Are The
Fixtures Out?
Gerald Mortimer
On January 12, 1946, nine-year-old Gerald Mortimer
was taken to the Baseball Ground for the first time
to see Derby County play Millwall in a ‘wartime’
league game. Angus Morrison scored three times, Raich
Carter twice and the Rams won 8-1. By the end of the
season they had won the FA Cup and Gerald watched
the victory parade from a window on The Spot.
It was the start of a love affair that has lasted
for well over half a century until, in May 2002, Gerald
retired from his job as chief sports correspondent
of the Derby Evening Telegraph, a post which gained
him a unique insight into the affairs of Derby County,
and those of Derbyshire County Cricket Club.
Gerald has been on the inside of it all, from nights
of high drama as Brian Clough’s team marched
on in the European Cup, to the dark despair of the
club’s centenary year when the Rams almost went
bankrupt and Derby might have been without a first-class
football club.
And every year Gerald would ask the same question
of both football and cricket clubs: “Are the
fixtures out?” The playing programme, summer
and winter, was what governed his life for over 30
years.
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