Now this clue was simply because Derby County played at The Baseball Ground, or, rather, at Ley`s Baseball Grounds, as it was from 1890. It was called that because it was owned by Sir Francis Ley, who owned a local ironworks, and the ground was named for Derby Baseball Club, who played there until 1898. However in 1896 he allowed Derby County Football Club to play there as well. Then in 1924 Derby County became the owners, maybe he died, I will find out. They stayed there until 1997, though their reserve squad stayed on for six more years, And then, in 2003, the stadium which has brought so much pleasure and emotion to so many people, was demolished.
So here we have Roy Leslie McFarland, a Liverpudlian born in April 1948. He played almost four hundred and fifty games for Derby County, then went on to manage many teams, including them.
If you look at the Trading Card Database /McFarland you will immediately notice, rather amusingly, that one picture was used on several of his early cards. But this set is more artistic, and it is instantly reminiscent of another set where the players were somewhat stylised in appearance. And what do you know, that set was also issued by the same newspaper, The Sun. However our cards, the first ever cards issued by that publication, were circulated almost a decade before the more famous set of a thousand "Soccercards". And presumably The Sun learned from the public, who were not too keen on the plain blank back showing here, for those "Soccercards" have descriptions printed on their reverses.
Apparently, according to a reader, the cards were not included with the paper but instead followed the German style where you had to collect coupons or tokens and send those in. What came back looked a lot different to our card, for it was a long strip of cards, attached by small joining strips, and this had to be cut into the separate cards. Some people cut the cards completely to shape making them a standard oblong, and others cut through the middle of the fixing strips so that a bit remains poking out from the edge. Perhaps they were thinking of posterity, that this information about their arrival would be retained. When the strip arrived the teams were actually in alphabetical order, but once separated this system was lost and gets forgotten.