Country Images Magazine North Edition September 2017 | Page 38

STORER WAS
CLOUGH’S ROLE MODEL
Harry Storer when he
was Derbyshire’s leading
batsman.
By John Shawcroft
IT was not without justifi cation that Brian Clough remarked: “I wouldn’t say I
was the best manager in the business but I was in the top one.” Certainly his
achievements in football with Derby County at the Baseball Ground and with
Nottingham Forest at the City Ground need no embellishment here.
M
ost of his dazzling success owed much to his partnership with
Peter Taylor, although Clough’s record at Forest aft er their
alliance ended also bears scrutiny. But amidst the magic and the
mystique and those devastating one-liners (my own favourite is: “Ah yes,
Frank Sinatra. He met me once y’know?”) he always found time to pay
homage to one of his mentors, Harry Storer, formerly of Derby County and
England and later a successful manager with Coventry City, Birmingham
City and the Rams. Road until 1945 – the 1939 census has him living at Anstey Road, Coventry
with his family, including his widowed mother Flora – before moving to
Birmingham City in 1945. Under Storer the club won the Football League
South title in 1945-46 and reached the semi-fi nal of the fi rst post-war FA
Cup, when they were beaten by Derby County. Promotion to the First
Division was achieved when Birmingham were champions in 1948, their
defence conceding only 24 goals in 42 matches, losing only fi ve. Th en it was
back to Coventry until 1953 before he left on a matter of principle.
Storer was, indeed, a man for all seasons for he also enjoyed success as
an opening batsman with Derbyshire. His uncle William was one of
the county’s greatest cricketers, a wicketkeeper-batsman who played for
England, and the family’s roots lay deep within the Ripley soil, at Butterley
Hill near the famous ironworks. Here, his father Harry senior was born,
a son of John Storer, an enginesmith, and his wife Elizabeth. Harry senior
played a few matches for Derbyshire but he was better known as a footballer,
keeping goal for Arsenal and Liverpool. And it was in Liverpool that Harry
junior was born, at West Derby on 2 February 1898. Storer was out of management for 18 months but kept in touch by adding
straight-talking spice to a radio programme, Sport in the Midlands. He
succeeded Jack Barker as manager of Derby County in July 1955 aft er they
had been relegated to the Th ird Division (North). Th e size of the task was
indicated in December when non-league Boston United thrashed the Rams
6-1 in the FA Cup at the Baseball Ground. Derby fi nished runners-up in
1955-56 but topped the division in the following season. He built a side
which survived in the second tier but, although he reduced the club’s debt,
there was never enough money to provide the class the team needed to
break into the First Division. Storer retired in May 1962, his health not
good, nine months short of his 65 th birthday, feeling he should give way to a
younger man. He scouted for Everton before he died on 1 September 1967
in Littleover, aged 69, leaving a request in his will that his ashes should be
scattered at the County Ground.
By the age of four, Harry had returned home with his parents and his
pride in his heritage was always evident: “Except for a freak of birth I am
a Derbyshire man.” His father took over the Yew Tree at Holloway and
it was here that he died of consumption in 1908 at the age of 37. Harry
junior came to live in the Peasehill-Greenhillocks area of Ripley, attending
school at the nearby St John’s on Derby Road and then, from 1910,
Heanor Secondary. He left school in March 1913 to become an apprentice
mechanical engineer at Crossley’s factory in Ripley.
Storer’s football career began in his schooldays and progressed through
Greenwich Prims, Riddings St James, Eastwood Bible Class and Ripley
Town before he signed for Grimsby Town in February 1919. Converting
from a forward to a half-back, he scored 18 goals in 64 matches for the
Mariners before, in March 1921, Derby County signed him. From 1921-28
he enjoyed his greatest years in football, captaining the team and scoring 60
goals in 257 appearances. He also won two England caps, playing inside-left
in a 3-1 victory over France in Paris and scoring the third goal in May 1924,
and then at left -half in a 2-0 defeat against Ireland in Belfast – injuries meant
England played the second-half with nine men – in October 1927.
Storer married Kathleen in Lincolnshire in 1923 and the couple had two
daughters. He left the Baseball Ground for Burnley in 1929 and in April
1931 retired aft er being off ered the vacant managerial job at Coventry City.
Th e move into management also curtailed his fi rst-class cricket career. In
six out of seven seasons, 1926-32, he headed Derbyshire’s batting averages.
His best season was 1929 when he made 1,652 runs, sharing an opening
partnership of 322 with Joe Bowden against Essex at Derby, Storer making
209. Th e record endured until 2017, when Luis Reece and Billy Godleman
posted 333 in contrived circumstances against Northamptonshire at
Derby. An example of Storer’s courage and quality was his 176 against
Nottinghamshire, who were the champions that year, at Trent Bridge in
1929, Harold Larwood conceding 83 runs in 23 wicketless overs.
Meanwhile, an even more memorable and colourful career in soccer
management began. Coventry owed £14,000 and the ground wasn’t
anything to boast about. But he took them to the Second Division in 1935-
36 – a notable achievement because there was only one promotion place
from each of the Th ird Divisions, north and south. Storer also appeared in
nine matches during Derbyshire’s Championship-winning season of 1936,
his fi nal summer in county cricket. Th e club missed promotion to the First
Division by a single point in 1937-38 and Storer remained at Highfi eld
Th e tales are legendary. Storer’s teams
possessed skill but had their share of hard
men. He had little time for directors and
his views were candid and spared nobody.
When he took over at Derby he signed
a hard centre-half, Martin McDonnell,
and Paddy Ryan, an experienced
inside-forward or wing-half who was
appointed captain. A sound defence was
the watchword – Storer said the biggest
crime you could commit in football was
to give the ball to the opposition – but
his teams gave the lie to any claims that
he was defensively minded. Derby scored
more than a hundred goals in each of his
seasons in Th ird North.
Young players learned to know their place. Storer depicted in his Derby
County and England days
Ian Buxton, another footballer-cricketer,
on a Player’s Cigarette card.
once decided it was time to seek a pay
increase. “I played for Derby when he
was manager and he spent a great deal of
time at the County Ground in the summers talking cricket with us. He was a
very entertaining man to listen to but a hard man to work for. I was playing
Second Division football at that time for about £10 a week and as I’d been
doing reasonably well I thought I would go in a see the boss about a rise. I
managed to get in about two words in half-an-hour and I came out of the
offi ce with the impression that I was lucky to be getting any wages at all.”
A player would also enter the manager’s offi ce to fi nd that the boss’s dog
Billy, normally well under control, was halfway across the room, snarling and
needing careful negotiation. Storer took his time in calling him to heel and
the player almost forgot what he intended to do.
Storer denied that he created hard teams at the expense of skill. “Aft er a
lifetime in this business I know that there is nothing that succeeds better
than good football. I always wanted my teams to play that sort of stuff but