Andy Ellis 1 2 3 4 5 6 a B C D

A B C D E F 1 2 3 4 5 6 Answer Sporting Memories is a Derby County Community Trust programme which encourages over 50s to reminisce on their favourite Derby County moments. OFFICIAL PROGRAMME Special Thanks Andy Ellis The Derby County Collection TRANSFERS Summer Transfers…The good, the bad and the rubbish. Having gone through eight years of bad summer transfers, it took Nigel Clough’s recruitment to bring in many free or Transfer window, football agents and pre-contract signings are modern factors as clubs try to buy comparatively small transfer fees who were substantially players before the season gets underway. Years ago, the only transfer deadline was typically the better than we had. Albrechtsen, Commons, Green and third Thursday of March. Hulse all came in his first couple of years with Buxton and Brayford following. By far the most successful was Craig When Derby were the best team in the country there Bryson who has only just left. weren’t many summer signings, but those that were signed were hugely successful. For all the good ones there are bound to be poor ones – Kazmierczak and Croft but the all-time bad signing was Going back 50 years, Les Green and Dave Mackay Pereplotkins, one of Paul Jewell’s 13 summer signings. were signed before the season started and both This one on loan from a Latvian team and lasted 60 minutes played throughout the Division 2 championship of his debut before being substituted. He made one more season. Mackay was a legend in the game before his appearance and his season-long loan was terminated half- arrival and was named Footballer of the Year in his way through. first year. Green came from Rochdale and replaced Reg Matthews. Francis Lee and Charlie George, Recent summer signings have been good – Johnny Russell, Cyrus Christie, Chris Baird, Scott both hugely well-known players, joined during the Carson and Curtis Davies. summer months too. Let’s hope this year’s new players are equally good. As managers came and went, the level of transfers dipped and some signings seemed to be for the sake of it. The early 1980s highlighted this, with the majority of the signings adding nothing to the club and some are often quoted in the ‘worst team of all time’. E X I T M Y G C N V Z M C O X Relegation to Division 3 meant that Arthur Cox was left with a small squad and the next four D L B A R Y A O G R D A K F L summers brought in a steady stream of players who helped achieve back to back promotions. T A B H L A I K U M I N S U A G Q F M C T N S C V U A N Q F Jim Smith took over as manager and again was faced with a small number of players to start with but soon added players capable of doing a job for him and as promotion to the Premier League T K X I O U S S E A A G O B U followed the foreign players started to arrive: Asanovic, Laursen, Eranio and Carbonari were huge A D P M O E E H F W M E S B U successes with Stefano Eranio being the pick of them who has a place in history as the scorer of U P O K L C D D L E J R Y D V the first goal at Pride Park Stadium. M R E L R E M M U S R S R E J Other foreign players who came into the side, including Con Blatsis (Australia), Bjorn Bragstad P C B V W K U Q M Q G H B B Q (Norway), Simo Valakari (Finland), Daniel Daino, and Fabrizio Ravanelli (both Italy) weren’t to be A T I Z W C A A D U F I O Y T as successful. The Ravanelli signing was particularly bad as the management spent all summer P R I D E P A R K X I I S S B trying to secure him when other parts of the team needed strengthening. The knock-on effect was C W G R T P A F S A Y E C M B relegation and the terms of his contract meant that we were still paying his wages long after he left and put the club in financial danger. O Y Y Q A W A S X W V F M X T A Y H O O U F A Z V M I Y Q H Billy Davies, the last manager to achieve promotion, brought Steve Howard and Marc Edworthy K I V H W N Y I O F T P X V F ahead of the season. Once promotion had been achieved, his sights were already away from Pride Park with problems behind the scenes. He spent a huge amount of money in buying Rob Earnshaw and Claude Davis from his old club Preston. Both of these added to the fans’ frustration as performances were at an historic low. SUMMER • MACKAY • PROMOTION • BRYSON • TRANSFER RUSSELL • COX • MANAGERS • HOWARD • PRIDEPARK.

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