The mere mention of Derby County will bring a frown to the face of any Fulham fan of a certain vintage. Malcolm Macdonald’s homegrown side, put together on a shoestring budget, might well have blown their chances of a second successive promotion by the time they headed for Baseball Ground on the final day of the 1983 season following three consecutive defeats that transformed a seemingly comfortable advantage over Leicester City in a straight shoot-out with the Foxes for the third promotion spot, but that ill-timed loss of form doesn’t diminish the scandalous nature of what transpired.
It is hard not to think of what Macdonald’s magnificent side – very similar in their adventurous approach to Marco Silva’s current Cottagers in many ways – might have been able to do in the top flight. The team was packed with quality from Gerry Peyton in between the sticks, the homegrown duo of Tony Gale and Jeff Hopkins competing with Roger Brown in central defence, the industrious Rob Wilson, Ray Lewington and gifted Ray Houghton in midfield and the prolific Gordon Davies paired with Dean Coney up front. The Whites did things in real style – scoring four against Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Grimsby and Wolves – and, even after their late stumble, a win at Derby would have ended Fulham’s fifteen year exile from English football’s elite after Leicester could only draw with Burnley.
Derby were desperate for the points themselves to avoid relegation and there was a nasty atmosphere in the air, with Houghton recalling that home fans had mimed throat-cutting gestures to the visiting players as they entered the ground. The travelling supporters had coins, a pigs head and urine thrown at them, and there were fights in the vicinity of the Baseball Ground both before and afterwards. Luck wasn’t with Macdonald’s men on the field, either. Home goalkeeper Steve Cherry produced an outstanding save to deny Coney an opener and Davies was incensed at not being awarded a penalty after being fouled in the area. Referee Ray Chadwick appeared reluctant to punish a succession of niggly home fouls – that in the modern game might well have been punished with red cards rather than yellows, but that all seems rather tame when you consider how the game ended.
Derby got the goal their survival hopes depended onto when Bobby Davison volleyed home with fourteen minutes to play. The tinderbox exploded. Home fans scaled the fences in celebration and the stewards and local police failed to prevent the fence gates from being opened. The home crowd flocked around the perimeter of the pitch. Houghton had a shot superbly tipped over the crossbar by an inspired Cherry – and supporters surged onto the field to congratulate the Derby goalkeeper. The contest was now a farce. Lewington remonstrated with several fans as he looked to take the ensuing corner but had to abandon his usual run-up to get the ball in.
Wilson went on a run down the left wing and was felled by a tackle from a supporter. Referee Chadwick restarted proceedings with a drop ball. When he blew for an offside decision, thousands of home fans invaded the pitch again to acclaim Derby’s survival. The players sought sanctuary in the dressing room, with Hopkins – who had his shirt ripped apart – punched several times by Derby supporters. Chadwick said that there were 78 seconds left on his stopwatch, but the reality was that the consistent stoppages following Davison’s goal would have necessitated plenty of injury time.
Macdonald, who never got to manage in the top flight, was apoplectic with rage. He insisted the game should be replayed – repeating over and over in his post-match interviews that a football match was meant to last ninety minutes. Fulham’s appeal to the Football League was dismissed the following Monday, with the league’s then chairman – one Graham Kelly – claiming: “It would be monstrously unfair on other clubs affected, most of all Leicester City. The circumstances cannot be recreated unless you replay almost the whole of the Second Division programme.” A second appeal, supported by a 38-page submission, also failed with the League referring to regulation nineteen of their rules, which gave them ‘absolute discretion’. Fulham’s fabulous side was quickly broken up with the asset-stripping that followed almost taking the club out of business altogether.
There may have been a modicum of revenge earned in recent seasons – with Derby going down from the Premier League after drawing with Roy Hodgson’s side during the Great Escape and those goals from Ryan Sessegnon and Denis Odoi settling a tight play-off semi-final in 2018, but it is understandable that memories of that horrid afternoon remain fresh for all who witnessed such an injustice. How fitting it would be were Fulham to clinch promotion at Pride Park tomorrow night.
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