The BBG pitch got very muddy, very quickly and was ferequently a quagmire. What amazed me was that our players could actually play quality football on it.
The conditions weren't always accidental either. When we played Benfica, Cloughie had the ground staff put hosepipes on, drenching the pitch after Benfica had trained on it in the morning. They had trained on a decent pitch and came back to play the game on a mud bath. They couldn't play on it, we could. 3-0.
The ground was below street level making drainage virtually impossible. Bob Smith, head groundsman from 1964 to 1984 said; “Any water on the pitch was like putting water in a saucer of flour. It went gooey.
“Every big game we would flood the pitch,” Smith added. “No one got why it was just wet for first team games and dry for the reserves.
“What went off behind closed doors got Derby County where they were”.
Then there was the game against Citeh where Joe Corrigan demanded that the ref got the groundsman on to paint the penalty spot on before the spot kick was taken in order to ensure fairness. The original paint was in, under and over quite a few square yards of pitch. I was there
Another was an FA Cup game which, if I remember correctly, was against Boston United in 1955. They dumped Derby out of the Cup 1-6 at the BBG. My late brother was there with my Dad. I was 9 months old at the time so I got left at home with me Mam.
1974 saw a "rematch" in the Cup, again at the Baseball Ground. That tie ended 0-0. Late on they had a shot which, under normal circumstances, would have gone in. It got stuck in the mud just short of the line. Four days later Derby won the replay 1-6 at theirs. A replay they probably should not have had. I was at both games.
