Lionel Pickering had a massive influence upon the history of Derby County, the football club he loved so dearly. Of course, Pickering had a long and successful commercial involvement in Derbyshire, building his fortune from his pioneering publishing business long before investing in Derby County. He joined the Rams’ board in 1991 before ultimately taking up the reins as Chairman between 1994 and 2003.

Mr Pickering was a lifetime fan and it became a burning desire for him to become involved in the club as he witnessed the post-Clough decline and then the snakes and ladders fortunes under Robert Maxwell.

Lionel can rightly be considered a bona fide football enthusiast and a truly devoted rich benefactor to his local club, in the same manner as Sir Jack Walker at Blackburn Rovers, Middlesbrough’s Steve Gibson, John Madejski at Reading and David Whelan at Wigan Athletic.

During his tenure as Chairman, Pickering revived Derby’s football fortunes by restoring top-flight football to the city and later took the club into the 21st century by overseeing the Rams’ move to Pride Park Stadium and the provision of superb new training and academy facilities.

It could be said that Pickering both helped to rescue the club from a financial abyss, to re-kindle it to the heights but ultimately in the long-term he returned it - sadly for him and all other fans - to a similarly parlous position in 2002.

Derby County was stagnating as Robert Maxwell lost interest in 1990. The board struggled for many months to wrest control from the Mirror Group chief. Pickering had a takeover bid rejected and found himself not alone in being banned from the Baseball Ground by the beleaguered press baron. A takeover was achieved only by the Dutch auction of star players Mark Wright and Dean Saunders to help meet Maxwell’s valuation of the club.

Not long afterwards, Pickering took the Chair. Lionel soon backed manager Arthur Cox extensively, enabling him to buy many highly rated players - but an expensive, inconsistent team fell short of promotion. Cox retired in October 1993 before Pickering opted to allow former assistant manager Roy McFarland to take over. He similarly missed out on promotion in a Wembley play-off final defeat in 1994.

Pickering’s ambition burned on. His resourceful board and administration were set to drive the club forward, comprising the evergreen Stuart Webb alongside Peter Gadsby and John Kirkland, augmented by the commercial nous of Keith Loring and Keith Pearson’s secretarial experience. Then, another renaissance of Derby County arrived when Pickering appointed the unfancied Jim Smith as manager, as McFarland’s contract was not renewed in 1995.

Emboldened by the prospect of immediate promotion, Pickering and his board took the giant step of committing to the club’s relocation to a brand-new 33,000-seat stadium at Pride Park - a project mooted in 1993 but jettisoned in 1995 when partnership funding foundered. Audaciously, in February 1996, the planned move was formally announced, just days before work would have commenced on the irreversible redevelopment of the Baseball Ground.

Lionel Pickering masterminded this quantum leap in entertainment, facilities and attendances on behalf of Derby County Football Club, paving the way for several highly memorable seasons and providing an impressive infrastructure that will serve many generations of Rams fans.

An ambitious and exhilarating period began, with the wily Bald Eagle procuring gems from the foreign transfer market whilst his young assistant Steve MacLaren contributed innovative training and coaching systems that propelled a diverse and talented squad to immediate promotion, then established the Rams in a respectable Premiership berth. The stadium was expanded and was frequently at or near full capacity, also hosting England full and U-21 games. World-class training and youth Academy facilities were added, via the Moor Farm complex.

Smith and MacLaren developed an exciting team, executing masterstrokes in the recruitment of leaders like van der Laan and Stimac as they transformed the Rams into an attractive and respected side boasting the sparkling skills of Asanovic, Eranio, Baiano, Wanchope, Poom and others.

For younger fans deprived of first-hand memories of the great Clough and Mackay eras, Smith’s cosmopolitan squad gave a new generation heroes of their own. Respectable Premier League placings now pointed the return of European football to the city, but it sadly unravelled in the final three seasons of the decade. Manchester United poached MacLaren, never to be adequately replaced, whilst Smith was allowed to sign a trail of expensive duds that plunged the club into residence in the relegation zone, a lingering demise postponing the drop until 2000-2001.

Acrimony and division in the boardroom over control and direction ultimately led to the break-up of Pickering’s fruitful regime that had so recently modernized and revitalized the club and delivered it to his twin peaks of Premiership football and the new stadium.

Over-loyalty to Jim Smith, the blink-of-an-eye failure of Colin Todd in his stead as manager before the appointment of the ill-fated John Gregory dissipated the Rams’ ability to compete at the top level. With the club over-stretched financially and in disarray on the field, Pickering found his credibility as Chairman badly eroded and change at the top was inevitable.

Fans’ unrest, fueled by managerial instability and the spiral towards relegation was finally ignited by his dalliances with Bryan Richardson and Reg Brearley. Both had presided over major decline at their respective former clubs and as the financial pincers squeezed the Rams, suggestions of bonds and other dubious financing proved the catalyst for protests by supporters, leading directly to the formation of the independent supporters’ group RamsTrust.

Pickering became isolated and his judgment faltered. By now increasingly autocratic, he famously invited disgruntled fans to travel up the A52 to support another team instead. Another public relations boomerang was to describe RamsTrust as ‘fiercely independent’, thereby providing a priceless tag line to the burgeoning supporters’ group.

Whilst public outcry prevented any unwise major involvement from Richardson, Pickering’s own stubbornness in refusing tabled bids from his former co-directors between 2001 and 2002 left the club adrift and with a now badly depleted boardroom.

Ultimately, at the turn of the century he had presided over a steep financial decline which saw the club teetering on the edge of insolvency. The £30m debts led to the Co-op Bank wresting control, only for them to fatefully hand the club over unopposed to the now discredited Sleightholme regime.

The subsequent further financial decline of the club to even greater debts would have filled Pickering with horror and the eventual removal of that regime in disgrace and disarray paved the way for the long-deferred local consortium to perform a reconstruction under Peter Gadsby.

His club was once more in the hands of people who shared his passion for and commitment to the club, and took it upon themselves - as he did - to restore the club to its former glories through their own investment and energy.

Whatever his differences with former co-directors late in his tenure at the club, Lionel Pickering would no doubt look upon the return of Derby County to local ownership in 2006 with relief; he would have shared supporters’ hope for another revival.

As the financial stakes required to operate in the Premier League spiralled ever higher, the local owners soon found it necessary to seek higher finance and the American-led GSE consortium took control. They have the stated aim of moving Derby County onto the level of top-flight competitiveness with Nigel Clough now in the manager’s seat - which no doubt in itself would have brought an excited smile to Pickering’s face.

The RamsTrust board and members sent sincere condolences to family and friends at his time of passing in September 2006, and recorded the hope that the club would find a way to recognize Mr. Pickering’s contribution with a lasting tribute of some kind to the former chairman.

 

The opening game of the 2009-10 season was marked as ‘Lionel Pickering Day’ and a replica of the entrance to the Baseball Ground has been sited close to the ticket office at Pride Park Stadium, named as ‘the Lionel Pickering Entrance’. It was built from original materials from Derby’s old stadium, where Mr Pickering watched the Rams from childhood. The entrance provides that deserved and lasting tribute to him and fans will remember his great contribution.