Back to club football this week and that means quizzes! Six questions about tonight’s opponents and I’ll post the answers on here tomorrow.
60s. Named after a migrant, this midfielder started off with a people’s popular front before making a relatively short journey north after being spotted and then signed by one of the “elite”. Making his first team debut against Cardiff, he found things tough at the top and moved on to Derby without ever really establishing himself in such plush surroundings. He made over one hundred appearances during a five year stay at the Baseball Ground which extended into the early part of this decade. He was also good enough at another sport to make a name for himself, but whether he made a living out of it is not clear because we don’t know which gate he came out of as he turned out for three years at a nearby Racecourse – he left this game in the same year as he finished his football career, having achieved what can only be described as a modest degree of success in both of them, but can you name him?
70s. Northern Ireland initially and then eclair will provide Scouser.
80s. Can you recognise this man who played for us against Derby during this decade from this list of the other clubs he turned out for – Northampton, Cambridge, Reading and Peterborough?
90s. This full back’s career was over almost before it had started. He played less than ten times in full time football (all for Derby) before injury hit and he even had to give up on his attempt to play in the non league game for a Midlands Borough. He was far from finished with football though and, subsequently, he has been employed in a senior capacity for his country as well as by some of the biggest clubs in the country. Quite appropriately, his reappointment for a third spell with Derby for four months during the current decade meant that his career had followed a circular route – who is he?
00s. Once described as “the new Rio Ferdinand”, this man was a member of a Derby side which suffered a right thrashing at Cardiff during this decade. He started with another team that plays in white and black, but he was never able to fulfil the high hopes there were for him because of a serious injury sustained in the pre match warm up for a game against Manchester United which his side won 3-1. He recovered to play over a hundred times for Derby before going to an Australian Road, then another black and white side before he became a bit creepy. His first acquaintance with non League football came with albino Accipitridae and, according to Wikipedia at least, he is still playing for Lowestoft. Who am I describing?
10s. Name this member of the last Derby squad to face us.
Answers.
60s. Tom Swallow played for Tooting and Mitcham United before joining Arsenal as a trainee. He broke into the first team at Highbury in April 1955 in 2-0 away defeat at Cardiff and scored four times in his thirteen games for the Gunners before signing for Derby in September 1958 where he played nearly one hundred and twenty times, scoring twenty one goals in the league, before leaving the game in 1963. From 1960, Swallow also played county cricket for Derbyshire (whose headquarters and ground in Derby were at the city’s old racecourse), but it is not clear if he was a “Gentleman” amateur or a professional “Player”. Either way, his figures during his thirty eight match career as an opening batsman were not great – he scored just one hundred, against Oxford University, in a career which saw him average just over 20 with the bat.
70s. Willie Carlin.
80s. Derrick Christie.
90s. Steve Round played nine games for Derby in the 90s before injury, effectively, ended his playing career. When an attempted comeback with Nuneaton Borough failed, he turned to coaching and went on to be employed by, among others, Derby (twice), Middlesbrough, England, Everton and Manchester United (both as Assistant Manager) and Aston Villa as Director of Football.
00s. Dean Leacock began his career at Fulham, before signing for Derby in 2006 and three years later he was in the side beaten 6-1 in one of the first games played at Cardiff City Stadium. In 2012 he moved on to Leyton Orient and then to Notts County for two years. Crawley were his last Football League side as he moved on to Whitehawk, Welling, Billericay and Lowestoft.
10s. Kasey Palmer was an unused substitute for Derby’s 3-1 win over us at a snow free Pride Park in April 2018.
I live in Shrewsbuy and last season saw their match against Oxford United. Oxford went 1-0 up through a goal from a player called Gavin Whyte. They then had player sent off and took their centre forward off and left Gavin Whyte on his own up front. Shrewsbury scored a couple of goals to go 2-1 up but Gavin Whyte showing terrific pace and finishing skills scored two more goals to win the match for Oxford.
I was absolutely delighted when we signed him. Obviously Warnock has changed him from a hugely promising fast skilfull winger into a very hard working tracking back kind of journeyman donkey and I expect it is for the best. I did notice he did get two crosses into the box in the first 20 minutes but none at all after that as Warnock must have had a word and he was on tracking back duty. We will see the attacking Gavin Whyte ever again I doubt it.
Three Cliffs – thanks.
Really interesting and, in equal measure, depressing.
The thought that only leaden-footed, one-paced, giants prosper under our Manager is enough to make you kick the wall very hard, in order to refer the pain elsewhere.
Morning everyone and thanks for the replies. Colin, my feeling about Friday is still one of frustration because it was a match which we could and should have won, although I accept that Derby fans probably feel the same way about their side’s performance. Sol Bamba is an interesting one because, having started off at PSG, he would have experienced a style of play completely different to what he’s seen at Cardiff – I’d also say most of the sides he has played for in the UK didn’t play like we do. He’d be very good on the media side of things and you get the feeling that the players would be behind him.
BJA, I think Paterson has been a good signing for us and, although it does limit our game somewhat when he’s at number ten for us, the number of goals he scored in our promotion season justified using him there, but, as I said in my piece, he’s just not got going so far this season and, as a few supporters have already observed, appears to be carrying a pound or two more than he was last season.
A very interesting first contribution by Three Cliffs bay (welcome on board by the way). I got into a bit of an argument on the messageboard I use yesterday for saying much the same thing about Gavin Whyte that I did on here. I was criticised for not giving him a chance, but there has been virtually nothing from him that equates to what most of us supporters would be looking forward to when a new winger is signed. I’m glad to see your confirmation that there is more to Whyte’s attacking game than we have seen so far – I thought this had to be the case, but it seems to me that he is eager to please at his new club and is following his defensive instructions to the letter. I didn’t see the game, but, apparently, he was quite impressive when he came on for Northern Ireland against Germany, so, hopefully, we will see more from him soon because we are, surely, going to be a bit more attacking in our outlook if we do not want to drop too far behind those in the top six.