stands could generate a fierce bear-pit ambience, which lifted the home team and intimidated opponents. More than one newspaper reporter described the Rams supporters as 'fanatical'. No one ever used that word for Forest supporters.

Then things started to go wrong. Derby chairman Sam Longson, who had brought Clough into the club, now thought that the manager was getting too big for his boots [surely not?] and feared that the famously outspoken Clough would open his mouth so often that Longson's ambitions for further advancement in the football bureaucracy would be thwarted.

Other directors joined him and the end result was a feud that led to Clough and Taylor walking out. Despite the best efforts of players and fans to get them back, this was the way it stayed - something that has remained a matter for deep regret from all those involved.

Derby soon appointed a successor to Clough - former captain Dave MacKay, who had been boss at Forest, then deep in the depths of Division Two. MacKay thankfully managed to carry on with pretty much the same team - plus the vital addition of Francis Lee and won the Rams another League title. Clough and Taylor meanwhile went in the opposite direction, via Leeds [very briefly] and Brighton, to end up at lowly Forest.

Now everything turned upside down. Derby followed the 1975 title with a decent, if ultimately disappointing season, in which they dropped to fourth in the league and went out of the Cup to United in the semi-final [hard to believe that in those days, that was considered failure]. A poor start to the 1976-77 season gave Longson's successor George Hardy and excuse to sack Mackay and try to lure Clough back.

Clough, with Taylor had been rebuilding Forest into plausible promotion candidates, but they wanted to accept Hardy's offer and return 'home'. Forest's board though, threw a spanner in the works and refused to release them from their contracts. They remained at Forest and every Forest supporter should be eternally grateful to their board for making that decision.

With his plans to bring back Clough in tatters, Hardy turned to a series of managers either too inexperienced - Colin Murphy and the eventually great Dario Gradi, Colin Addison and John Newman - or over the hill - the hapless Tommy Docherty. Forest meanwhile, went from strength to strength under 'our' manager.

Clough took with him not only his methods and style, but also many of the old Derby team on and off the pitch. As well as Taylor and trainer Jimmy Gordon, there were John O'Hare, John McGovern, Archie Gemmill and later Colin Todd.

"The new Forest feels just like the old Derby" said the Daily Mirror. Derby fans could feel only bitterness as their rivals won the First Division title straight after coming up from the Second, while Docherty led the Rams into the abyss.

That championship was followed by even greater success, with Clough taking Forest much further in Europe than he had Derby, and winning the European Cup twice. The League Cup became for a while Forest's personal property and only the FA Cup eluded him.

During this period at the turn of the decade, a Derby side emptied of virtually all class, was sadly slipping into lower-division obscurity. Even the return of Peter Taylor, as manager in 1982 [which led to a tragic rift with Clough that had not been fixed by the time of Taylor’s death in 1990] only held up the decline for a while, and the Rams again sank as far down as Division Three.

This is the background to the most burning resentment, which festered through years of underachievement. Among Derby fans, there is an overwhelming sense of injustice, that Forest enjoyed undeserved success that should have been Derby's. Clough himself has often sympathized with that sentiment.

He has always regretted the way he and Taylor had left Derby. As Clough said;

"It's more than 20 years ago and I still regret the parting. Directors have short memories and, when there's success, start to imagine they could cream it... Had we stuck together, we would have taken on Liverpool, who were then at the top of the England game. And we'd have replaced them for ten years." 

A typically bold statement from old Big 'Ed.

Clough has also often admitted that all of Forest's success left something of a hollow ring; that he never got quite the euphoric response he would have had if it had been Derby. Again, Clough's own words make the point very well:

“Even in the heyday at Forest, when we won the League, League Cups and two European Cups, the atmosphere was never like Derby.” 

Forest supporters will deny this, but Derby fans have always known that this is absolutely true.

On a personal note, in those days I lived in South Normanton, a village just on the Derbyshire side of the border with Notts. Derby had always been the dominant team in the area, with some Mansfield and Chesterfield fans and a mere smattering of Forest types. Once Clough had won them the league in '78 though, what seemed like thousands of 'lifelong' Forest fans came crawling out of the darkness, like zombies in a George Romero film.

The antagonism became more and more intense as Forest's success grew and Derby's decline deepened. Forest supporters who could hardly believe their luck couldn't resist the opportunity to rub it in. This caused much friction, particularly in the string of small towns that straddled the county boundary, where the natural catchment areas of the two clubs met.

Many a Saturday evening was disfigured by a 'disagreement' between young men in pubs in South Normanton, Pinxton, Langley Mill, Heanor and Jacksdale over the relative merits of the two clubs. I remember trying desperately, and thankfully successfully, trying to prevent a kid from Ripley - far enough into Derbyshire to be condemned for supporting anyone but the Rams - from summary revenge because he followed Forest.

Perhaps in other areas, away from where the two clubs' natural constituencies converge, the rivalry is less intense. Steve Tickle, a Rams fan in Swadlincote - to the south of Derby and closer to the Leicestershire border than to Notts, tells me that in those parts, it is generally Leicester City who is the main enemy.

Where I now live, in North Derbyshire, Rams fans, though plentiful, are outnumbered by supporters of Chesterfield and the two Sheffield clubs. But for the majority of Derby fans, matches against Forest will always be the local derbies to be relished.

In recent years, both Derby and Forest have been beset by mediocrity on the field and financial problems off it. For a while in the late nineties, it seemed as though the Rams would again be in the ascendancy, while Forest went back to their rightful place in the middle of the Second [now the First] Division. Derby was again in the top ten of the top flight, looking to Europe.

Both sides are pale shadows of their former selves, the glory years for both seem a long way off now. But whenever Derby play Forest, there will be a build up of expectation, of arguments and banter in workplaces and pubs, on the streets and within families.

If the Rams should win the game, the next few days will be spent rejoicing, no matter where we happen to be in the league table; before reality sets in again and the rigors of trying to climb back to the top faced once again.

Part 2 - 2000 To Today by Paul Mortimer

Following on from our article yesterday which examined the great battles between Ram & Tree until 2000 - today we pick up from the turn of the millenium until present day.

The decade started as much of it has progressed - with Nottingham Forest in a lower division than Derby County!

Not that the Rams had too much to write home about; season 2000-2001 saw Derby desperately stave off relegation from the Premier League, as Lionel Pickering’s crisis years deepened through declining performances and mounting debt from costly but mediocre signings.

Relegation for the Rams followed in 2001-2002, which saw the club’s bankers fatefully hand the club over to John Sleightholme’s regime for the princely sum of £3.00 with the club £31m in debt.

Derby’s squad had been briefly and unsuccessfully reworked by Colin Todd and John Gregory, the latter pretender suffering the indignation of suspension then removal during 2002-03. The Rams fought out a 0-0 Championship draw against Forest at Pride Park Stadium with an ignominious 0-3 defeat for Derby at the City Ground seeing The Purple One clearing his desk at Derby.

It was George Burley, working under duress from an incompetent and invasive regime during 2003-04 that brought Rams fans some rare pleasure. Although the Trees finished higher in the Championship at 14th with Derby battling to stay free of the relegation zone in 20th, the Rams took 4 points from that season’s encounters.

However, fans from both clubs were united in grief at the passing of Brian Clough in September 2004. In tribute, the A52 between the two cities now bears the name: ‘Brian Clough Way’.

There was a 1-1 Championship draw at the City Ground in September with Junior (remember him?) netting for Derby - but the Pride Park Stadium encounter in March 2004 was the memorable ‘Cuppie’ 4-2 game! It was a swirling maelstrom of a match, whipping winds and spitting rain making conditions unpredictable and especially hazardous for a goalie as dim as Forest’s Barry Roche.

Under no pressure from a routine back pass, Roche attempted to clear upfield but a little stray coffee cup sauntered across his field of vision, excited by the wind; Barry inexplicably did a better job of clearing the cup than the football and as the ball spun away feebly from his mis-hit, Roche was in no-man’s land.

The ever-alert Paul Peschisolido obligingly rapped in the loose ball to give Derby a sturdy 2-0 lead. Forest, already rocking after Ian Taylor had given the Rams an early lead, found Derby’s football irresistible; Pesch added another and local boy Marcus Tudgay also scored.

The Trees rallied but the result was never in doubt, 4-2 flattered Forest. Trees fans - don’t witter about ‘Cuppie’ altering the course of the game (it didn’t) - and none of it would ever diminish the hilarity of your goalie’s gaffe.

2004-05 saw the parting of the ways - Derby surprisingly finished in the play-off positions (4th) to ultimately succumb to Billy Davies’ Preston North End but the Trees were relegated to League One, finishing 2nd bottom.

In a schizophrenic season for Derby, troubles off the pitch mounted as mistrust of the boardroom regime saw supporter consciousness emerge - Sleightholme’s motley crew was living on borrowed time. The football flowed that season though, as the likes of Rasiak, Idiakez, Bisgaard and Tommy Smith gave Rams fans the best entertainment since Jim Smith’s cosmopolitan Premier League side of the 90s.

Burley walked out in the Spring, amidst growing off-field tension and financial decline but not before the Trees were royally stuffed by Grzegorz Rasiak. Forest took a 3-0 battering at Derby in December 2004 as Rasiak scored twice and Tommy Smith completed Forest’s misery.

Then a hard-fought 2-2 draw unfolded at the City Ground in February 2005 - when Forest desperately needed victories to survive. Rasiak scored again before Horacio Carbonari wrote himself into Derby folklore with a tricky foot-shuffle and shot to score a rare and classy goal to help Forest towards the basement trapdoor. They fell through it soon enough, just 3 months later.

Derby’s revival was rapid as Peter Gadsby’s local regime gained control and resolved the financial crisis. Forest failed to clamber out of Division One as their fans got value from their road maps to all sorts of interesting little towns.

As Jeremy Keith and Co came under investigation for various fraudulent activities whilst in control of Derby County, Billy Davies arrived to immediately build a promotion side that triumphed over West Bromwich Albion at Wembley Stadium in May 2007.

It was average football but a great climax to the season, as Stephen Pearson swept in the second-half winner in the “£60m match!”

Derby’s new regime had struck up a charity dedication trophy, The Brian Clough Trophy, to be retained by whichever of the Derby and Nottingham rivals won a ‘derby’ game in any competition, and Derby won the inaugural game in a canter 2-0 in a pre-season friendly in July 2007, with goals from Jay McEveley and Craig Fagan in front of over 25,000 at Pride Park Stadium.

Forest acclimatised to the third division; presumably they liked it there as they again failed to win promotion, whilst Derby were catapulted out of the Premier League at the end of season 2007-08 after the worst season imaginable. Billy Davies wasted no time in falling out with his bosses when the going got tough and Paul Jewell replaced him.

Bad management, instability, under-investment and inadequate players sent Derby County scuttling back to the Championship tout-suite.

Forest had won promotion back to the Championship, Nigel Doughty electing to reach into his deep pockets to fund a Trees’ renaissance. Derby failed to bounce back in 2008-09 and the unsuccessful Paul Jewell walked away from the disarray he and Davies had inflicted on Derby’s playing squad.

The Rams failed to find form and consistency despite using almost 40 players with ex-Forest star Nigel Clough becoming Derby manager amid a romantic media publicity avalanche.

Forest had struggled too on their return to the Championship but avoided relegation. We’d seen the departure of dour Gary Megson, the colourful Joe Kinnear and the colourless Colin Calderwood during Forest’s ups and downs (or should that be downs and ups?) and as the wheels of football fate turned again, Billy Davies took the helm at the City Ground.

Derby had the better of things last season as the on-pitch rivalry was resumed when the clubs clashed in League and FA Cup.  Forest scraped to Championship safety and Derby didn’t fare much better - but at least the Rams had finished above the Trees in the final 2008-09 table.

The change in ownership at Derby has seen the American-led GSE consortium assume full control, with a patient, ‘slow build’ philosophy that has yet to see any serious billionaire input into the club financially for team-building towards the promised restoration of Derby County to the Premier League.

There were two draws and two Derby victories - and Forest couldn’t have complained if it had been 4 straight wins for Derby last season! The League clash in November 2007 saw rookie ref Stuart Attewell save Forest’s bacon with his inept decisions. The game ended 1-1, Tito Villa contriving both goals with a first-half own goal and his own equaliser - but the closing stages crammed in all the drama!  

Miles Addison powered in a header only for the duff ref to give a penalty to Derby instead; ex-Ram Lee Camp saved Barazite’s spot-kick, Attewell ruled out another Addison header - and apologised, and was demoted for his errors later - as Forest escaped with a point.

The return at the City Ground saw Derby pile on Forest’s relegation worries as Clough’s side rallied well in League and Cups. Derby won 3-1, cruising to a 3-0 lead through Nyatanga, Hulse and a Steve Davies penalty before Derby reject Rob Earnshaw netted a late consolation for Forest.

Sandwiched in between the Championship clashes was an FA Cup 4th Round feast, Derby winning through in style after a replay in Nottingham.

In the original tie at Derby, the Rams took control and Rob Hulse gave them the lead; Forest rallied after the break and Earnshaw won them a replay.

As with Lee Camp in the November League clash, Forest’s goalkeeping heroics denied the Rams at the death, Paul Smith bravely keeping Kris Commons, Rob Hulse and Luke Varney at bay.

The replay was a firecracker of a game, as Forest galloped out of the traps to rush into a 2-0 lead within the first quarter-hour. Derby clambered back into the match; Rob Hulse headed in after half an hour and the second half was a no-contest, as Derby chopped the Trees down!

Paul Green shot an equaliser after an hour and then, after Kris Commons had hit the post as Derby swept forward, ex-Tree Commons slammed in the winner to clinch a 3-2 victory and a date with Manchester United at Pride Park Stadium in the 5th Round.

Robbie Savage endeared himself to Rams fans as his personal renaissance occurred under Clough, twirling a black-and-white scarf at the Derby end in celebration after that glorious Cup victory.

The circle turns again though, as Billy Davies - after a slow start to 2009-10 but with a useful player budget - has taken Forest into a promotion challenge. Derby continue to regroup and rebuild under Clough with a transitional team reinforced by loanees sees them trudling between mid-table and the drop zone.

The Brian Clough Trophy slipped from Derby’s grasp for the first time as they lost 3-2 in Nottingham in the Championship at the end of August 2009, with 28,000 in attendance. Derby started in comatose manner, going a goal down inside a minute, then being overwhelmed to trail 3-0 at the break.

Playing for half a game rarely brings victory and however spectacular the Rams recovery was in the second period, so it proved. Derby could not salvage a point after Sammy Morgan had scored an own goal and then Jake Livermore netted after the hour mark.

An after-match controversy clouded the game, however, as both clubs faced FA charges after Nathan Tyson stupidly paraded a corner flag under the noses of Rams fans and the Rams players reacted strongly.

It was Commons that delivered the perfect near-post cross from which Hulse buried the decisive header in Derby’s 1-0 victory in this fixture last season. A tight, fractious affair that spilled over into hostility when Trees players took exception to Jay McEveley’s relaxed attitude to taking a throw-in, as Derby ran down the game.

The resulting fracas added to the FA charges levelled at both clubs after their altercations at the City Ground earlier that season, ensuring further disciplinary charges and fines. Then Billy Davies made scarcely credible legal accusations of assault by Nigel Clough - which the wee Scot has neither justified nor withdrawn in all this time.

He looks idiotic and petty. Billy tries to score moral points all the time but it was the Rams that took the points in that sweet but hard-fought victory.

It can’t be denied that the Trees have stormed up the table in 2010-11 and are again playing tenacious, cohesive football in the style of their manager. They showed they were on they by dismantling the Rams earlier this season 5-2 as Derby were on the slide with their early season form waning.

Minus their Captain through suspension and some of the Rams recent additions looking more like Rabbits caught in a spotlight, Derby capitulated in the most embarrassing fashion. A game most would like to forget and come this Saturday fans will be looking for the team to atone for what was a shocking performance.

So it’s all set for another titanic clash at Pride Park Stadium on Saturday and League positions rarely mean very much when ‘derby’ matches come around. Whichever side starts well and gets a foothold in the game to start winning their ‘personal battles’ can emerge with the bragging rights.

Rams fans will continue their love-hate relationship with Billy Davies and hope formar local hero Marcus Tudgay does not tear us to pieces. Trees fans will try to bait Robbie Savage and Kris Commons.

Let’s hope the referee has strong nerves!

Stephen Bywater summed it up well for all Rams fans when speaking to the DET today:

"You shouldn't need any incentive to get up for any game, to be honest but I've got a grievance against Forest, because they beat us so badly at their place. I'm still angry about the game at their place and I know the fans will be looking for us to get the win. So we'll go out there and maybe take out a bit of frustration on Forest.” 

"I know how much it means to the supporters, because they go on Twitter and tell me how they feel.” 

“Fair play to them and that makes me want to beat Forest even more." 

Good to hear Stephen, make it so!

UP THE RAMS!

Photo: Action Images

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