Derby County F.C.

Derby County Football Club (/ˈdɑːrbi/) is a professional association football club in Derby, England. The club compete in the Championship, the second tier of English football.

One of the 12 founder members of the Football League in 1888, Derby County is one of only nine clubs to have competed in every season of the English football league system (126 seasons up to the end of the 2024–25 season), with all but six of those being in the top two divisions.

The club was founded in 1884 by William Morley as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club. Its competitive peak came in the 1970s when it twice won the First Division and competed in major European competitions on four occasions, reaching the European Cup semi-finals as well as winning several minor trophies. Additionally, the club was a strong force in the interwar years – finishing league runner-up twice in the 1930s – and winning the first post-war FA Cup in 1946.

The club's home colours have been black and white since the 1890s. The team's nickname, The Rams, honours its links with the First Regiment of Derby Militia, its mascot being a ram, and its regimental song, a tribute to the county's traditions. They have a long-standing rivalry with Nottingham Forest, with whom they contest the East Midlands derby.

Derby County F.C. was formed in 1884 as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club in an attempt to give players and supporters a winter interest as well as secure the cricket club extra revenue. The original intention was to name the club "Derbyshire County F.C." to highlight the link, though the Derbyshire FA, formed in 1883, objected on the grounds it was too long and therefore would not have been understood by the fans who may mistake it for a Derbyshire FA team. Playing their home matches at the cricket club's Racecourse Ground, 1884–85 saw the club undertake an extensive programme of friendly matches, the first of which was a 6–0 defeat to Great Lever on 13 September 1884. The club's first competitive match came in the 1884–85 FA Cup, where they lost 7–0 at home to Walsall Town.

Arguably the most important match in the club's history came in the following season's FA Cup, when a 2–0 victory over Aston Villa, already an emerging force in English football, established Derby County on the English football map, helping the club to attract better opposition for friendlies and, in 1888, an invitation into the inaugural Football League. The opening day of the first ever league season was 8 September 1888, when Derby came from 3–0 down away to Bolton Wanderers to win 6–3, though the club ultimately finished 10th out of 12 teams. In 1891, they absorbed another Derby club, Derby Midland, which had been a member of the Midland League, leaving them as Derby's sole professional football club. Steve Bloomer, generally considered to be Derby County's best-ever player, joined the club in 1892. In 1895, the club moved to a new stadium, the Baseball Ground (so called because it was previously used for baseball), which became their home for the next 102 years. It was then that the club adopted their now traditional home colours of black and white.

Although Derby were inconsistent in the league, they finished as runners-up to Aston Villa in 1896, and achieved a number of third-place finishes. They were a strong force in the FA Cup, appearing in three finals in six years around the turn of the 20th century, though lost all three, in 1898 (3–1 to Nottingham Forest), 1899 (4–1 to Sheffield United) and 1903 (6–0 to Bury).

Notable figures include W. D. Clarke who was reportedly "among the best-known figures in the world of Association football in pre-war days."