Derby author Anton Rippon looks at Derby County strikers from the early days.
ON a warm day in early May 1889, Derby County's secretary, William Parker, set off from his office in Amen Alley to do a spot of fly-posting. With the first Football League season had just ended, the Rams were about to entertain local rivals, Derby Midland, in the first round of the Derby County Charity Cup at the County Ground.
Parker's posters did not just advertise the match, however. They focussed on one particular player, the Rams' first-ever star signing – John Goodall, England international and the man whose goals had just helped Preston North End achieve the League and FA Cup double.
Parker's marketing plan worked a treat. More than 3,500 fans – far more than originally expected – turned out to see the new signing score after only 12 minutes. Derby went on to win 3-0, and a great Rams career was launched.
Derby had long known all about John Goodall – in 1884 he had scored five goals against them for Great Lever in the Rams' first-ever match. Five years later, his signing for Derby County was nothing less than sensational.
There was no transfer fee in those days, and wages were little more than the industrial average, so how the Rams tempted such a player we shall never know. But thank goodness they did. John Goodall – whose tempestuous brother Archie, an Irish international, played in the same Rams team – went on to captain the Derby team that finished First Division runners-up in 1895-96 and he also skippered them to the 1898 FA Cup final.
Raised in the Scottish school of "scientific football", John Goodall was the Rams' leading scorer for three consecutive seasons and altogether hit 85 goals in 238 League and Cup games as well as adding 10 caps to his England tally while with Derby. He was the Rams' first great forward.
WILLIAM Parker, the Rams secretary who landed John Goodall, was also responsible for the early debut of the greatest goalscorer in Derby County's history.
On September 3, 1892, when the Rams met Stoke – they didn't add "City" for another 33 years – at the Victoria Ground, Parker was red-faced. He had been a day late in registering three Rams forwards, Ernest Hickinbottom, Sam Mills and Jimmy McLachlan. Into their places stepped Harry Garden, Fred Ekins, and an 18-year-old called Steve Bloomer.
More than 1,000 travelling Derby fans wondered who was the pale, young lad. So did the local Stoke newspaper reporter. The only journalist covering the match, he recognised hardly any of the visiting players, and when he telegraphed back his report that Derby County had won 3-1, he credited two of their goals to Johnny McMillan. But it was the new boy, Steve Bloomer, who had scored them. They were the first of 332 for Derby County.
The debutant had been understandably nervous, but no less a star than John Goodall had urged: "Go on yourself, lad, and shoot." The Derby Telegraph commented: "Young Bloomer ought to be heard of again in the first team." He was – another 524 times.
Derby's leading League scorer 13 seasons on the trot before a sensational transfer to Middlesbrough in 1906, and in another two seasons after he rejoined the Rams in 1910, Bloomer also scored 28 goals in only 23 appearances for England – a record until Nat Lofthouse broke it in the 1950s.
Bloomer's armoury included a "rapier-like shot" that brought many of his goals from long-range as well as those he sniffed out in predatory fashion closer in.
Today, his bust surveys the action at the iPro Stadium as, 75 years after his death, supporters still sing "Steve Bloomer's Watching" in tribute to the greatest Rams goalscorer of them all.
ALF "Snobby" Bentley cost Derby County £50 from Alfreton Town in 1906, and at the end of his first season the Rams were relegated. So it was in the Second Division that his career took off.
Bentley hit Rams club records of 27 League goals in 1907-08 – including four in a match against Barnsley and another four against Leeds City – and 30 in 1909-10 that included three hat-tricks. That season he also equalled John Goodall's feat of scoring in six consecutive matches.
A bustling forward with quick feet, Bentley scored 112 goals in 168 appearances for the Rams before joining Bolton Wanderers in 1911. His goals helped West Brom to the First Division title in 1919-20.
