Goal rush in Villa thriller as Rams reach the semis
THIS year is the 75th anniversary of Derby County winning the FA Cup against Charlton Athletic in 1946. In part four of our series looking back at the Cup run, Anton Rippon puts the spotlight on the Rams’ quarter-final against Aston Villa.
DERBY County supporters would have done almost anything to gain admission to their club’s FA Cup ties in March 1946.
The first post-war competition was drawing bumper crowds and, 75 years ago this week, there were 76,588 at Villa Park – still a ground record – for the first leg of the quarter-final between the Rams and Aston Villa.
Some supporters had travelled from Derby on the Friday evening and walked the streets of Birmingham in freezing temperatures in the small hours.
Ley’s gave workers permission to be absent on Saturday morning but a machine moulder at an Ilkeston foundry was suspended for taking time off to watch the match. Sixty of his colleagues came out on strike.
Whatever the sacrifices they had made, Rams fans felt that it was worthwhile.
George Edwards put Villa ahead after only six minutes but Peter Doherty equalised in the 23rd, lashing Raich Carter’s headed pass home via a post.
Five minutes later, Jack Iverson gave Villa a half-time lead but in the 62nd minute Carter equalised again following Dally Duncan’s cross.
The scores were level for only four minutes before former England forward Frank Broome – later to star for Derby – made it 3-2; surely the Rams could not equalise a third time?
Yet, with five minutes to play, Doherty scored his second – and the game was still not over.
The finale belonged to Sammy Crooks. With 60 seconds to play he latched on to a loose ball and crashed it goalwards.
As the ball bulged the net, Crooks ran back towards the halfway line, clapping his hands above his head.
But even this legendary winger’s sprinting prowess did not prevent him from being swamped by ecstatic colleagues.
Villa 3, Derby 4. It was, said the Evening Telegraph, “a thrill-packed game with enough goals to satisfy the most goal-hungry fan”.
Derby received 100,000 applications for second-leg tickets and their scheme for selling these at a reserve match disgusted some fans who wrote letters to the Evening Telegraph, signing themselves “Fair Play” and “Cup-Tied”.
In the end, 32,000 wedged themselves into the bomb-damaged Baseball Ground on the following Saturday.
They were rewarded with another dramatic game.
After 30 minutes, though, Rams fans were in a state of panic. Crooks was carried off with a leg injury – no subs in those days – after a clattering from “Mush” Callaghan, the tough Villa wing-half who had been decorated for gallantry after saving the lives of three people during an airraid on Birmingham four years earlier.
And Broome levelled the aggregate after a fumble by Bill Townsend, whose appearance in goal for the first leg had been his first match for the Rams for two years.
It was Raich Carter who changed it all.
Just before half-time, Duncan took a free kick and Carter headed his 13th goal in 12 games. Then Villa lost Harry Parkes with a dislocated elbow and a 1-1 draw put Derby into the semi-final.
Referring to his dramatic late winner in the first leg, the Evening Telegraph told readers: “It must be a pleasant, if piquant, thought for Sammy Crooks, as he nurses his leg injury tonight, that at least he was in the Derby County v Aston Villa sixth round Cup tie long enough to decide the issue.”
The Telegraph reporter summed up the second leg: “Derby in effect decided to carry on without a right winger, and it is greatly to Duncan’s credit that he responded so unsparingly to the extra calls made upon him.…
“Stamps … did not take advantage of his chances as a centre-forward should but then Stamps makes no claim to be a centre-forward.”
That last comment seems remarkable today, since Rams fans almost always think of Jack Stamps as a battering-ram centre-forward.
In fact, he moved to leading the attack only late in the FA Cup-winning campaign.
As that great player, Raich Carter, once told me: “Make no mistake, Jackie Stamps was a fine footballing inside-forward.”
The Telegraph continued: “Although Doherty practically played himself to a standstill, I regard Carter as the most valuable of the home forwards … acting as a one-man support of the front-line troops … by his shrewdly placed upfield passes.
“Having had occasion to criticise Musson with melancholy frequency it is with particular pleasure that I raise a hearty British cheer for his display in this match.
“He was never outpaced; his tackling was effective.
“Behind him, Jack Parr played one of his best games of the season… Leuty and Nicholas were also markedly successful… A rare stalwart, Nick!”
It was Jack Nicholas who would soon write himself into the Rams’ history as the club’s only FA Cupwinning captain.
■■Adapted from The Day That Derby Won The Cup. Anton Rippon’s Derby County books are available from www.northbridgepublishing.co.uk.