Are The Fixtures Out?

Author: Gerald Mortimer

Are The Fixtures Out?

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.