Latest Derby County news from DerbyshireLive brings you what the former Rams captain Curtis Davies has said about one incident that will go down in folklore
Frank Lampard celebrates victory in the playoff semi-final second leg match between Leeds United and Derby County.(Image: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
Former Derby County captain Curtis Davies said he will never forget the infamous “Spygate” episode with Leeds United that sparked a major rivalry between the clubs.
In what was a first in English football, Leeds sent a member of staff to watch a Derby training session ahead of a Championship clash at Elland Road back in 2019.
Former Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa then admitted he had sent the staff member to watch Derby train and felt he had done nothing wrong.
And recalling the incident, Davies, who was speaking at the launch of Ladbrokes’ new platform, Ladisfaction, said: “The whole ‘Spygate’ thing was just funny to me, to be honest.
“I’ll never forget when it happened – I was in the treatment room just getting some work done, and then all of a sudden all of the lads have started coming in from training.
“Straight away I’m thinking someone’s had a really bad injury, because it’s really rare everyone just comes off the training pitch like that out of nowhere. Generally, if everyone’s off the pitch like that, something bad must have happened. Then someone’s just gone:
“There’s someone in the bushes!”
“I’m just, like, what do you mean there’s someone in the bushes?
“The police have arrested someone. He’s got a Leeds tracksuit on and he’s been spying on the team.”
“And I’m just laughing, like, obviously this hasn’t happened. But it turns out that’s exactly what had happened, and it was all over Sky Sports News, and everywhere.
“That was one thing, but then my big thing was just the front on [Marcelo] Bielsa, which I actually loved, by the way. He was just like ‘we’ve done this to every team, here is the document, here is where we spied on this team, on that team…’
“He showed everyone about 30 documents of information that he’d got about other teams, and said that’s just what they did in South America, so he saw it as getting a leg up, rather than cheating.
“Honestly, that whole PowerPoint presentation just added to it all – it was great drama, and then of course the story grew even more legs because they were given this nominal fine – I don’t even know what they were fined for, to be honest, because it wasn’t as if it was something in the rule books… and then it just became this whole beef between Leeds and Derby, and then obviously we play them in the play-offs… it’s such a good story, really.
“I think from Frank [Lampard]’s perspective, his big thing about it all was that there was no apology, you know, from manager to manager.
“Bielsa was just like ‘so what?’, which I think Frank saw as arrogant – but it’s obviously something Bielsa had done throughout his whole career, so he didn’t see it as an issue. And Frank maybe thought he should have at least apologised for it.
“But he definitely had the bit between his teeth when he went up against him in those games, as he was desperate not to lose on a personal level, as well as the team.”
The two clubs would end up meeting in the play-offs at the end of the 2018/19 season in what was a mouthwatering showdown given the Spygate incident.
Leeds won the first leg 1-0 at Pride Park, but Derby roared back at Elland Road where they sealed a 4-2 win on a famous night to book their place at Wembley.
Derby eventually lost to Aston Villa in the final, but the win at Leeds will not be forgotten given the celebrations which took place afterwards.
Davies was in the away end watching the drama unfold, but felt Lampard’s tactical tweak from the first leg was pivotal to their victory.
“The whole incident with Leeds was honestly like a pantomime, to be honest,” he said.
“Being in the middle of it all, as a player, was crazy. When you look back at that season, where we made the play-off final after beating them at Elland Road, they’d actually already beaten us comfortably three times that season – first at our place, then at Elland Road in the league, then they won again in the first-leg of the play-offs, and to be honest, we were lucky to come out of that game with such a small deficit.
“I was in the stands with the supporters for that night at Elland Road; in the first-leg it was different because as captain I was able to come in and out of the changing room as much as I wanted, but on that night I was up with the fans.
“Obviously as the game unfolds, we go a goal down and you’re just there with your head in your hands, almost, thinking ‘here we go again’. Then we get one back, then there’s another, and then Stuart Dallas scores another for them, and there’s just so much energy and emotion you’re working up, but you’re up there in the stands, not able to spend it all on the pitch…
“I was just literally shaking, because I couldn’t let any of that nervous energy out. And then Jack Marriott goes through again and scores to make it 4-2, it was just mental.
“I couldn’t believe it. You think back to how much they dominated us throughout that season… for us to just get it right in that one performance when it mattered the most, it was brilliant.
“And what Frank doesn’t get credit for on that night, was the slight tweak he made to our team. We played a diamond on that night, which was massive because then we had a lot more control in the centre of the pitch – it was a huge tactical call but it played a massive part in us getting the job done there.
“Obviously in the final, things don’t go our way, and we lose to a stacked Aston Villa side in a game where everything hinges on mistakes and moments, you know.
“We probably could have done better in that final, and a couple of mistakes cost us in the end and we didn’t go up… but for Frank it wasn’t a bad thing because he obviously went on and got the Chelsea job off the back of it.”
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