Written by Max
Ground #56
Tuesday 14th November 2023
FA Cup 1st round replay
Derby County 1-3 Crewe Alexandra
Attendance: 6,439
Entry: £10
Derby County Football Club were formed back in 1884 and just 4 years later were one of the founder members of the football league. The name ‘County’ comes from the fact the club was formed as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket club to give players and supporters something to do during the winter months.
The clubs most successful period was in the 1970’s when, with Brian Clough in charge, they won the First Division and made it to the semi final of the European Cup.
Recently though the club have been in financial difficulty culminating in the club going into administration and receiving a 21 point deduction during the 2021/22 season. The club battled valiantly throughout the season but in the end the points deduction was too much and they were relegated to the 3rd tier of English football where they find themselves today.
Tonight’s game saw Derby take on Crewe Alexandra in the 1st round of the FA Cup. The original tie saw The Alex throw away a 2-0 lead at Gresty Road, with ‘The Rams’ forcing the replay with 2 late goals.
Over 800 Crewe fans made the midweek trip hopeful of an upset, but with an injury ravaged squad the feeling was certainly of hope rather than expectation. This hope was dashed within 3 minutes as young defender Lewis Billington panicked at the back and gave the ball straight to the Derby forward Tom Barkhuizen who couldn’t miss from 10 yards out.
From nowhere though, just 4 minutes later, Crewe’s loanee Aaron Rowe ran from the half way line to the edge of the box before slotting a perfect finish into the bottom left corner to the Crewe fans delight. What a way to score your first goal for the club!
15 minutes later and the Alex were in dreamland! Aaron Rowe had done it again, this time via a huge deflection, and Crewe were infront!
Into the second half and Crewe were looking much the better side. The small home crowd were growing more and more restless as numerous easy passes were misplaced by their team. On the 65th minute the game was put beyond doubt with a towering header from Mickey Demitriou putting Crewe 3-1 ahead.
Unlike the original tie, the hosts couldn’t get the 2 late goals to get back into the game and Crewe marched on to the 2nd round. Meanwhile for the former cup winners Derby, this was the first time they’d been knocked out at this stage since the 1984/85 season!
Now to rate my evening at Pride Park:
Location: 6/10
Pride Park stadium is named as such due to it being located on the Pride Park business park on the edge of Derby city centre. The ground is around a 15 minute walk from the train station.
The ground, as you’d expect from a retail park, is surrounded by shops and restaurants. The nearest pub to the ground is The Merlin which is around a 5 minute walk from the stadium. We were told by my Dad’s Derby supporting friend that on a normal matchday this is strictly home fans only but luckily today due to the extremely low crowd we had no problem getting in for a pre match drink.
Kit: 6/10
From afar the Derby kit looks a little plain with their traditional all white shirt, black shorts and white socks. On closer inspection though, there is a nice red and black collar on the shirt as well as a a pattern on the shoulder. A smart looking kit but I’d say is ruined somewhat by the large clumsy sponsor on the front.
Facilities: 6/10
The concourse in the away end is pretty standard for this type of stadium. A decent amount of space for fans to spread out before the game, although the stairs to get up to the stand itself are quite narrow especially when everyone is trying to pile into the ground in time for kick off!
Look: 9/10
Pride Park stadium was opened in 1997 and has a capacity of around 33,000. The stadium is one of a few with a very similar ‘shoe box’ like design with all 4 sides being exactly the same size and height. The main stand is the only one that differs with 2 tiers of seating interrupted by hospitality boxes. The ground looks very impressive, especially under lights with the all black seats.
The corner under the big screen is another impressive feature with more corporate boxes underneath.
Food and Drink: 2/10
Going into the ground around 10 minutes before kick off we headed straight to the unusually quiet food kiosk. We were then told no hot food was available until half time! Now that’s something we have never seen before and was really disapointing.
We didn’t bother going down and fighting with the crowds for some half time food, but by the looks of things from the fans that did it was the generic pukka pies on offer. There were a number of alcoholic drinks of offer too but unfortunately NO DARK FRUITS, so no bonus point today!
TOTAL SCORE: 29/50
So, how do you sum that one up! One of the best away days I’ve been on as a Crewe fan, and what a team Lee Bell is building this season. The only negative I can think of is the fact Emma couldn’t make the game due to work, but it was great to see the game with my Crewe supporting Dad who actually lives in Derby so is loving having local bragging rights!
A surprising thing that I must mention was the lack of home support. Yes it’s the First round of the cup, and yes it’s ‘only Crewe’ but for a club to go from having over 28,000 fans at home on a Saturday, to only 6,000 on a Tuesday is crazy. The club had even slashed ticket prices to just a tenner but even that wasn’t enough for the club to even need to open more than 2 stands.
If you want to see where this score puts Pride Park on our leaderboard you can check out the table here: Football League Leaderboard.
If you’d like to see our Leaderboard of Non-League Grounds click here: Non-League Leaderboard.
Emma’s Ground Guide 