Devon/Derbyshire connections

Certainly do. Came with Calvin Plummer as part of a swap deal which took Danny Wilson to Forest. Danny was then frozen out, in typical style, by Brian Clough and was sent on loan to Scunthorpe before Brighton rescued him.

Steve Kendal was a midfield man who had impressed in a reserve match for Forest and continued to do so when he joined the Spireites, but his temperament was said to be suspect, and a promising career at Saltergate came to an end over the matter of a missing benefit cheque which had been issued to the injured Brian Ferguson but turned up in young Kendal's kit. I had no idea that he had ever played for Torquay but he did manage Gretna for a while before they joined the Scottish League.

By the way, Barton. Try the homity pie as well next time. You won't regret it, I promise.

That's more my part of Derbyshire.

Lee Barrow.

John Sims was from Belper too.

How about this one?

www.greensonscreen.co.uk/gosdb-players2.asp?pid=626

He was one of three footballing brothers. The other two were at the centre of a startling case of misplaced brotherly loyalty that cost us the League and Cup double in 1912. I don't know why our opponents that day were allowed in to the DEVON Senior Cup anyway.

www.torquayfansforum.com/index.cgi?board=tufchistory&action=display&thread=1909

Lest anyone should try to hoist me with my own petard and claim that Paltridge was not a Devonian, the Chesterfield historian seems to be a bit of a stickler for detail. He has the place of birth as PLYMPTON rather than Plymouth. Plympton falls just inside cream on the bottom jam on the top territory.

www.docstoc.com/docs/94418989/1909-1921---Chesterfieldxls

Thank you, TFF, for providing a distraction after a rubbish day at work.

With acknowlegments to Lucky Whites & Spireites, the Who's Who of Chesterfield FC, by Stuart Basson, the only two Devonians apart from Jim Paltridge ever to play for CFC or their fore-runners Town and Municipal are George Ashmore from 1931 (another England international goalkeeper), born Plymouth (yeah yeah, I know) and Tom Curtis from 1991 (played in the 1997 semi final) born Exeter.

Oh the joy of this history room. Scott Partridge was the player that Kevin Hodges and Garry Nelson wanted to sign, wasn't he? I didn't realise he was Malcolm's son.

Malcolm Partridge was a lad we allowed to slip through our fingers and sign for Mansfield, for whom he scored a hat trick against the Spireites in a 6-2 League Cup trouncing. From there he went to Leicester and later Grimsby, I think. Calow was also the birthplace of Huddersfield goalkeeper Terry Poole, and he never played for Chesterfield either even though Calow is only a couple of miles from the town centre. In fact these days pretty much all babies round here are born at Calow because that's where our only maternity unit is.

Social historian Downs will no doubt be interested to know that my own children were both born in what used to be the Chesterfield Union Workhouse. That was also where my Irish great great grandfather died in 1877 so how's that for a set of working class credentials?

It is very plain from Stuart Basson's book that Chesterfield Town/Municipal/FC has had more players from Sheffield than any other town or city but there have been a good few Geordies as well. Why so few from Devon I can't imagine. Perhaps West Country folk just can't take our strong ale!

After looking on Ebay for ages for an old Sheffield street plan I've finally found one (although I had to buy a Bristol map as part of the package). It arrived today. It's cloth-backed - and I suspect it might be 1930s - but Higger Tor is shown within the city boundaries.

So here is Sheffield's attempt to do Dartmoor, each of these pictures being taken on Wednesday within the current city boundaries.

Well, perhaps historically it's really Derbyshire...

As for a coast line, not quite there yet.