Here’s the first in our series of Fantastic Pictures of Football Grounds Back in the Day. It’s the Baseball Ground, Derby, shot from the stands by a fan in 1969. Perhaps surprisingly, Andy Mac at footballcardsuk.com, who snapped up the pic for pennies at auction, believes it’s the oldest colour pic of the BBG in existence.
Here’s the quiz bit: can you list 10 nailed-on proofs that the pic (just click to enlarge) was taken at a proper match, back in the day, and not at an overpriced soccerbowl theme-park match, last week? Answers below!
1 – There’s a half-time Army brass band, and you don’t get half-time Army brass bands any more.
2 – Ditto the half-time scoreboard, with cunning A-Z code corresponding to matches in the prog.
3 – It’s muddy. Very muddy. A mudbath. Like it always was at the BBG.
4 – Offiler’s Ale sign up on the roof. You don’t get ads on stand roofs any more, let alone for Offiler’s Ale…
5 – You just get ads and corporate sponsor logos plastered all over the inside of the ground. But here there are none.
6 – Just two proper coppers on the beat, in their amusing tit-style helmets – no luminous superbobs with luminous jackets
7 – And no army of useless security-guard stewards clogging up the aisles, telling people to sit down
8 – Because it’s ok to stand.
9 – No pointless attempt by the home manager (Cloughie!) to cheat, using half-time sprinklers at the oppo end.
10 – Er, any more?
Thanks a lot to Andy for the heartbreakingly fab pic. He’s spent the last year scanning 25,000 football cards and stickers and bunging them up on line, so please do have a click and make his day…
Got, Not Got 
It’s Derby and the ground’s full…
Also, that colour green used on the stands was only available pre war 😉
Remember one game at the BBG, must have been on Star Soccer, bloke had to come on with a bucket of whitewash to replace the penalty spot which had disappeared in the mud.
Happy memories of Franny Lee and Norman Hunter trading blows while skidding around in the BBG mud.
That’ll be ram by the touchline as well, I expect. Wearing a red jacket. Don’t get so many of those these days either.
great spotting, great memories, great big oblong of mud that smelled of the metal factory next door!
Tiny dugouts with fans surrounding them. It’s all sponsored plush faux-leather seating stretching halfway up the stand these days, with bored subs tweeting gibberish on their smartphones as far as the eye can see.
Regarding the BBG picture – despite the state of the pitch , it is actually before the game started ! – the lines often had to be re-painted at half-time
The penalty spot incident was against Manchester City in 1977-ish , when it had to be re-measured and re-painted and on BBC Match of the Day.
Also from the BBG is the smell…caused by the factory behind the ground that was established by Sir Francis Ley who originally set up the baseball ground (small letters) as a playing field for his workers before trying to create a UK baseball league (primarily amongst football clubs)
The crude floodlights built on scaffolding on each corner of the stands at either end of the ground
Being so close to the pitch..there would be no room for the technical area they have today
the stands being at strange angles – a result of the baseball ground and football ground having to co-exist for a numbe rof years
Having to get there at 1pm to get your place on the crash barrier so you could see the game
The crush trying to get out
whistling the ‘Laurel & Hardy’ theme as the police strode around the edge of the pitch
The regimental Ram is still a frequent visitor to home games and has been to Pride Park this season
We miss the place…even with 10,000 in there it could sound like 50,000 aided by the towering , wooden stands
An old-style two-tier stand, with the posh nobs in seats at the back and a proper standing “paddock” in front.
Now there’s a proper football word that seems to have slipped out of usage for some reason – cash, filth, pointless change, greed, fear, boredom, hate, Health, Safety, more cash – ‘paddock’
Brilliant
proper nets that you could stand behind and still see the match.
and every club’s stanchions unique!