The Last Match - A few words from the President !!!

The sacred turf (or swamp, depending on the current climatic conditions) that is called the 1st Team Pitch will soon be the setting for a new housing estate.

It won't be long before customers of the Derbyshire, Halifax and Abbey National Building Societies are planting pansies in the 22 (not much change there then) settling down under the posts to watch Derby County play Belper Town Under 13 on ITV Digital or 'having a quickie' on the halfway line (stories as to how they won't be the first should wait until after the 9pm watershed please).

As a mere newcomer with only 25 years worth of memories of Kedy Road I am finding it difficult to come to terms with the thought that the club will no longer be 'a quarter of a mile past the University on the left hand side'. What Norman Ballard is thinking after 50 years I hate to think, especially coming so soon after Bass calling themselves Coors.

Haslams, the new club, can never replace Kedleston Road. How can you replace an accident that took place nearly 50 years to happen ? Everybody who has had anything to do with Derby Rugby Club since the 1950's will have their own special memories of Kedleston Road and dare I say they cover the entire spectrum of human emotions.

I am sure that those of us who have known the place for more than a couple of months will be sorry to leave but we must accept that "The Pavilion" is soon to be no more and that change is inevitable. The shiney new purpose built Haslams will be a stunning home for the club but it can never have the 'personality' of the old building. What the club hope is that in a very short time Haslams will have become a 'personality' in its own right and that a new generation of members will start building their own bottomless pit of memories.

The only thing left to me now is to welcome everybody to Kedleston Road, to thank the highly tuned athletes of both sides and the officials, to mark my appreciation of David Burd for rehabilitating the Derbyshire Gents side and Geoff Pugh for resuscitating the Derby Presidents team and to ask you all to give generously to the chosen charity and to wish you a 'reet beltin time' that could just one day lead to someone asking "Eh ! do you remember the last game the Gents played at Kedleston Road ?"

Happy Memories,

Tony Fry (President Derby RFC)

The Derbyshire Gentlemen... formed by David 'Eagle' Burd and John Vinecombe in 1968 as a social side with members wearing a black tie with a yellow barrel motif in keeping with Derby RFC colours. In 1972, the wizard current tie with its 'distinctive' colours was adopted so as to not clash with any other known team colours : custard, blood, beer or brown gravy.