Derby Midland FC

As a very young - Derby County supporting – child, I would regularly look forward to my parents buying their Sunday Mirror and Sunday People so I could see if there was a match report for the previous day’s game. I knew, of course, that there would be one the following day in the Derby Evening Telegraph, but there was something about the coverage of not just my team, but the entire programme of Saturday’s football that appealed to me – especially in the days when most of the games were actually played on a Saturday.

Derby Midland FC - 1888 to 1889.

As a child looking at this, from time-to-time I pondered the question as to why some cities had more than one football club while Derby only had one. Little did I realise, that for a very brief period in the late 1800s, Derby was home to another football team that was considered to be Derby’s leading team – and its existence put pay to yet another local team – Derby Town FC – which had preceded them both.

Derby Midland FC actually preceded the existence of The Rams, being founded three years earlier in 1881 and both clubs share an intertwined history.

Though founded in 1881, Derby Midland FC can actually trace the very reasons for its existence back to 1844 when the Midland Railway company came into being and Derby became its headquarters. With Derby becoming home to an ever increasing number of its employees and recreational pursuits becoming more sought after, various clubs for the employees were formed.

The first club formed was the Midland Railway Cricket and Quoits Club and over the subsequent years athletics, bowls, tennis – and finally – football were added. It is perhaps ironic that, as in the case of The Rams - which was formed in 1884 as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club - the decision to form Derby Midland Football Club was taken with a unanimous decision in a meeting on June 20, 1881 held at the pavilion of their own cricket club.

Derby Town FC – a team that could be considered by many as the trailblazers for football in Derby when it was established in 1869 – soon saw many of its players defecting to Derby Midland, including 23-year-old clerk Henry Evans who became their first captain. The defections were so widespread that within a year Derby Town FC folded.

The old saying ‘what goes around comes around’ is very apt here because, three years later in 1884, the newly-formed Derby County Football Club initiated an equally ruthless raid on the Derby Midland team’s playing staff. Derby County’s first two signings were Haydn Morley and George Bakewell - defectors from Derby Midland – and many more followed.

With war effectively declared between the two clubs, they refused to play each other for three years before meeting three times during 1887-88. Though Midland won the first match, The Rams won the next two.

It was in 1888 however, that the fatal blow struck Derby Midland when Derby County, and not them, was invited to be a founding member of the Football League.

Although, alongside other rejected clubs, they struggled on and joined the Midland League for the 1889-90 season, the writing was effectively on the wall for them and in June 1891 it was announced that they had amalgamated with Derby County. In truth, the announcement was overly kind to them – they had effectively been swallowed whole with Derby County paying off their debts and taking all of their players – one of whom was Steve Bloomer. With that, the short existence of Derby Midland Football Club came to an end.

There is one more thing though. They did play against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup in the 1889-90 season.

They won 3-0.

‘Come on you Mids!’