Genial Reg, a captain whose inspiration saw Rams’ fortunes turned
FEW would argue that successful football teams always need an inspirational captain. The Rams haven’t had a truly outstanding figure in that role since Igor Stimac strutted his stuff at Pride Park.
Leaders of men are in short supply. You can count on the fingers of one hand those with whom Derby County have been blessed since the war.
I was thinking about one such character this week, as my mind went back to a bleak Saturday afternoon in Birmingham just before Christmas 1985.
Along with thousands of other puzzled spectators, I was hanging around outside St Andrew’s where I was covering Birmingham City’s First Division match against Watford for a Sunday newspaper.
Midway through the second half, a police inspector had marched on to the pitch and stopped the game.
The IRA had phoned through a bomb threat. The stadium was cleared while the police searched it. Amazingly, after half an hour, everyone was readmitted and the game played to its conclusion.
While I was shivering on the pavement, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a man in a white raincoat, clutching a gin and tonic. He’d recognised me from a radio interview I’d done with him some weeks earlier.
He had a dilemma. The St Andrew’s bar normally stayed open for an hour after the end of every game. Did I think it would shut, as usual, at about 6pm, he wanted to know? Or did I think the management would take into account the delay?
I couldn’t help him but it was still a delight to spend the next few minutes chatting again to Reg Ryan, the Rams’ inspirational skipper when they’d fought their way out of the Third Division North almost 30 years earlier, in the process scoring over 200 goals in only two seasons.
Before his death, at the age of 71 in February 1997, I was to meet Reg on many more occasions. He was always genial company, even after serious illness forced him to give up his gin and tonic.
And he was a gentleman, always very respectful of the opinion of anyone who loved football. It didn’t matter that you hadn’t risen above Derby Sunday League level. Reg wanted to talk football.
Reg always spoke fondly of the Rams, who he joined from West Bromwich Albion in July 1955, for a £3,000 transfer fee. The previous year, he’d won the FA Cup with Albion.
He told me: “I always chose the manager rather than the club itself. At Derby that was Harry Storer. He convinced me that he wanted me to help him revive Derby County.
“When I first arrived, I wasn’t very pleased with the set-up at the Baseball Ground. There was no spirit. I
Harry looked after the team; I looked after the players. There’s a subtle difference. Reg Ryan
got things changed so that soon we had spirit like the Three Musketeers – one for all and all for one.
“For example, there was no tea room for the players’ wives. The little things were missing and I had to put them right in a very short time.
“He made me captain and I was the go-between. When we were on away trips, if the lads wanted a bit of pocket money to go out –this was in the days of footballers’ maximum wage – I’d do battle on their behalf.
“Harry looked after the team; I looked after the players. There’s a subtle difference.
“Then everything went for us. We wouldn’t think of going away and not getting the points. That was out. That was taboo. We wanted to win every match we could. We won the Third Division North in 1957 with skilled players. It was a great team to captain.
“We should have done better in the Second Division but the football was more pacey than the Third.
“We had players who were just that little bit too old to carry us onwards. But we stuck by them because they were the best we had.”
After scoring 31 goals in 139 appearances for the Rams, Reg left Derby for Coventry City in September 1958. He later worked as a pools organiser and scout for the Sky Blues and for West Brom.
Dublin-born, he was one of the first to be capped by both the Republic and Northern Ireland, when players from the south were allowed to play in the old Home International Championship. He was without doubt the Rams’ most inspirational captain since the great Raich Carter.
I shall also remember him as being less concerned about a terrorist bomb than whether the bar would remain open.
What a character. He would be highly valued today.