RUFC - Spotlight on.......

Rotherham United start their new life at Don Valley Stadium with a pre-season friendly with Derby County this Saturday.

And here are a few facts and figures about The Rams -

Derby County play at Pride Park and, after relegation from the Premiership last season, will start next season in The Championship under the management of Paul Jewell and his assistant, ex Miller, Chris Hutchings.

The club was one of the twelve founder members of the Football League back in 1884 an is one of only eleven clubs to have appeared in all one hundred and nine seasons of the football league since its start.

Amongst Derby`s honours are being twice English League Champions and once winners of the FA Cup.

Their record league victory was in 1891 against Wolves, at the Racecourse Ground and again nine years later against Sheffield Wednesday when the Rams were 9-0 winners at the Baseball Ground. In the game at the Baseball ground, Steve Bloomer scored 6 goals, which is the most ever scored for Derby in a league game.
In 1956/57 while in the Third Division North, they scored their record number of league goals in a season with 111.
The player who has appeared most times for Derby is Kevin Hector clocking up 589 league and cup appearances.
The player who has scored most goals for Derby is Steve Bloomer who played for the Rams between 1892-1906 and again from 1910-1914 scoring a total of 332 goals.
The most capped player for Derby is ex Miller Deon Burton, getting more than forty caps with Jamaica.
The record transfer fee was when they sold Seth Johnson to Leeds for £7m and the most they paid for a player was to Norwich when they bought Robert Earnshaw for £3.5m.

The last time the Millers played Derby was the 2004/05 season in The Championship. In the game at Millmoor the Millers went one up with a penalty from Martin Butler with Derby responding three times from Grzegorz Rasiak, Marcus Tudgay and a penalty from Inigo Idiakez. At Pride Park, Derby were the winners again by three goals to two. The Millers went two up with goals from Chris Swailes and Rob Scott only for Derby to get three with goals from Grzegorz Rasiak, Paul Peschisolido and Jamie Vincent.

In the League there have been 44 games played between the Millers and the Rams

Millers wins - 14
Rams wins - 16
Draws - 14

The two teams have never met in a cup competition

The game is on Saturday, 19th July and kick-off is 3pm

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.