Match of the Day - Week 30

Match of the Day this weekend is the Championship clash between Derby County and QPR.

To preview the game, we look back at the same fixture from February 1973, a period obviously prior to the pitch at Derby's old Baseball Ground becoming a sandpit.

Highlights to look out for - Kevin Hector scoring a workmanlike hat-trick and the epic A-frames!

Commentary by David Coleman...

A-list A-frames - Coventry City FC

True, by the time the Sky Blues were leaving Highfield Road, their home for more than a century, they were shooting into a generic set of box nets.



True too, that through the club's glory years in the 70's and 80's, Coventry were synonymous with Continental D's.


But go far enough back and you find that, at heart, Coventry were A-listers all along.

A-list A-frames - Derby County FC

Those who've seen the movie, The Damned United, will be aware the Rams lost to Juventus in the semi-final of the 1972-73 European Cup.

Not many may know Derby hammered Benfica - Eusebio et al - earlier in that competition, firing three goals into the marvellous A-frames at  the old Baseball ground.




Two years later, Derby were back in Europe and beat Real Madrid. By then, the A-frames had given way to Continental D's (though the pitch hadn't yet become a beach).