The date 15th March 1969 will always be indelibly etched in my mind until my dying day. I was 11 years old and this was the day I was introduced to the Baseball Ground and Derby County. The match was the Division Two fixture against Huddersfield Town and I think it was 2/6d (12.5p) to get in the kids’ end.

All week I was excited about the anticipation of seeing a professional football match for the first time and when Saturday arrived I went round to my friend’s house to meet up with him and we then proceeded to walk to the train station to catch the train to Derby. Once at Derby we headed towards the Baseball Ground, there were lots of fans heading there too and with each step I was becoming more and more excited and nervous of what to expect. Little did I know at the time this would become my regular place to come on a Saturday afternoon and the path we took would become so familiar and every time those excited butterflies in my stomach would be there.

As we got closer walking down Shaftesbury Crescent the smell, noise and excited atmosphere started getting more intense until the stadium came into sight. WOW it hit me straight between the eyes, it looked amazing and so big. We headed towards the corner of the stadium past the main entrance and when we got there we were met by a large queue to get in to the childrens’ pen. At last it was our turn to hand our money to the man in the turnstile box and he pressed his button to let us through, a short walk and there it was. The place that would very quickly become the number one football ground of my unwavering love for my club, Derby County.

Once inside we started on our trek to what my friend called the Popside, I could see that there was a lot of singing and cheering going on in there and I didn’t really understand what I was letting myself in for, but my friend said it will great. So we jumped over a few fences and within no time at all we reached the outer section of the Popside. We managed to get to the front about halfway along the noisy pulsating throng of fans who were singing loudly and making a deafening sound.

Being honest I don’t remember much about the game, but I will never forget the feeling I had when Roy McFarland scored the winning goal with a header, the whole stadium went absolutely wild and the crowd behind just kept swaying forwards and backwards like a great tide. After the game I could not get the songs out of my head and found it hard to sleep. I know on the Sunday I was singing my newly discovered tunes and I fell in love that very day. I got my Nan to knit me a black and white scarf with my heroes names embroidered on it and I wore it to every single game for years.

That was how I came to have a lifelong love for the mighty Rams and those players that day would become my heroes forever. Little did I know at that time where those heroes would take us.

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