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March 14th

Text from my brother on Friday:

"Shockingly missed an email request to go on Central News last night to discuss Gadsby!"

We try to steer clear of politics at Ramspace as 1) we try to concern ourselves with lighter side of life and 2) there are people who know far more about it than us. You could write reams about the proposals being made but the top and bottom of it is that saying "we'll spend a load of money and get promoted" is less appealing than it might have been a few years ago. The piece by Gadsby in the Telegraph basically said "like we did last time..."* so that's scrape up playing horrible football, spend next years parachute payment on a collection of donkeys, become the worst team ever, then get relegated with huge debts. Good times! Where do I sign the Yanks Out petition?

*Or to be precise "a policy which reaped rewards with promotion in 2007".

 March 12th

For a final post-script to yesterdays entry - will any of Colin Bloomfield's colleagues point out his misuse of the term "telegraph" before the end of the season or is it an in-joke not to?

For those who can't receive Radio Derby's match commentary, Bloomfield uses the expression to mean "read" or "anticipated" instead of the correct football meaning of "did something obvious" or as an on-line dictionary says "divulge one's intention to an opponent or audience".

For example, he might say "the long ball forward was easily telegraphed by Buxton who headed clear". Instead of "Savage telegraphed his pass out wide and it was easily intercepted by the full-back".

Right, that's the end of that topic, I'm going away to think if its the heart or the head telling me that 11/4 to win at Doncaster is a good bet.

March 11th

There's nothing like a heavy defeat to bring out the grumpy old man in me so here's a few grumps about last nights commentary, or more specifically the evident lack of knowledge about Rams goalkeepers.

It got off to a bad start when Colin Bloomfield made a comment like "what a story this could be for young Saul Deeney!" after Deeney made his first save. Deeney is almost 27, has kept a clean sheet against Man Utd. and played at Old Trafford. Yes, he would be pleased to be playing but steady on - its hardly Nigel Spink in the 1982 European Cup Final.

Following the sending off (what a story that was for young Saul Deeney!), Bloomfield, Roger Davies and Colin Gibson (its tempting to use the phrase "three wise men" here) then debated the whereabouts of third choice 'keeper Ross Atkins before concluding he was on-loan at Burton Albion. Now, if you're reading this, the chances are that you have also read, or are about to read, both the Telegraph and official Rams site - the minimum standards for a Rams fans whether you live in Spondon, France or New Zealand. You will no doubt be aware that Ross Atkins is on loan at Kidderminster Harriers (courtesy of my personal favourite "Loan Watch").

This may sound a pedantic point but the aforementioned gentlemen are all paid in part, to watch and talk about The Rams. (Bloomer could be excused to some degree as he is essentially the drive-time host and a Shrewsbury - a bit like Scott Mills appearing on Radio 5).

The tin-hat on the whole episode was the conversation speculating about whether Clough would risk putting someone with Atkins' lack of experience on the bench. Chaps - he's already been on the bench several times when Deeney hurt his foot in a fire evacuation.

March 9th

You may recall the furore last year when we played QPR away and they tried to charge Rams fans £40 a ticket before the league stepped in and the price was pegged at £30. The excuse at the time was something like QPR were trying to provide a high standard of entertainment and the prices should reflect this.

I was pricing up my ticket for this year and noticed it was only £25. Judging by the league table, QPR are evidently not trying to provide the same standard this year. (Even though  thought they were nailed on for the play-off's after playing us off Pride Park back in October).

March 8th

It's always a bit of an unknown when you take a guest to the match. In the worst case they sit there looking bored and make a snide comment about being glad they didn't pay for it - the implication being that you must be a mug because you have. In the best case, the guest enjoys the match, is grateful and brings could luck.

I took a mate from work on Saturday and wasn't sure what to expect. He's not a big football fan but always makes the effort to comment on results, referring to the Rams as "we", even in the worst of times. A nice touch for someone not from Derby who has only been in the UK for just over a decade (I know that sounds a bit patronising but this chap could probably be excused for adopting a Big Four team but has chosen to do the honourable thing. The intended contrast is with someone born and bred in Derby who doesn't take the "this is my home, so this is who I must support" approach to life. ) . 

Anyway, I needn't have worried. Within ten minutes he was on his feet with a hearty "for fuck's sake!" at the ref and kept his enthusiasm going throughout a match which didn't offer too much excitement despite the victory. I always feel some responsibility for a guest (why should I? they're the one with the free ticket) so I was pleased that Michael Tonge served up what has to be a contender for goal of the season (or best goal ever judging by those in the shortlist last year) and the Rams cruised to victory.

So all in all, a good time had by all - my guest thoroughly enjoyed the match, was full of gratitude and brought good fortune. "All boxes ticked" in business parlance.

March 7th

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that our old friend Liam Dickinson had resurfaced at Peterborough, on-loan from Brighton where he wasn't getting a game. It jogged my memory when I read the fans verdict in the Observer and the Posh fan commented "on-loan forward Liam Dickinson doesn't look interested..."

I looked at wikipedia to confirm Dicko's movements and found the following interesting quote regarding his loan move to Leeds last season: "He joined Leeds on loan for the rest of the season on 13 March 2009. However, he failed to score a goal whilst at Leeds as they failed to earn promotion. The loan move was regarded as a total disaster by fans, and Dickinson received some abuse during the games from Leeds fans because of his poor performances."

March 4th

The sudden death of Keith Alexander will have saddened a lot of people in the local area. Alexander had a spell in charge of Ilkeston Town and many local people would have met him during this period. The Hull Fan At Work, a resident of Ilkeston himself, told me the following anecdote today:

"I remember one meeting I had with Keith Alexander. During it, I made a critical comment about the then Hull City manager (a Mr Dolan), and received a dressing down in return concerning my total lack of appreciation of the trails of a lower league manager. I didn’t argue….."

This amused me after just reading a quote from the Macclesfield chairman saying "Keith was the perfect manager for a club like ours. He was totally pragmatic about managing in League Two and the constraints involved." Sounds like The Hull Fan was also had his awareness raised.

March 2nd

I saw today that Jake Livermore had been recalled by Spurs due to injuries to several of their midfielders. Despite playing 16 times for The Rams, I can't recall ever having a conversation about Livermore or anyone expressing any strong opinion about him. The only time I've ever heard any strength of feeling was when he was booed for Peterborough against us - and I think that was just the modern trend of doing so rather than anyone being particularly offended by him.

He was technically good enough to do alright but I couldn't tell you what his qualities are despite seeing plenty of him. Maybe he'll come into his own when surrounded by top notch players...or maybe he will become another Johnny Jackson.

March 1st

Macclesfield manager Keith Alexander talking about recent Rams trialist John Rooney:

"He is a player who deserves to play at a higher level but whether he will move on in the summer is a different matter...He is a very, very good footballer and if he does move elsewhere in the summer, then we will just have to make do without him."

Reading that from Alexander, you'd expect that Rooney was quite a big player for Macclesfield wouldn't you? However in a related story from the Telegraph we are informed:

"His last start was in a 3-0 defeat at Rochdale in early December but he has been used as a substitute [recently]"

A quick glance at Saturdays line-up's reveals that he was an unused substitute again at the weekend. That's not to say he's a bad player as League Two doesn't suit everyone (just ask Sol Campbell) but it does look like Alexander might just be putting in an early pitch for a decent development fee. Macclesfield are currently two places from relegation to the Conference and Alexander hasn't started Rooney since December. Looks like Alexander has already decided to "make do without him".

Clough has said that it depends if Rooney is better than the players we already have in that age group. Well, according to Alexander's judgement, he's at least better than Greg Mills. The Rams loanee didn't even make the bench for the Maccs this week.

February 28th

It was announced at the weekend that Johnny Metgod would be part of Holland's backroom team for the World Cup, taking on some scouting duties in preparation for the tournament.

Nigel Clough and Tom Glick both said how pleased they were for him and that it reflects well on the club etc. On a more practical note though, won't this give us a head-start in the recruitment department? Johnny will be taking in friendlies of Denmark, Japan and Cameroon. I'm sure they'll be plenty of networking going on and agents doing the rounds, "Hey Johnny, did you know no.8's fallen out with his club and you could bag him on a free? How about young no.16 who's desperate to play in Europe but there's no firm bids on the table for him yet", its a good job Jagger isn't there, he'd be in his element! Maybe we can strike a pre-tournament deal à la Asanovic?

Johnny, just be wary of Cameroonian goalkeeper Apoula Edel. This weeks Observer runs a story that Edel is currently playing for Paris Saint Germain and claims to be 23. However, an ex-agent who has fallen out with him claims he "was 19 in 2000". A familiar tale in some ways but this does have some more bizarre elements to it. Edel previously played in Armenia and became a citizen of his new country, playing in two World Cup qualifiers. Now he wants FIFA to annul his appearances so he can play for Cameroon.

Paris Saint Germain claim they have thoroughly checked him out, tracing all the clubs he has played for since 2001 (what, since he was 14?). Whilst Edel admits he knows the agent as he set him up with the Armenian club in 2002, when he was 15 or 16 in other words. Either something doesn't add up or his agent is actually a child-trafficker.

February 24th

There's a story on the official website today about a "shirt amnesty" where fans can donate a football shirt to a charity in India in exchange for a half-priced Rams shirt. Following our recent FA Cup tie, it was heart-warming to see a Birmingham City shirt right at the forefront of the shirts donated. Maybe it was love at first sight for a travelling Blue who swapped allegiances soon after; or maybe the donor read Chris' post-Birmingham Times column and thought "you know what? he's right".

February 22nd

A few months ago I wrote a couple of entries about (allegedly) overage African players. This weeks Observer had a good article on the same subject. Apparently Nigerian bloggers have recently claimed, amongst other things,  that Kanu is really 42 and not 33 (he's started over 20 league games only twice in the past ten years); and Oberfemi Martins is 32 not 25 (we spoke about him previously - in a nutshell, played 88 games for Inter Milan before the age of 21 and never quite reached the same level again).

The one that really caught my eye though was the claim that Taribo West is actually in his late 50s! Surely that cannot be true? When he was with the Rams in 2000/1, he may not have been 26 but I'm sure he wasn't in his late 40s. He had been with MIlan the previous season and looked a good Premier league player, fully justifying his rumoured £40k+ a week as he lead a turn in form that kept us up. According to those calculations, he wouldn't have started professional football until he was 40. Maybe there is still hope for some of us yet!

The last time I mentioned this topic, it was in relation to FIFA plans to determine a players true age ahead of last years Under 17 World Cup (using "magnetic resonance imaging" whatever that is). After preliminary tests, it is said that Nigeria suddenly ditched 15 of their squad whilst Gambia decided to drop 11 of the 18 man squad that had recently won the African Under-17 championship.

February 21st

All good things must come to an end and Saturday looked like one game too far after the current frenzy of home matches. I did the "verdict" for the Observer and it begins with the open question "was it a good game?" to which there was a short two letter answer. The bloke had to ask "are you still there?" before I could think of anything worthwhile to say. Too many 6 out of 10s would be the best way to sum it up. No-one was particularly bad (except Sunu) but we just didn't have the moment of quality that wins games like this (or the lucky break in the box that actually did win it).

On Wednesday, I rated us as the best team in the division on current form. We're not any more but it was good whilst it lasted.

An interesting footnote was the size of the crowd. I know we have a lot of season ticket holders but I was amazed to see that the attendance was 10,000 more than the Birmingham match, especially as Birmingham brought a quarter of the crowd. Using very rough calculations, that's approximately twice as many Rams fans watching the Swansea match.

February 19th

As a post-script to the Preston game, I couldn't help wondering whether Danny Wellbeck was glancing at Neil Mellor on the bench and thinking "I've just seen the future". No, not piling on a load of weight and starting to look like Bryan McFadden but going from Big Four squad man to Championship also-ran. Like Wellbeck, Mellor had a taste of first team action and as he slipped down the totem pole was loaned out in the Championship, no doubt to get some games and goals under his belt. The problem is that when you go from playing with the best players in the world to those who are distinctly mediocre, you find you no longer get a dozen chances a game. All to often, your temporary stint becomes a one-way ticket. I didn't rate Wellbeck after seeing him a couple of times last season, although he did score a good goal with Ronaldo, Giggs and Nani in the supporting cast. He certainly could have done with them on Tuesday.

My brother wondered whether Welbeck's mates had bothered to send him a postcard from Milan.

February 17th

It's a long time since I've seen The Rams dominate a game like we did Preston on Tuesday. The BBC stats show that we had 28 shots (18 on target, 10 off target) as well as 14 corners. Basically we were having a shot or corner roughly every two minutes. Is it any wonder we scored five goals? It was a joy to watch and the players looked like they enjoyed it at least as much. People talk about confidence in football and when we were losing, it sounded a bit of an airy-fairy reason; less quantifiable than, for example, a new defender or forward. However, on Tuesday you could see players wanting the ball; unafraid to take on their man; willing to shoot or make an ambitious pass. All with the backing of a crowd happy to applaud the right intentions whether it came off or not. Even a goal down in the first half, there was no moaning and groaning, everyone fully expected to equalise sooner or later and we did.

The old football cliché is that you're only as good as your last game. I reckon that makes us the best team in the division. Let's hope we still are on Saturday.

February 15th

It's often forgotten that as a city, Derby is twinned with Osnabruck in Germany, a city with roughly half the population of Derby. Hardly the most ambitious pairing when you consider Hull is twinned with, amongst others, Rotterdam, Freetown, Niigata and Reykjavik.

We don't hear too much about Osnabruck, so it was interesting to see their football team get a mention in World Soccer recently. In an article about match-fixing, it was written:

"The German game in particular  is in need of a deep-cleansing operation...One club very much in the eye of the storm are Osnabruck, who were relegated from second to the third division last May. The homes of two of last season's squad were searched by police and investigators believe that up to four players took bribes to influence a number of end-of-term games..."

So now at least you know something about Osnabruck if you're ever asked about Derby's twin city.

February 13th

When a Birmingham fan at work approached me to buy a copy of Bad Worse Worst a couple of months ago, I was wincing inside knowing how many times I'd slated the Blues in it (but a sales a sale). As expected , it was the first thing she mentioned when I next saw her but I don't think she was too offended as she bought a copy of "Who's Pereplotkins?" as well.

With this in mind, I won't concentrate on how annoying today's defeat was (e.g. Birmingham fans singing "your grounds too big for you": their average crowd including Premier League away followings - 24,845. Ours in the Championship - 29,157. Conceding two of the ugliest, scruffiest goals you could imagine).

The consolation is that we kept some momentum going with the performance and hopefully will take that into the Preston match. Jake Buxton was up against a £9m striker and dominated him whilst Commons and Pearson are unrecognisable from a few months ago. My brother made a comment that Commons has adopted some of Dickov's qualities and I completely agree. Playing as a second striker is working equally well when we haven't got the ball meaning a) Commons is frequently breaking up the slow build by the opposition (witness how uncomfortable life was for McKenna and Bowyer); b) Commons is getting more of the ball as he's actually fetching it himself; c) Commons offensive qualities put us on the front foot as soon as he's in possession. Good news all round.

On the way home, I was a bit irritated to hear people talking about how Scunthorpe and co. had got on as though we're still in a relegation battle. Well, I suppose we still haven't won two league games on the bounce. It's about time we did and Tuesady is the chance to do it.

February 11th

Despite getting a lot more hits nowadays, I rarely get emails. So I was pleased to receive this uber-optimistic missive from reader Richard today:

The answers to the two main questions posed are: 50/1 to get promoted and; I agree, probably not. Thanks for the email, I must admit I've had similar thoughts myself.

February 10th

A brilliant result last night, I wasn't expecting such a comprehensive victory but I did remark in the day that Newcastle's new signings hardly put the fear of God into me. Routledge, Fitz Hall, Best; all players who have been round the Championship. Not bad players but hardly Hunt and Tonge are they? Joking aside, it does finally feel as though our loan signings are now there to improve us rather than just ensure we can field a side.

If ever evidence was needed that the F.A. Cup has lost its appeal, look no further than this weekends match against Birmingham. The Rams have just enjoyed two of our greatest home victories for a while; it's the fifth round; and the opposition are local, Premier League and beatable. Yet still parts of Pride Park will be closed on Saturday.

According to the official site "all areas will be open except the South Stand, East Stand Block M and the South West Upper A and E." The next paragraph then says that Birmingham have sold their full allocation of 5,500 tickets (in three days). This begs the question of where they will all be sitting if the South Stand is closed! I only hope that the club meant "closed to home fans" or it could feel like one of those three sided stadiums that became en vogue following the Taylor report; not to mention the segregation problem.

February 8th

Ian Holloway has been nothing if not open and honest over the years, sometimes to a fault. His post-match quotes after Blackpool's weekend defeat to Leicester were certainly open but I can't see it doing Blackpool any favours. He summarised:

"...the message that's going round the division is that if you get solid, you keep your shape against Blackpool, you have a chance of winning".

Well, if the message hadn't spread already, it has now.

On the subject of managers saying silly things, I can't believe what Silly himself has been coming out with now - threatening to involve the Police over Nigel's "assault" on him. (Billy Davies Notts Post February 1st: "I don't think Nigel physically assaulted me...", Billy Davies Daily Mail February 8th: "It was an assault.")

Click here for the full Daily Mail story, which also includes a couple of digs at Forest along the way. Re-reading the story I see it was written by our old pal Neil Hallam. Not being a reader of the Daily Mail I don't know how long Hallam has been writing for them although it is interesting to see after he was frequently accused on forums of being the Derby County "mole" linked with several Daily Mail leaks under previous regimes.

Click here for the Notts Post story if you haven't seen it already.

February 7th

It was such a shame to concede the late goal on Saturday, especially as I had money on a Rams victory at 4/1 (after my tip-off, my Dad concluded that if we did win, it would probably be tight, so put his money on a 0-1 correct score bet). Whenever we drop a couple of points, I can't help staring at the league table to see where we might have been (four places higher in this case). Until we win back-to-back league matches, it's always going to be the case.

Wishing ill-will on Forest as usual, I was cheered to see that Luke Varney had scored at the City Ground. I noticed today that Varney is now on seven for the season - the same as Hulse.

February 5th

Giles Barnes has wasted no time in trying to endear himself to his new paymasters by playing down the play-off final victory. In today's Telegraph he is quoted as saying "Derby were quite lucky that day, if I'm honest...We got battered that day...".

Giles, there's only one thing you can do to find redemption. Inflict promotion heartache on the man who masterminded the Baggies downfall.

February 3rd

Most of us were relieved to see that there were no major departures on deadline day but one player shuffling through the exit door was Aleksandar Prijović.  Prijović has always been a mystery to me, admittedly not helped by never seeing him in action.

The great mystery for me was that even during our injury crisis when we could only name four or five subs, even in the Carling Cup when Gary Teale played centre forward, Prijović was still never given a squad number. Yet he had played 14 games in League One the previous season and has recently been on trial (admittedly unsuccessfully) with MSV Duisburg and Odense of Denmark. Compare this to Greg Mills, a reserve player of similar age who was with Solihull Moor in Conference North whilst Prijović was with the Danish Superliga runners-up. Mills is even listed on the official Rams site as a "midfielder" but still got the call as striking cover. 

I've heard it said that "just cos' he's got a foreign name, it doesn't mean he's any good" but Sandy did have a run of 4 goals in 3 games for the reserves between trial periods so can't be all bad. In this day and age of paying up players contracts, it was also significant that F.C. Sion of the Swiss Super League, Prijović's final destination, paid a "nominal" fee. Not too common for an unwanted 19 year old.

Maybe we would have had to pay Parma a wedge if he ever made his debut - I don't know, I'm just speculating.

Answers on a post card...

February 1st

The vast majority of Billy Davies' comments, ever since we've known him, have been riddled with hidden-meanings, side-swipes, innuendo and the odd bit of irony. So surely he must have had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he said in the same speech "...what goes on around this fixture is just petty ....[...]...I was kneed in the back of the leg by him". Unfortunately, it seems like Silly isn't joking and he has successfully deflected all the attention away from our victory on Saturday.

Checking the story on the Notts Post website, there are no end of comments from either side such as "grow up Davies, oh sorry you can't" and "you've been baiting Nigel since September, in fact you are a master at it..." you can work out the punch-line to that one yourself.

January 31st

I've done the Times column this week so I'll try to avoid duplication and mention a few other observations from Saturday.

First of all, although I was hedging my bets a bit, my "law of averages" comment (last entry) wasn't far off. Although I don't think crediting our victory to the "law of averages" quite does our performance justice. I was taken aback by just how much we dominated the match and started many a sentence with "I don't want to tempt fate but..." followed by things like "Earnie and Blackstock haven't had a kick yet", "they haven't strung two passes together", "they haven't even looked like equalising". I needn't have worried, none of the aforementioned happened.

I think above all, Silly got his tactics wrong. By the time we scored, Forest had wasted so much playing time, they had none left to do anything and had already used substitutions on seeing out the match. Seeing Guy Moussi, I could only think of Simon's comment "I have to duck in my back garden when he has a shot". They were never going to equalise. Davies was so intent on time-wasting, even Forest lost momentum when he and Ned avoided returning the ball from touch - making it doubly hilarious when he went tonto at J-Mac for not giving the ball back at the end!

The contrasting tactics of the two managers were never clearer than with the subs, whilst Silly was dismantling his forward line, Clough brought Teale on. What I always like about Teale is that he gets on the front foot and forces situations. Sure enough, on 78 minutes, he was boxed-in by two Reds but still tried to battle through, leading to Perch needlessly pulling his shorts down. The rest, like Forest's unbeaten run, is history.

January 28th

I can't recall a game being on my mind as much as the Forest match has for the past week. I purposely avoided the phrase "looking forward to" as I don't think that's the right phrase at all. Much like a dreaded exam, I'm looking forward to it being over more than anything.

People I've spoken to this week have generally been quite optimistic, although the phrase "like a cup tie" keeps cropping up. The implication being that the local derby atmosphere could be a leveller which will work to our advantage. Fair enough, it earnt Forest two draws at Pride Park last season. With the run they are on, we can't really argue that we're the better side at this moment in time so any additional help will be gratefully received.

I'm a great believer in the law of averages so I'm hoping one of the following will happen: Lee Camp is due to drop a clanger now that Forest fans are tipping him for the World Cup; Forest's unbeaten away record can't last forever (neither can their unbeaten run); Rob Hulse is more than due a goal (as is Porter if he plays...as is Pearo); the Stuart Attewell debacle has left us with some good fortune in the bank for a future fixture.

Fingers crossed for Saturday...

January 27th

A mate at work was looking for the Radio Derby Robbie Savage interview on youtube when he stumbled across the following clip. You may have seen it already but I hadn't and thought it was hilarious...

On another topic, Inverting the Pyramid - The History of Football Tactics now added to the book reviews section.

January 25th

A friend emailed me a copy of Derby City Council's "Food Hygiene Star Rating Scheme". Derby County feature twice, once as a "restaurant" and once as a "takeaway". I assume the restaurant is corporate packages and takeaway is the food on the concourse.

The restaurant scored an impressive 4/5. However, unfortunately the "Fans First" principle doesn't quite extend to matchday feeding where the hygiene downstairs was only rated as a "2". Oh well, I can't help thinking that if you pay nearly seven quid for a hot dog and fries, you probably deserve food poisoning anyway! 

January 24th

Looking at it objectively, its not been a bad month so far. Only one defeat, points on the road and progression to the fifth round of the FA Cup, thanks to Jay "Ronnie Radford" McEveley. However, next Saturdays match is now on the horizon and could dictate the mood for a while after. It's the first time we've played Forest for a while when they've been in the stronger position (six or seven years I reckon) and their form couldn't be better. Jake Buxton's comment on Radio Derby about "getting in their faces and putting them on their arses" was in itself an admission that we're not expecting tom play them off the park (contrast this to a year ago).

The closing of the transfer window makes it all the more awkward. If Hulse and/ or Commons are to depart, it will be for long term rebuilding but the immediate effect could be a PR disaster in the eyes of those already sceptical. We can't base the whole transfer strategy around one game but the following fixtures of Sheffield United away followed by Newcastle at home mean that bouncing back won't be easy if the worst does happen (i.e. we sell our best players then lose to Forest!).

On the other hand, just like last season, a good result against Forest followed by a Cup adventure could provide a centre piece to the season that would help us forget the forgettable. Before all this we have the Plymouth match of course, a chance to keep momentum going and pick up some points.

It could be an interesting week to be  a Rams fan.

January 20th

It was well documented that when Adam Pearson returned to Hull, one of his immediate tasks was to cut costs (in his words "What's the phrase? Maybe a little too much champagne, maybe not enough ale!").

Shortly after, the Hull Fan At Work told me a rumour that he'd heard where Adam Pearson arrived at work to see boxes full of plush Hull City diaries. When he enquired what they were for, he was told that Phil Brown and Paul Duffen (ex-chairman) had ordered them to give out to City's corporate clients. On hearing this, Pearson allegedly ordered "forget that! Get them in the club shop!".

On Monday at work, the Hull Fan turned up with a brand new, Hull City embossed executive diary - "Two quid in the club shop!" he proudly told me.

If nothing else, I can guarantee the last paragraph is 100% true.

January 18th

In the interest of balance, here's a story about player discontent.

Simon sent me a link to an Albrechtsen story from Sky Sports that is several months old but does include a few extra bits about his departure that I missed at the time. Speaking about falling out of favour, Albrechtsen said:

"I was fined for an interview that I did without asking for the club's permission. That was odd because I had been interviewed several times before without asking for permission.

"One other fine that I got was when I didn't show up for treatment on a toe injury.

"They did what they could to annoy me and if I had stayed I would have turned to the FA, and I am sure they would have been on my side.

"I haven't paid any of the fines because I found out that they would be torn up if I found a new club."

Fined for not turning up to treatment? I should expect so as well! He was paid thousands to use his feet but was happy to collect his wedge without trying to get fit. I don't think the F.A. would have backed you over that one Alby.

Click here for the full story.

January 17th

It's rare that I get the opportunity to go to away games nowadays so I should count myself lucky that I was at Peterborough on Saturday. It was refreshing to be away from Pride Park for a change and a reminder that supporting the Rams can be enjoyable. Away from the phone-ins and forums, it was just 3,000 Rams fans singing-up the players and the manager and witnessing a comfortable win.

It was so comfortable that no one quite knew what to say during the second half. A couple of people around me were  moaning at Savage for playing square and I was thinking - we're 2-0 up against 9 men with no possibility of us not winning and even less whilst they can't get the ball. No pleasing some people eh?

The classic, staple football conversation is "if we could have just won that match, or got a point there etc.." and we know things never work out like that. However, on that theme I noticed something interesting whilst looking at the league tables today. If we had have won our three more than winnable home matches over Christmas: Doncaster, Blackpool, Scunthorpe, we could have been in a play-off spot (depending on goal difference). Obviously we didn't so let's not dwell on that too much but it does demonstrate the thin line between success and failure in this division. So whilst, we may only be seven points from the drop zone, we are also only nine from the play-off's. I'm not anticipating a late surge by the way, I just thought it was interesting.

January 14th

One for the statto's:

During the Savage v. Gibson exchange, there was a point where Savage was asking Gibson "Has Martin Taylor played in the Premier League?" and after a while Gibson replied that Taylor had played once in the Premier League. I didn't think this sounded right so checked in the Complete Record. Taylor has played 10 games in the top flight.

(If Gibson wanted to be really pedantic, he could have said "none, it was Division One, a different era etc...". Savage's argument overall wasn't exactly flawless but Gibbo sounded too punch drunk to present anything back. Oh well, at least it gave Gibson an idea of how it feels trying to do your job whilst being heckled).

January 13th

Shortly before kick-off last night, we were all shivering in a sparsely populated Pride Park when someone piped up with "so, who fancies penalties at 11 O'clock tonight then?". It might not quite have been 11 O'clock when it happened but it was a long, long night. When I looked around the stadium towards the end, the majority of people seemed to be standing up - it wasn't because of the excitement, people were stamping their feet, jumping on the spot, anything to keep the blood circulating. I can't remember anything like it.

The game itself was entirely forgettable but at least we live to fight another day in the FA Cup and have the potential to go on a run given the draw. Our record is appalling against Doncaster but there are worse teams to play in the 4th round (assuming they beat Brentford).

The penalties gave some excitement; and credit to The Rams, I haven't seen five better penalties since Italia 90. Back to winning ways of sorts thank heavens, I couldn't have bared another defeat in light of the Gibson v Savage spat (more to come on the main site hopefully but for what it's worth, I thought it was brilliant by Sav).

January 11th

The fatal attacks on the Togolese team bus last week brought a lot of unwelcome press to the African Nations tournament. The coverage completely overshadowed a remarkable opening match between Angola and Mali in which the hosts were leading 4-0 with twelve minutes remaining; and 4-1 in the 88th minute. Mali scored with two minutes of normal time left before scoring twice in injury time to make it 4-4. A bit like the Scunthorpe game except both teams scored four and it was a bit warmer.

There has been a variety of reactions to the attack on Togo, with Phil Brown and Arsene Wegner first out the traps. Arsenal are missing two first team regulars (Song and Eboue), yet Wegner insisted the show must go on in an intelligently worded speech. Hull City have Seyi Olifinjana and Daniel Cousin there. Olifinjana has been in and out the team whilst Cousin hasn't started a game since August when he lasted only 22 minutes of a 1-5 defeat. So why is Brown so keen to get his players back?

Here's a clue from the BBC website last week:

Hull boss Phil Brown admits strikers Caleb Folan and Daniel Cousin are both likely to leave the club in the transfer window.

Brown is under pressure to trim about £9m from the wage bill and has already had inquiries about the two players.

"Daniel's on African Nations duty and it's hard for him to come back and sign papers. Until that happens then there won't be a deal on the table."

Let's hope he returns safely Phil or Adam won't be pleased. And you know what angry chairmen do...

January 10th

Well, we did see five goals but I'm not sure there was much excitement unless you were a Scunthorpe fan. I don't usually analyse games on the Journals as people can discuss that on the forums. I daresay that the forums are bubbling over now with what went wrong, so I'll throw my tuppence worth in - two target men and no wingers did not work at all. For all the boo-boys have moaned, we missed Teale and his constant forward momentum. Even misplaced crosses and getting tackled in advanced areas cause situations, whereas playing four central midfielders was about as creative as a pub rock covers band.

One person who did have a good time was a Norwegian ground-hopper who had the seat next to me. He wasn't a Derby fan but had decided to travel up from London as we were one of the only games on (he was also planning to see West Ham today but was denied by the weather). Hard core ground-hoppers can only count having "done" a ground if they have seen a goal and this poor bloke had seen the Rams draw 0-0 on two previous occasions, so third time lucky for him. He kept a steady flow of trivia going through the second half such as "Derby and Scunthorpe games average five goals" and "Derby haven't played at home Scunthorpe since 1964", whilst confirming both these were true, I see that Derby have only beaten Scunthorpe once in eight attempts! He also added that the game was being shown live in Norway - pity the NorRams who had dragged all their mates to the pub!

I don't sit next to my brother but Chris' fictional Ricky Ram bears a remarkable resemblance to the bloke who sits in front of me. He looked absolutely thrilled when Scunny's third went in and exclaimed "Heeeeyyyy! Look at them all going home!" as fans left the stadium. I wouldn't mind so much but this bloke wouldn't recognise the final whistle if it was Christmas no.1.

All in all, a complete and utter debacle.

January 8th

As I mentioned last week, its a few weeks since I've been to Pride Park. I'm looking forward to the game but doubly excited as we are now embarking on the half of the season that will contain "ALL THE EXCITEMENT" according to the clubs latest marketing for half-season tickets. Admittedly, there have been a few disappointments at home this season but let's not forget the last minute winners against Peterborough and Plymouth; and the West Brom equaliser. The slogan "Half the season - All the excitement" sounds like its doing the teams earlier efforts a disservice to me. However, it could mean: "We're about to spend £10m in January - great excitement is on the horizon"; on the other hand it could mean "Losing games before Christmas is boring - losing them after Christmas is an exciting relegation battle!". Or maybe it was just an ill-conceived slogan after too many big coffee's.

(Thanks to reader Richard for some of the above).

January 6th

As a loan player, there are a few diplomatic faux pas' you can make when joining a new club, with three reasonably common ones: 1) On joining your new club, slag off your old club and/ or manager...only to find yourself back there shortly after (Caleb Folan recently did this according to the Hull Fan At Work. 2) Bang on about your old club and how determined you are to prove a point (a bit like going for a drink with someone who proceeds to talk about their ex all night). 3) Making it clear that your real status is above your new club and you're doing them a bit of a favour being there (usually Premier league kids, who three months later realise they're actually not as good as they thought).

It is with all this in mind that you have to admire Lee Johnson's utter professionalism and fence-sitting in an interview on the club website at the moment.

Speaking of his move to the Rams from Bristol City he concludes:

"I'm in a fortunate position at the moment to be involved with two great clubs"

With those diplomacy skills, he'd have the Middle East sorted in no time.

January 4th

A couple of months ago, I got an email from a reader that remarked on Rammie being a bit more "laddish" this season and I joked that the next thing we knew he'd be available for stag nights (this pre-dated Rammie's Reading antics but in its own way flagged up what was in the pipeline).

Well, my tongue-in-cheek prediction wasn't exactly spot-on but I wasn't far away; whilst scouring the news of the past few weeks, I see that Rammie was available to hire for New Years Eve! It was all for charity though.

(I wonder if after his Reading debacle he was grovelling to keep his job - "I'll do anything boss!", "right, you're working New Year's Eve for nowt!"

January 3rd

One of the first football stories I came across on my return was that Gary Megson  had been sacked by Bolton and Jagger was the favourite to replace him - my first thought was "how much could I reasonably afford on a bet for Bolton to go down should that happen?". I can just see it now - Jan 2010: "I've every confidence in keeping Bolton up, I've not become a bad manager over night". May 2010 - "the damage had been done and it was a lost cause, I'm fully focussed on rebuilding this club".

The only spanner in the works could be that Owen Coyle is now favourite for the job. My account was boosted by a punt on the Rams to draw (plus two others) at the weekend, so I'll watch with interest.

January 1st

Happy New Year!

The Journals will resume as normal from now on, although I'm at a bit of a loss of where to begin. It's over a month since I've seen The Rams in action; I've yet to see DJ Campbell in a Rams shirt (on the pitch); nor Chris Porter v2.0.

I was quite detached form football whilst on holiday apart from text updates from my brother. I was conscious that one of my final entries before I left was predicting a good run whilst I was away, so when I received the news that we'd beaten Watford, I was feeling quite pleased with myself.

The Doncaster result was an unwelcome surprise and unexpected given the previous home form - typical of The Rams regardless of year; team; management; or any other variable you care to mention.

It was the Blackpool game that really gave me a jolt though. The problem was that I'd got the fixtures mixed up in my mind and thought we were playing Newcastle away on Boxing Day. I was at a party on one of the very few nights out I had; it was a good evening and I was just beginning to make in-roads into the generous contribution of duty free spirits a few people had brought, having seen off my own frugal contribution of a brace of beers (in mitigation, I was told not to bring anything).

The subject turned to football and someone offered to get the scores on his phone. I was straight in with excuses "we're playing top of the league away, I'm not expecting anything" and was then told "you lost 2-0, look", I took the phone to read "Derby 0 Blackpool 2". I felt like I'd just stood in a cow pat wearing flip-flops* and my joie de vivre disappeared immediately. Minutes earlier I had been saying, "let's stay for a bit" but now decided that it was in fact getting a bit late and it was about time to head home. Football, eh?

On a brighter note, the Newcastle news couldn't have come at a better time. After an early hours (i.e. no sleep) flight to Dubai, we were told we had been bumped off the flight and had to wait another seven hours in the parallel universe of Dubai airport (the best form of entertainment for a two year old was the moving walkways - for a solid hour. Escalators were next). Feeling utterly knackered and deflated, my wife passed me her phone "message from your brother...", "Glorious 0-0 battling draw with cartoon [army]... Addison was biblical at the back... [then a sentence about Guttierez which included several swear words along with the words "dirty", "cheating" and "should have decapitated...and made it worthwhile!"]

Now to catch up on all the news....

*I have actually done this during a game of street badminton.

December 8th

I'm away until the end of December now, so a premature Happy Christmas to everyone!

Thanks to those who have been in touch during the year and to those who bought "Who's Perelotkins?".

The Preston game sounded a step in the right direction, let's hope it continues!

December 7th

I'm going on holiday soon and this usually augurs well for The Rams. Under Davies we shot to the top of the league; and we even remained unbeaten under Jagger! I was surveying the fixtures today and remarked to my Dad that a similar run of results is not out of the question this year, once we've negotiated the two forthcoming away games. "There's some more winnable games on the horizon" I said, to which he replied "what Newcastle away?". Our next three homes games are Doncaster, Blackpool and Scunthorpe (yes, Blackpool are doing alright but you know what I'm saying), followed by away matches at Plymouth and Peterborough (Newcastle is also in there somewhere February is a shocker but lets not get too ahead of ourselves).

The table is still ridiculously tight (four points between 4th and 12th for example) so if we have got a good team waiting to burst forth, the next month is the time to show it.

Onto another subject, when I saw Gary Neville limping off on Saturday, the image of Tyrone Mears hissing "yessssssss!" with a clench fist immediately came to mind (see Journals November 30th if you don't get this). I can just imagine him out for Sunday dinner in a nice country pub in the Penines before going "shit! there's no reception, I bet Fabio's trying to get hold of me!"

December 6th

I wasn't at yesterdays game so it's difficult to pass comment. As I learnt from the Reading game, knowing the score doesn't always tell the whole story. With the help of technology, I was able to keep tabs via a combination of radio, TV and Blackberry (not mine) so even from sixty miles, there are a few objective facts that are reasons to be cheerful: we didn't get "fucking slaughtered" as predicted (see post-Reading Journals); we had more shots than our visitors (according to the paper West Brom had only two on target); and we showed sufficient spirit to come back from a spirit crushing situation. We were constantly switching from "glad I'm not there/ gutted I'm not there", so even from afar it was a poignant reminder of why we watch football in the first place.

A draw against good opposition is fine as long as it's counterbalanced with a few away points; now for the hard bit. In the paper last week J-Mac (who else?) was saying we plan to be more attacking in away matches - when you look at the stats, it's about time. We've scored five away from home this season; four were in August (at Scunny and Forest) and the other in the 6-1 caning at Cardiff. Then nothing for two months. The law of averages dictates that something is in the pipeline!

December 2nd

When I was writing the previous entry, I came across a couple of bits of football trivia. The first one being that one of the top clubs in Sierra Leone are called Mighty Blackpool. My first reaction was that this was a wikipedia hoax as Blackpool currently have a Sierra Leone international playing for them - none other than ex-Watford player Al Bangura. You may remember that Bangura was the subject of an attempted deportation a couple of years ago after being accused of being a foreign player outside the Premier League. Anyway, a couple of clicks later, Mighty Blackpool were indeed confirmed as a bona fide club, complete with tangerine and black kit!

The second, also from wikipedia, was a line on the Tyrone Mears entry. A summary of his West Ham career includes the line "He memorably produced an athletic overhead clearance on the line after Stilian Petrov lobbed West Ham keeper Roy Carroll in a match against Aston Villa". It made me wonder if there was some unfinished business between Petrov and Carroll? Petrov was probably thinkning "where's your mate now then you..." after his 50 yarder against us!

My final bit of trivia for those that missed it in the Telegraph, is that Paris Simmons has now apparently been offered a weeks trial at Polish side WKS Slask Wroclaw. Following earlier links with MSV Duisburg and Slovan Bratislava, with a stint at Eastwood Town in the middle (although I don't think he ever played), it makes me wonder quite what his agent is up to.

November 30th

A few points of note from yesterdays Observer:

1) I've mentioned before about being misquoted in the Fans Verdict section but the chap who did it this week must have felt awful on Sunday morning when he was quoted as saying "Lee Croft made some timely tackles". I presume he had said "Leacock".

2) We were talking after the match about Brendan Rogers being a typical UEFA-Pro jargon manager and his post-match comments couldn't have exemplified it better: "...our game management when we were 1-0 up was disappointing...in the last three or four games [we have] achieved targets we set ourselves". I think he's trying to say "we were one-nil up and lost...although our results have been better recently".

3) In the "Tales from Tabs" section (i.e. tabloid stories from last week.) it says Tyrone Mears is hoping to catch the eye of Fabio Capello. He just won't let it lie will he? Funnily enough, last time he said it Derby promptly conceded six at Liverpool; this time Burnley let five in at Spurs.

I thought Tyrone had decided to play for Jamaica after he played in a friendly against Nigeria under John Barnes last year. However, when I tried to confirm my facts, I stumbled across a story saying that Mears had played for Jamaica but was never legally entitled to do so! When he looked into it, his father was from Sierra Leone which leaves Tye in a bit of a pickle. He wants to officially change his FIFA nationality to English and (back to the original point) impress Fabio Capello. If Tye really wants to make it on the international stage, I'm sure they'll be another round of African nations qualifiers around the corner.

(Click here for the full Tyrone Mears story).

November 29th

Before kick-off, Led Zeppelin's riff-heavy "Kashmir" pounded out the stadium sound system, as the on-pitch MC tried in vain to rouse a quiet home crowd. Boo's could be heard as the teams were read out and 90 minutes later the home side trooped off from a half empty stadium. A acquaintance called to me "that was fucking awful, we're gonna get slaughtered next week". The mood continued outside the ground as tetchy home fans bickered over road etiquette with no one in the mood to be generous. Derby County had just recorded their sixth home win of the season, a number second only to Newcastle United.

The writing was on the wall from the first minute. Gary Teale collected the near the left-back spot, skinned his man before his pass was intercepted and the Rams won a throw-in seventy yards further forward than they were only seconds ago - "that's fucking rubbish Teale!" was the verdict of several people nearby.

I'm not sure how we got here but the atmosphere yesterday was strange to say the least - many fans couldn't wait to pounce on any misplaced pass or bad decision and anything good served only to keep the crowd at bay. Looking at it objectively, Reading at home was not an easy game (they'd beat us with embarrassing ease on the previous two occasions). We went one-nil down but then scored twice with flowing, fluent football to win a six-pointer. You'd expect Pride Park to be rocking but people seemed apathetic to the point where half the crowd had drifted home by the time the final whistle was blown.

One of the main criticisms was Clough's decision to go backs against the wall with twenty minutes left. Reading proceeded to dominate, even with ten men and the Rams were lucky to hold on. In retrospect, maybe not the best idea and the win was in spite of this rather than because of it. But can you really blame Clough? When we scored, I said only half in jest "sod DJ Campbell, let's get Miles on" and Clough evidently thought the same. When you need to protect a lead and you have someone with the ability and passion of Addison on the bench, you have to bring him on don't you?

As I said, in practice it didn't really work. We had ten men camped in our box and only Hulse up front. The players looked anxious and any composure immediately went. Once again, Teale was targeted, despite being instrumental in both goals. Simon had a row with someone over the barracking of Teale; after Teale's deft back-heel for the winner the bloke leant over to shake hands. Simon quite rightly told him to sling his hook. . Even Rammie was consigned to the naughty step for the second half after an idiotic "dive" gesture as a player was about to be stretchered off. It was that kind of afternoon.

Players are back and we're starting to win; I'm not sure what the expectation is. With top of the league next week followed by two away games, I dread to think what the mood will be over Christmas - probably the same as last year.

November 26th

On the subject of ex-players, Watford fan Big Nick sent me a link to a story from the Watford Observer. See if you can guess what it's about from the title:

http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/4760102.Tickets_for_Cally_s_Christmas_Disco_still_available/

What caught my eye about the story was the ratio of ex-players to fans: around 25 players and 150 fans. That's a player for every six fans! Just imagine trying to have a pint whilst Luther Blissett's trying to make small talk with you; Worrell Sterling's shouting answers on the quizzer; and Wilf Rostron's barging you on the dancefloor. If Cally drops the conga, there's a fair chance you could be in a man-tangle with a 1984 F.A. Cup runner-up. Potentially a surreal night in the offing. When's The Rams do then?

November 24th

Its fair to say that there are a few negative vibes around at the moment. Well, at least you're not a Grimsby fan. It doesn't seem long ago when we were playing them (and losing 1-3 at home against them on Boxing Day 2002 with our hopes pinned on a 15 year old. And you thought these were dark times?). Anyway, the Mariners are currently one place from the bottom of League 2 (i.e. the fourth division) and have recently sacked Mike Newell. Things are so bad that one of their fans has written an open letter to the club. Click here to view the rant, sorry letter, in full.

November 23rd

Its been very quiet and subdued on the Rams front recently, a blank weekend followed by Fridays non-event of a match. The Telegraph website even had four stories about Mark O'Brien signing a professional contract when I checked at lunch today (an error later corrected - two stories repeated). The headline itself "O'Brien given Rams pro deal...etc" gave sufficient information for me so I'm not sure what the rest was about.

With the chips being down, Nigel may want to take inspiration from another man feeling the heat - Phil Brown. Apparently Brown has been reined in since Adam Pearson returned but has not fully curtailed his eccentricities. According to the Hull Fan At Work, after the Tigers 3-3 draw with West Ham, Brown insisted on Simple Minds' "Alive and Kicking" being blasted out across the KC Stadium. A stadium rock tune perfect for the sun-tan man to be punching the air to.

It made me wonder whether Brown had said "if we win or draw, play it" or whether it was more of a spur of the moment thing. We often mention the stadium music on Ramspace, I think the general idea is that the DJ picks all the tunes with the exception of the "event" music which is more a committee decision. We really could do with a win on Saturday, I wonder what Nigel's choice would be? 

November 22nd

A few quick and random "where are they now?":

Kazmierczak - on loan at Portuguese team Vitoria Setubal, currently second bottom in the table.

Mo Camara - Still with St. Mirren but has made just one appearance this season in the Cup.

Candido Costa - Like Kaz, also in Portugual (well, he is Portuguese). Apparently playing right-back for Lisbon's third club Belenenses, a club who have recently taken former American wonderkid Freddie Adu on loan.

Marco Reich - Freed by Walsall at the send of last season and now playing for Jagiellonia Białystok in Poland.

November 19th

I recently speculated about the standard of Mexican football, following the revelation that Tito had filled his boots with a goal-a-game 17 and topped the goalscoring charts.

Further clues come from a World Soccer article about six of "the game's most travelled professionals". Amongst them is Uruguayan striker Sebastian Abreu ("sixteen clubs and counting" as the article begins). The third paragraph reads:

"Mexico is a favourite hunting ground for the 32 year-old. There he has worn the colours of seven sides and finished top of the goalscoring charts four times. By way of contrast, European football has provided him with far fewer highs".

Tito's no doubt reading this and thinking "I've just seen the future".

November 17th

With this weeks international break, I took the opportunity to dip my toe into the world of non-league football and went to watch Borrowash Victoria vs. Greenwood Meadows in the East Midlands Counties League. I used to live ten minutes walk from Pride Park but  now reside ten minutes walk from the Vics' Asterdale Bowl.

Entering the ground, I was pleasantly surprised to see a band of about 30 young fans in the corner of the stand. Complete with a couple of flags, scarves and replica shirts amongst them, they didn't stop singing for the whole match. With a wide selection of songs customised for various players, they put many a league crowd to shame, even if they did overstep the mark a few times. In mitigation you could argue that its not the behaviour but the context; in a 30,000 crowd you can shout what you like and the recipient generally accepts that it's an occupational hazard of earning thousands week. However, when you're getting little more than beer and petrol money, having a quarter of the crowd shouting "...you've got no birth certificate, you've Aids and can't get rid of it, you're a gypo bastard" does seem a tad uncharitable. One lad did get told not to swear by his mum but the rest of his crew had no such restrictions.

It reminds me of one of the Cambridge Rams, Nick, who suddenly decided to start supporting March Town in the Eastern Counties league. When watching Derby, he was always vocal and nothing was taboo when shouting at officials, players and opposing fans. When he replicated this watching March Town, it lead to a variety of incidents including squaring up to an opposing 'keeper and the ref stopping the match to have a word with him. Not the sort of thing you get in a big stadium.

Back to the Vics, the game itself ended 0-0 but I'll certainly be back. £4 to get in, £2 for for a programme and raffle ticket (optional of course); and £2 a pint in the clubhouse. Not a bad afternoon for less than a tenner.

November 16th

Thanks to the reader who pointed out a comment on a BBC blog (about Derby) that said that Tito had scored 16 goals in 16 games since moving back to Mexico. I checked the gospel of wikipedia and apparently Tito scored 17 in 17, making him the top scorer in the Mexican league. We've speculated on these pages in the past about how good the Mexican league is but I think we now have a better idea - it's a similar standard to the early rounds of the Carling Cup.

(When I googled "Tito Villa", the wikipedia page was the only real source. Other pages suggested were "Tito's Villa" (i.e. the summer retreat of former Yugoslavian dictator); and a YouTube clip of a Tito goal. When I clicked on the link, it was a penalty. The clip was a 49 seconds long; 20 seconds of Tito placing and replacing the ball, half a second of him scoring; and thirty seconds old someone shouting "goooooooooaaaaaaaaaalllll" into a shaking camera. Its here if you're interested.

November 15th

The BBC were a couple of weeks behind with the Ferencvaros news (see Journals November 3rd) but the story does give some detail about why Craig Short's first game in charge was abandoned. Short explains:

"We were 3-0 down at home and then when we scored the fans left the stadium, for some reason," he said.

"They then created a diversion at the front of the ground which the police went to. Then they came in through the family stand onto the pitch to have a go at the players. Riot police appeared from the corner of the stand and managed to stop them.

"Flares were thrown at players and they were taken off. We came back on after 10 minutes, but were only on for another four or five minutes before it all started again. So, the game was abandoned and the result stands as a 3-0 win"

A few free t-shirts on the pitch doesn't seem so bad all of a sudden.

November 11th

Latest book news: Whilst strolling through WH Smith's on his lunch break in Notts, who should Simon see but John "professional ex-Ram for hire" McGovern doing a book signing. Of a new Forest publication. I don't recall seeing him promoting that one in the Telegraph.

(Other book news - the "Who's Pereplotkins?" PayPal link should be fixed now. If not try on the book "Home" page instead of the "About" page. I've also just realised that the review hadn't uploaded properly either! It should be fine now).

November 10th

I mentioned at the start of the season that a few of us would be appearing in the "Us and Them" questionnaire in the programme this season and it was Simon's turn against QPR. He was less than pleased when his piece was printed ("no more media requests!" was his response I think). A few of his answers had been edited, which either snipped off the punch-line or slightly altered the meaning.

The one where he wanted to set the record straight was:

Do you think England will get to host the 2018 World Cup?

What was printed:

Yes. It looks like it’s going to be in Europe and England look to have the strongest bid.

What he intended:

Yes. It looks like it’s going to be in Europe and England look to have the strongest bid. Secretly I’m hoping for Russia though. I know it’s against national feeling but football is so much more fun and exciting when you are watching it in another country.

I thought the Cold War was over but you can't be too careful, the Commies will be running Ilkeston town council before you know it if you print things like that.

November 9th

During the Nigel Clough era, there has been more than a couple of occasions where he has dropped a none-too-subtle hint about the future of various players. For example: the "Strike Force" advertising outside the stadium foretold the futures of Ellington, Tito, Dicko and Varney; Claude Davis was never mentioned as an option months before he left; and Albrechtsen and Stewart were also cut from the equation before we knew what was in store for them. Other low key examples include Lewis Price's omission from goalkeeping discussions over the summer and the "no cover at right back" pronouncements before Jason Beardsley slid off.

With all this in mind, I read with interest Clough's comments on the striker situation in today's Telegraph.

November 8th

Third party review of "Who's Pereplotkins" added to the Book Reviews section.

November 7th

With the game televised, I assume that almost everyone reading this would have seen last nights match. It reminded me very much of last time we had a near fit squad and pummelled someone at home but only scraped home 2-1 - Coventry at home last season.

Coventry had one shot of note last night, which just so happened to be after five minutes and also happened to go in. Otherwise it was one way traffic. The disappointing thing for me was people sat nearby who couldn't wait to pounce on the team and in particular Gary Teale. In the first half, everything Derby did came from the left hand side. Granted, not everything came off but Teale was getting the ball in the box, winning corners and constantly knocking on the door (not to mention supporting Moxey in the first third). Despite the groaning when things didn't come off (and lack of praise when they did), Teale always wanted the ball and kept at it. Contrast this with Lee Croft's recent form - but Croft tells jokes on Soccer AM so he's a diamond geezer innit?

The Rams possession was finally rewarded in the second half with both goals and the penalty starting with crosses from the left. Coventry's young right-back was also sent off after Teale and Moxey had continually asked questions of him all night, forcing him into rash tackles.

The two penalties in the last two Pride Park matches wouldn't have changes the result but may have changed perceptions. QPR's last minute goal made the scoreline embarrassing. Hulse's miss made the score unnecessarily close.

Now that's off my chest, I'll just add one obvious fact - The Rams are a better team with more fit players. "Well of course we are!" you may think. Yes, but judging by some of the recent comments I've heard, I'm not sure everyone had completely grasped that. (I read "worst Rams team in 20 years!" somewhere. He should have gone for 25 - we were in the third division then but the first division five years later.)

Finally, I heard two records played in the stadium last night (other than the "event" music). Two different tracks by The Farm. When was the last time that happened outside a indie disco in 1990?

November 5th

Text received today from the Jackal (remember him?):

"I see Jay Mac's heart stopped beating. Now he knows how we feel when he plays at the back"

You'll have to excuse him, he missed J-Mac's stellar display against Sheffield Wednesday. Looking at the picture of J-Mac today, my first thought was - wasn't Halloween last week? At least Jay's got a Plan B now for if things don't work out  - he can tout himself around the West End as an extra for Phantom of the Opera.

November 4th

You may already know this but I didn't until yesterday...

With the Rams in the middle of this horrendous injury crisis, I was wondering what had happened to Jason Beardsley. He was captain of the reserves at the start of the season but has never been mentioned for a first team call-up. I found the following from Nigel Clough in a Derby Telegraph article:

"Beardsley has gone. He wasn't happy and wasn't enjoying it so he's gone to do other things,"

Contract cancelled by mutual consent apparently. I'm not surprised he wasn't enjoying with Clough continually saying we had no right-back cover and no one to compete with Connolly. He obviously didn't rate him very highly!

November 3rd

Bobby Davison update from Eastern European correspondent Big Nick:

Craig Short is new temp boss. Davison has been sent to Sheff Utd ( What ever happened to Coventry). Their last match and Shorts' first - Vs Debrecen – was called off at half-time due to rioting - although I am quite sure they weren't protesting about BD's departure.

A couple of corrections from the Ferencvaros news. The first was my mistake a couple of days ago. Ferencvaros are now back in the top division after three seasons away. The second - the abandoned game was apparently against Diosgyori (no, me neither) after the away side lead 1-3.

November 2nd

Last week I mentioned that Derby were watching Ilkeston Town striker Amari Morgan-Smith. For those who don't see the local press, he scored a hat-trick on Saturday and had a hand in the fourth as Ilkeston won 1-4 at Blyth Spartans. His goals often sound ugly in the paper (e.g. ball in the face; shot going wide turned in; and loads of penalties) but you can't argue with his scoring record. I was hoping to end this entry with how many goals he has scored. My search didn't find it but I did find a gem of a story. Click Here to read his background.

(Once you've read the story, you may think "what about Craig Flowers?" He was also released).

November 1st

Regular readers may remember some entries from the Journals last season about Bobby Davison becoming manager of Hungarian side Ferencvaros. Well, it seems things have been going a bit Phil Brown for Bobby. My first tip-off was from Big Nick who picked up a story from the Hungarian press last week:

English coach Bobby Davison was not in charge of coaching the Ferencváros football team (FTC) on Thursday, nor will he take part in a press briefing today, Magyar Nemzet reports. It says one can conclude that he has already been fired.
        An announcement of great importance will be made this afternoon, Magyar Hírlap writes.
        The team is currently 13th in the 16-team first division with two wins from eleven matches.

It seems one's conclusion from the story above was spot on. Today I received the following from reader Dr. Andy (taken from The Guardian):

October 30th

"Anoraknophobia - The life and times of a football obsessive" - just added to the Book Reviews section.

October 29th

I went to watch Ilkeston Town vs. Stafford Rangers on Tuesday night. Also in the crowd, so we were told, was Nigel Clough. Apparently there to watch 20 year old Ilkeston striker Amari Morgan-Smith. I see the Ilkeston Advertiser quite often at work and not a match report goes by without a reference to Derby watching Amari. Good reports must be coming back for Nigel to check him out himself.

For the record, Morgan-Smith scored in a 2-3 defeat and although his goal was a penalty, it was him that was fouled after spinning off his man. He didn't do too much else but he does look to have some pace about him. Simon described him a couple of weeks ago as "a bit like Izale McLeod". I think he meant it as an insult but I'd be happy with that at the moment!

Another Nigel Clough story that caught my eye today was the "open letter" on the official club site. Or more specifically the bit where Nigel referred to "decreasing the number of players on our roster" instead of "...in our squad". Either Nigel has been spending a lot of time with our US owners or he had an American ghost writer.

October 28th

Email received today from the Hull Fan At Work:

October 26th

After reading today that The Rams had used 26 players before the clocks had even gone back, I looked over a BBC interview from pre-season. Here are a selection of quotes:

"[Clough was] used to working with a tight but trim squad in the region of 19 at Burton...Clough has trimmed down his squad and wants to operate on a pool of about 20 professionals with several potential loan signings in mind that he can try to bring to the club in the event of injuries.

[Clough said] 'If you can get a tighter squad it is easier to build team spirit because they are involved all the time," he said. "I don't think you need a much bigger squad in the Championship than the Blue Square Premier, it is a matter of keeping them fit mentally and physically. It gives you a continuity of putting out roughly the same side every week.' "

After reading that, it's fair to say that things aren't going to plan, although the plan is still clearly visible, including the loan signings for injuries. You could debate the pros and cons of the plan all day but it does help put into context what is happening and why. Almost every new manager in football will talk of 3 or 5 year plans but how many times do you know what it actually is?

October 25th

It's not often you could use the phrase "airing your dirty washing in public" and mean it literally but the shower of t-shirts at Pride Park on Saturday was as close as you'll get.

There was a lot to be disappointed by on Saturday but ultimately our patchwork team were beaten by a good top six side, better than anyone else we've seen at Pride Park this season. The stadium had looked great for the cameras (I imagine - I haven't seen it on TV) with a sea of white but it all back-fired horribly when the free t-shirts started raining down on the pitch. In my view, it just made us looked stupid on national TV and has since been reported as "Derby fans throwing their shirts on the pitch". I don't think anyone would throw their paid-for shirt, let alone season ticket on the pitch. It was just a cheap shot. It was particularly bad when Shaun Barker was trying to clear the pitch but the t-shirts kept coming. A complete lack of respect which can't help player and fan relations.

The counter argument to this is that it was the players who were the embarrassment. As I said, it was disappointing to say the least but QPR had scored four in both of their previous matches and are a good side. We are still nowhere near full strength and it was never going to be easy. We've had far worse days on the pitch but there are a significant number of fans who are showing far less patience with the current situation than with our previous two managers. Maybe all the patience has been used up?

At the outset of the season, Clough wanted an improvement on last years finish. We finished 18th last season and are currently 19th. However, Clough has also shifted out around 13 players and has had a revolving cast of 10+ injuries for the past month (and a significant group before that). Despite all this, we're still only one win from mid-table. To me, that doesn't warrant a protest.

October 22nd

You may have picked up from some other bits on Ramspace that there is a bit of a moral dilemma for my brother at the moment. My seven year old nephew is being courted by the Red Dogs, whilst Derby remain passive. It started a few weeks ago when Forest were sniffing around (like dogs) but my brother fobbed them off a few times. Despite my nephew playing in Derby and regularly at Moor Farm, there was nothing from the Rams.

Eventually, my nephew went for a training session with Forest after my bro had a chat with one of their head scouts who politely pointed out that Derby's two best youth products in recent years, Barnes and Huddlestone, had both come through the Forest youth system. True unfortunately. My brother even "tweeted" Giles Barnes for an opinion and the reply correctly pointed out that the lad just needs to enjoy his football at that age. (You can see that on the Twitter link on main page, I haven't updated it here yet).

The latest twist was a text from my brother tonight after he heard Darren Wassall talking about the Academy on the radio. He continued "I phoned Radio Derby and stated some facts [about his son's team]. 9 man squad, 6 at Forest of which 5 are Rams season ticket holders. Bloomfield read the facts on air". You can see from that its not just family bias, there's a whole bunch of players already heading down the A52 whilst the Rams are apparently "keeping an eye" on things. No wonder Forest have had a steady flow of home grown first teamers whilst we get one every few years.

October 21st

I can't remember a manager ever getting sacked for not beating us by enough! "Cardiff got six Gareth, it's just not good enough, you'll have to go...". Never mind, we've had worse days, which brings me smoothly onto to the next bit....

Even before I mentioned ex-players (last entry), the Hull Fan At Work left a print-out on my desk. The discussion is about Hull signing a Danish midfielder, I'll include the first couple of lines for the bizarreness of it:

"Hello to all Tiger fans from the USA. Ran into a Hull fan and his son at the USA - Costa Rica match on Wednesday night...Just so you guys all know, Jakob Poulsen is a fine player but he is not even the best midfielder at AGF Aarhus. The best midfielder there is a US international by the name of Benny Feilhaber" 

I'm not sure whether the author was an Aarhus fan in the USA or just felt qualified to compare Poulsen to Failharder by virtue of some late night Eurosport viewing. I have to admit, I'd completely forgotten about Benny. When the Hull Fan was saying "...you can see where this is going", I was saying "...erm, is it about Roy Carroll?"

October 19th

There was an interesting feature in the Leicester programme on Saturday where an article rounded up the whereabouts of ex-players, including those in Europe down to the non-leagues. I was talking to Simon about doing a similar thing on the Journals; I try to include anything I come across but we were thinking of actively seeking out a few.

Within minutes, Simon texted "Jonathan Hunt made a comeback with St. Albans last season five years after quitting the game!". At the ripe old age of 36 apparently.

If you come across any of interest, let me know.

On a similar theme, I enjoyed the official website loanees round-up today. There's always someone I miss when scanning the line-up's in Sundays paper. It tells us that Lewis Price has gone from bench-warming in the Premier League to bench-warming in League One in the space of two years; Armaud Mendy saw his manager sacked a day after his debut (Mike Newell); whilst Mark Dudley had been dropped by Alfreton Town after just one match (it didn't say "dropped" but cross-referencing with the Telegraph tells us this).

October 18th

On Friday night, I arrived early for a rendezvous so had a rare chance to enjoy a solitary pint. Some people love it, some people hate. For me, I think Simon summed it up perfectly when he said "it's like the garden shed for a man in his twenties and thirties". As luck would have it, there was a discarded copy of the Daily Mirror at my table so I had chance to see the Robbie Savage column for the first time.

I enjoyed the read but the bit that caught my eye was a none-too-subtle advert for the car he's selling. Not only did he mention that he was selling his car but included the website address of where you can buy it (a direct link from the electronic version of the column). It's for sale at 50 quid shy of 150 grand. I wonder how much a proper advert in the Daily Mirror would have cost?

To see the article click here.

October 15th

It's been a mystery to some, me included, why Aleksandar Prijović hasn't been anywhere near the first team with our ongoing dearth of strikers. The Sheffield Wednesday game was a case in point when there were no strikers on the bench but a couple of vacancies. The Rotherham and Scunthorpe games, when Teale played down the middle, were other occasions when he might have come in handy. Prijović played 14 games in League One last season and scored a couple of goals (the same as Dickov in fact) so he can't be that bad can he?

Interestingly, the normally sit-on-the-fence Derby Telegraph have a habit of having a little dig in the reserve match reports. Two recent examples include: "Aleksander Prijovic's failure to hold the ball at times... did not help Derby's rhythm in the opening half-hour" and "Not much was seen of Prijovic in the first half" (even though he'd scored). Hardly scathing but you do have to be poor to get dissed by the Telegraph!

I wonder if Prijovic's midweek goal will see him get on the bench now we're down to one and a half strikers?

October 13th

Regular readers will know that I often comment on J-Mac's frequent appearance in the media. I don't know if his agent or whoever sends out press releases; or journo's just think "it's a bit quiet today, I'll give rent-a-quote a bell". Jay's latest one was particularly badly timed. Just as the "Barker out for a month" stories were breaking, J-Mac was on the official website saying "I hope I've given the Manager a selection headache now for the Leicester game". I'm sure Clough has got a selection headache for the Leicester match Jay, especially in defence. However, you being fit is probably not the cause of it!

October 12th

It's a nice idea by the club to give out commemorative t-shirts before the QPR match for the "Wear White Night". However, the plan could be flawed. Temperatures this week are predicted to be as low as 3°C and the match is another couple of weeks closer to winter. Fans will be faced with an awkward dilemma: commit the fashion faux pas of t-shirt-over-jumper (although it will be coat weather - another problem in itself); or risk catching hypothermia. The initiative is in partnership with a US baseball clothing firm. Couldn't they have struck a deal with an arctic ski-wear firm instead?

Below is a description of hypothermia taken from a medical website:

The major initial sign of hypothermia is a decrease in mental function that leads to impaired ability to make decisions. Tiredness or lethargy, changes in speech, and disorientation are typical. The person will act as if they are "drunk".

If you see anyone who fits the above description, fetch the St. John's Ambulance immediately!

October 11th

International breaks are always notoriously quiet for club news, so its little surprise that Ruben Zadkovich has been all over  the local press for playing an hour at Ilkeston last week. I can't remember hearing so much about him since his Olympic campaign was in the Telegraph every day in summer 2008. In fact, there hasn't been a mention of him for several months. Bob had a sweep stake at work about which players would leave in the summer but the whole competition stalled because the whereabouts of Zadkovich could not be ascertained however much anyone tried.

When a player comes back from a long lay-off, the football cliché is often: "it's like a new signing" and this also applies to Zadkovich. Usually, the implication is that the returning player has the potential to make a big impact on the team - Giles Barnes for example. With Ruby, its more a case of - "a bloke has just turned up at Moor Farm with a hat with corks on, carrying a surf board and drinking a can of Fosters. We thought we had 23 players but we actually have 24". When we're struggling to even fill the bench, its not to be sniffed at.

October 9th

I'd heard that Lee Croft now had a slot on Sky's Soccer AM for his bizarre stories but hadn't seen it myself due to not having Sky. If you're in the same boat as me, click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1G5or8FEp8

October 7th

Yet another story from World Soccer but a good one...

In World Soccer, a list was printed of "the best supported clubs in the world" based on 2008/9 averages. At 49th was Gremio of Brazil with an average attendance of 31,725 last season; at 50th was Fiorentina with an average of 28,928. A ten second google search reveals the Rams average for last season to be 29,440. Does this make us officially the 50th best-supported club in the world?

October 6th

After his return from holiday, the Hull Fan At Work announced that he'd been catching up on the Journals and felt it needed something special - he then handed me a truly bizarre story about Phil Brown from the Hull Daily Mail titled "Did Brown sweet talk save suicidal woman?" If I tried to quote from it, I'd end up copying the whole story so I'd suggest you try the link. Basically, Phil Brown claims that he'd taken the Hull squad out for a walk on the Humber Bridge and implied that he'd talked a woman out of suicide with some "sweet talk". The story is followed by about 30 piss-taking comments below it.

After the Humber Bridge Board said they'd heard nothing about it (what was there to report?) the Hull Daily Mail decided to print a full transcript of the interview which is definitely worth a read and again, followed by no end of sarky comments. The follow up story is here Humber Bridge Board unaware of Phil Brown talking down suicide jumper.

The dark farce ends with the Hull Daily Mail asking "were you the woman on the bridge? contact the newsdesk". Meanwhile, the front page of the same paper runs a story about a teenage girl from Hull committing suicide by jumping of a bridge - not the most sensitive piece of journalism.

October 4th

In honour of the second goal on Saturday...

(lyrics courtesy of lyricsondemand.com/onehitwonders)

(Return of the Mac) it is
(Return of the Mac) come on
(Return of the Mac) oh my God
(You know that I'll be back) here I am
(Return of the Mac) once again
(Return of the Mac) pump up the world
(Return of the Mac) watch my flow
(You know that I'll be back) here I go

I think that just about sums up J-Mac's performance on Saturday. As well as Dickov's performance and the lack of numbers on the bench, one of the common comments after the match was "McEveley will be all over the Telegraph this week". Will it be "Jay - I knew my chance would come"? "Jay - So glad to be back"?  I'm sure we'll soon find out.

October 1st

Another story from World Soccer coming up...

After the Bristol City match, an interviewer from Radio Derby spoke to Gary Teale and told Teale how the crowd had wanted him off before he scored. After a few over-hit crosses, Teale was starting to come in for some stick. Teale gave a polite diplomatic answer, which is more than the interviewer deserved after killing Teale's mood.

It's a good job those fans weren't in Colombia. World Soccer reports that Javier Florez has "admitted shooting dead a fan who heckled him over his poor performance. Florez shot [the fan] with a handgun after he had called him maleta (lousy)". Hardly the worst insult. There were mitigating circumstances though. Florez explained "I was drunk...I shot several times. I don't remember it well".

September 30th

I don't think there's much to say about last nights defeat at Cardiff, other than it seems Connolly was genuinely injured and probably isn't worrying too much about winning his place in the team back!

Rapidly changing subject, have you ever wondered what happened to Bob Malcolm? (what do you mean "no"!). Last seen maiming a Celtic player for Motherwell, a picture in World Soccer is accompanied by the caption "Aussie no rules...Shane Smeltz of Gold Coast United finds himself in a headlock by Brisbane Roar's Bob Malcolm". The picture shows a bald bloke with MALCOLM on his back and a poor antipodean stuffed into his armpit. Its definitely him.

In other "where are they now?" news, NorRam Inge Haagensen informs me "[Pereplotkins] is plying his trade back in his home  country and is scoring goals for fun :-) :-). Including a hat-trick!"

September 28th

I think there's some fodder for conspiracy theorists here. First we sign Fredrik Stoor for  cover at right back; two days later Connolly is ruled out of the Cardiff match with a foot injury (despite finishing Saturdays victory). Perhaps Clough had a premonition. Coincidence or not, its rather fortunate for Stoor who says he came to The Rams for a month to play first team football. I just hope for Connolly's sake that he hasn't picked up the same injury that Jordan Stewart did around January.

September 27th

I did The Verdict in The Observer for the first time this season yesterday. For those unfamiliar with it, someone from the paper rings up after the match and you have a general conversation about the game. In the Championship, you get asked "Who played well / who had a nightmare?". I had a moan last season when I got misquoted and ended up bigging up Luke Varney in print when he'd had a shocker. My entry for the same section for Bristol City read:

"Robbie Savage worked hard, threatened throughout and looked sharp. City's Paul Hartley, Lee Johnson and Evander Sno ran the midfield by playing good football. Sno was unlucky not to get his name on the scoresheet".

Within this short paragraph, two things were omitted: Firstly the words "Hulse and Vaughan"; and secondly the words "in the first half". Whether you went to the match or not, you can probably guess where they should have fitted in. As for the extended Sno comment, I certainly can't remember saying that and hadn't even had a drink!

September 25th

I had a brief email exchange with a Sheff. Wednesday fan recently after contacting him to thank him for slating Forest in the Observer. I couldn't resist asking him about Luke Varney. Here's what he had to say:

I like Varney to be honest but I think he's at his best when he plays alongside Jeffers, they compliment each other and are both very good footballers. Unfortunately our game a lot of the time doesn't suit footballers and Jeffers looks to be on his way.

However...I quite like Varney, he DOES bring something to our game, but like Jeffers, he's not one for the high ball, and he does better when facing goal, again, not something we tend to allow him to do.

I think, if he's here for any length of time,  he'll eventually become a target for the boo boys at S6 because they demand instant success from players and from strikers it's purely goals...it doesn't matter how much work  they do or what else they bring to the game.

Laws seems to like him though and if the price is right I'm sure he'd buy him...but the 1 million I heard about is way out of our league and if I'm honest, he isn't worth that.

I was hoping it be would good news but I think the comment of "if he's here for any length of time,  he'll eventually become a target for the boo boys" undermined everything else he said and completely dashed my remaining hopes for a Varney comeback!

(Thanks to Steve at www.owlsalive.com )

September 23rd

It seems you can't turn on the TV, radio or read a paper without seeing Robbie Savage nowadays. The Football League Show, Radio Five, The Daily Mirror - it's a truly multimedia extravaganza. At least he's always positive about The Rams, which is more than you could say about Craig Burley in his playing days ("I'm fit and the boss won't play me" etc.). I heard our old friend Craig on Radio Five on Tuesday so his plead of poverty after the collapse of Setanta didn't come to pass (or was the article just him touting for work?). He was commenting on Forest's latest defeat and dropped in about being "five minutes from home".

One man who has been quiet recently is Jay McEveley. Now he's out the first team, Mr. rent-a-quote doesn't seem to be getting the business. As far as I can see, the most we've had is "McEveley says Rams got what they deserved in cup defeat" after his ten minutes at Rotherham; and "Jay is out to do justice to himself and win back Rams place". We await the next instalment.

September 21st

Is this bad timing or what? Just as our fortunes have dipped, the official club website is inviting season ticket holders to take a "rain check" for this Saturdays match versus Bristol City! The official site is usually full of offers and incentives to get a full house but offering the chance not to bother must be a first?

In fairness, I think the game is the first of a few pre-determined games where fans can miss it and claim an extra ticket at a later date. As I said though, shocking timing (or very good if you're on a downer about things).

September 20th

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how Radio Derby's Colin Bloomfield had taken some stick in one of the forums (August 26th), I didn't add that Roger Davies had also come in for some flak.

On Saturday, a couple of minutes into the match Roger Davies was talking about Palace's Clint Hill, saying "I remember when Izale McLeod took him apart on his debut when Hill was at Ipswich". Clint Hill at Ipswich? I remember Hill at Tranmere and Stoke but not Ipswich - I quick search reveals that he never was. Less than five minutes later Davies was talking about Palace striker Alan Lee, who had apparently "caused us all sorts of problems when he was at Grimsby". Grimsby? Once again, completely wrong.

I am just easily irritated after this run of single goal defeats; or is my inner statto taking offence? Either way, I think Davies needs to revise the commentators fact sheet before the match. I couldn't listen to the whole commentary but assume there were a couple of like-minded listeners who texted or rang in with corrections.

September 16th

After last nights misery against Barnsley, I was cheered by an email I received today talking about the various matchday "gimmicks" that we are seeing more of this season. Some of the things under attack included: "Letting the kids read out the team was sickening. Never again." (agreed - it was cringeworthy) and "I'm not down with the new Rammie at all. He was passable as a glorified children's entertainer, but now he's attempting to be some sort of fan leader." (Rammie as a lad? whatever next, hire Rammie for your stag-do? "Come on gaylord! Down in one!"). One thing that did draw praise was the "Penny Farthing Man". I have to admit, I also enjoyed him for no particular reason, just an old bloke cycling around. Perhaps like the best comedy, it was just the absurdity of the scene as opposed to a booming punch line.

One of my pet hates at the moment is the Dambusters theme just before kick-off. Someone told Simon last night it was because it was played when The Rams won the Championship. All very well but you can just imagine the scene at the time: "bloody hell, we've just won the league, what do we do now?", "quick, play Radio Luxembourg down the tannoy and I'll get some sausage rolls for the lads". 37 years later we are left with an orchestral war theme from the 50's as the peak of our pre-match build up. Even worse, it encourages fans to sing a song about a League One side who are neither local rivals or the days opponents. How strange.

September 14th

One of JJ's opponents for Stafford Rangers in the Conference North (see Journals September 10th) is likely to be Paris Simmons, who I see has recently signed for newly promoted  Eastwood Town. Either there's some confusion to how good, or otherwise, Simmons is; or his agent made his pitch at completely the wrong level in the summer. One minute Simmons was on trial at Wolves in the Premier League, the next he is in a feeder league to the Conference. On top of that, he was also allegedly offered trials by Bundesliga 2 side MSV Duisburg and Champions League entrants Slovan Bratislava.

The MSV Duisburg link is a curious one as Aleksandar Prijovic also had a (unsuccessful) trial there in the summer. Either Duisburg are scouting our reserves or its agents at work. As we had no reserve team last year, I'll assume it's the latter. Just as we were told on Prijovic's arrival "he's played in Serie A for Parma", Simmons could also be billed as "he's played in the Premier League". Both players made a single appearance for a relegated side. The days of Tino Asprilla and European Finals are long gone for Parma. I remember when we signed Prijovic, one of his Parma team mates (Manuel Pascali) joined Kilmarnock around the same time. Not a destination Buffon, Zola or Crespo might have taken.

September 13th

(All the quotations below are taken from today's Observer)

After our defeat at Forest, any criticism we had of the Red Dogs was immediately met with accusations of sour grapes. So it was interesting to read Sheffield Wednesday manager (and former Forest player) Brian Laws talking about Forest after the weekends 1-1 draw at Hillsborough:

"Forest came here to frustrate us, there's no doubt about that. They frustrated the pants off me. They've obviously watched us and said 'if you let them play they're going to hurt you'. It was so stop-start - but that's their game plan and they've got something out of it." 

Billy Davies, charmless and graceless as usual, continued his mission to rile whoever he can by saying:

"We should have taken three points but it's very difficult to play against that sort of long-ball game.They were bashing balls forward constantly. Their keeper kicks the ball a mile and it's difficult to play the type of game we're trying to play against that type of team..."

However, the best summary came from the Sheff. Wednesday fan who gave his opinion in the Observer:

"Forest came with a game plan. They'll be very happy with the result. The visitors were a physical team who came to knock us out of our stride. We've been playing some good football of late and they looked to waste time at every opportunity. Forget about the pretty picture of yesteryear when they used to win European Cups - this team is ugly; a typical Billy Davies side"

No love lost there. Some of the above descriptions could also be applied to the other half of Sheffield at Pride Park on Saturday, who also excelled at time-wasting and spoiling. A below par Rams performance but it was never going to be an easy game. The thing that astonished me was people on the radio afterwards calling for Clough's head only a month into the season, mainly because the 4-3-3 formation wasn't particularly effective on Saturday. How can we plan for the long term when a mid-table start means instant dismissal? Nigel hasn't had the same squad twice this season so finding the right blend isn't going to be instant. We've hardly just lost 0-4 at home to Scunthorpe have we?

There's no avoiding the fact that Saturday was a big disappointment though and the DJ was right to have The Smiths cued up for the final whistle - although I thought "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" might have been more apt. Roll on Barnsley!

September 10th

Some of you would have seen the following but for those who haven't...

I had a link sent to me today, to a column by a Tamworth midfielder Bradley Pritchard. Halfway down, I was thinking "where is this going?" and then:

"...but for me the real highlight of the trip [to Chester] wasn't on the pitch, but during the build-up. Earlier we met at a hotel on the M6 for a pre-match meal.

While in the car park a lad dressed in Derby County gear came up and introduced himself to us as JJ. Apparently he was just starting a month's loan from the Rams, so we just assumed the gaffer had brought in someone. He then joined us in the canteen.

A bit of small talk and couple of slices of toast later he felt a bit more acquainted with everyone. Even the gaffer came over and introduced himself but he thought it was a friend of one of the players so didn't question it too much.

Then JJ [Jermaine Johnson] got a call, "Yeah I'm here with the guys…", he paused then realised that he was with the wrong team. He got up quietly, took his bags and left without a word.

Apparently he was in fact on loan at Stafford Rangers, and when he saw us he assumed that's who we were. Whether he just fancied a free meal or didn't see the large Tamworth Football Club badges on our tracksuits I'm not sure. It's a shame because I think he and big Trev [Trevor Benjamin] really hit it off."

My first thought was - is it normal for loanees to turn up decked out in gear from their host club? I wonder if Dickov turned up in his Leicester tracksuit - "alright lads!"

September 9th

I had a text today saying how funny the Phil Brown quotes were in yesterdays Journals. When I wrote it, I was thinking "do I need to add sarcastic comments or does it speak for itself?" Evidently the latter. I've no malice towards Phil Brown and find it bizarre in fans surveys when Brown is regularly labelled as "most hated..." by clubs with no connection at all with Hull or Brown.

Phil is known for having a big ego though and I can just imagine him walking into Hull aquarium saying "yeah, yeah it's me, calm down, go on then [pulls out pen and starts signing everything in sight]" with a little kid in a Chelsea shirt saying "mum, who was that crank near the shark tank?". The full interview can be found here: In a league of his own when it comes to shoes

September 8th

The combination of the international break and the transfer window closing means there is very little happening at the moment. However, one thing that did find its way to me, via the Hull Fan At Work, was an interview with Phil Brown from a country lifestyle magazine in the East Ridings. Here's a few choice quotes:

Phil Brown talking about his fame in Hull:

"I can go to the local pub for a beer and the locals let me get on with it. People understand it if I want privacy but at the same time I like it when I go to The Deep [aquarium in Hull], the ice arena or to local bars and restaurants and people look astounded that you are there".  

Phil Brown on the subject of clothes:

"Once you can afford decent clothes it's only right that you should...Brian Horton my assistant manager is really into Boss, so I've drifted away from that because I never want to wear the same gear as him!...Shoes? I've got 40 or 50 pairs"

And finally on his on pitch singing after Hull stayed up last season:

"My mother was a singer...[she] always taught me that when you have a microphone, get a song out"

September 1st

I'm moving house in a couple of days so this will be the last post for about a week (not to be confused with my brother who moved house last week, so will be back posting on the main site imminently).

A couple of things caught my eye during the BBC on-line coverage of transfer deadline day:

1) When Dean Sturridge was at Derby, you may have got the impression that he (or his agent) was always angling for a move.  The BBC's "roving reporter" wrote the following:

"Talking of footballers' approach to deadline day, former Derby and Wolves striker Dean Sturridge tells of his routine - which consisted of him pressing his suit and hanging it in the back of his car in readiness should he get a late call about a move and need to appear presentable."

I will grant Sturridge some credit for his sartorial preferences. There's nothing worse than a player transferred for millions and due to earn thousands a week, turning up at his new club in distressed jeans, tacky slogan t-shirt and baseball cap. I've often thought - show some respect you scruffy bastard!

2) The story of Clod signing for Crystal Palace contained the following:

"Neil Warnock then signed him for Sheffield United in 2006 for £250,000, but he only managed 21 league appearances before moving on to Derby a year later for £300,000."

I can only imagine that the writer did his research and thought "some idiot has added a extra nought on here" and adjusted the figures accordingly. I'm sorry son, they hadn't.

August 31st

Text received from Simon today:

"...I've never left a game that we've lost feeling so upbeat and looking forward to the rest of the season. If only we had that passion when we were in the Prem [a reference to the after match scuffle where the even the non-playing staff were evidently hurt by the result. I'd earlier referred to J-Mac's windmill arms on the TV coverage]... I can't wait for the Sheff Utd game. I hate the international break [agreed]."

August 30th

I'll post this weeks Times column on the Journals a) The Times don't upload it so quickly nowadays and 2) my brothers broadband is off at the moment so it won't be on the main site for a few days at least:

A Real Local Derby:

In an age when many of the nations great local derbies have descended into Our Carlos Kickaballs vs. Your Carlos Kickaballs, this weekends East Midlands derby was a throwback to the Good Old Days.

The respective backgrounds of both managers have been well documented and last years Rams double at the City Ground under Nigel Clough, Derby's first and second victories there in over thirty years, brought extra spice to the occasion.

On the pitch, the rivalry continues. Firstly there is Nottinghamshire born Kris Commons, who left Notts Forest acrimoniously last summer to join Derby on a Bosman; and scored the winner during The Rams FA Cup win at the City Ground. Secondly, there is boyhood Forest fan Shaun Barker who chose Derby ahead of Forest this summer when given a straight choice on leaving Blackpool. The Derby squad also contains Jake Buxton and Saul Deeney who both served there footballing apprenticeships in Nottinghmashire.

In the Red corner, we have Derby's record signing and Premier League flop Robert Earnshaw, whilst Derby born "Derby fan" Lee Camp is between the sticks. Camp famously saved a last minute penalty against Derby at Pride Park last season to earn Forest a point.

Even the coaching staff draw comments from supporters. Derby have ex-Reds Gary Crosby and Johnny Metgod supporting Clough whilst many of Billy Davies' entourage were once on the payroll at Derby.

When it comes to authenticity, this East Midlands derby has it all.

The match itself completely lived up to its billing, finishing in a 3-2 victory for the home side who were leading 3-0 at half-time. Forest fans would have enjoyed the first 45 minutes plus the final whistle. Derby fans enjoyed the second half minus the final whistle. A humdinger of a game spoilt only by Nathan Tyson's stupid post-match celebrations that the FA are currently dealing with as a mater of urgency. Before the match, Billy Davies had disingenuously claimed that it was just another three points to be played for but his post match celebrations told another story as he pranced around the pitch as though he'd won the World Cup - conveniently reaching the tunnel in time to "not see" the Tyson incident.

After this weeks West Ham - Millwall riots, it was all credit to The Rams' fans that nobody attacked Tyson who was waving a corner flag only yards from the only sold-out part of the stadium. Unfortunately for Tyson, Police and Stewards were no barrier  from the Rams players and a huge brawl ensued. It was a sorry end which will only serve to perpetuate the bad feeling between the two clubs.

It will be January when the two clubs are scheduled to meet again and it will be interesting to see how both clubs fair in the meantime with very different approaches.

At Derby, Nigel Clough is embarking on what likely to be a lengthy tenure as Rams manager - fans expect and hope Clough will be here for the next five to ten years. Clough lives in Derby (as he always has) and always thinks and acts with the clubs interests at heart, rather than his own.  Clough has spent the summer trimming the squad to create a smaller more unified unit and has also created a reserve "development team" for young professionals and development signings. With the full confidence of the board and supporters, Clough can begin to build.

In contrast, Billy Davies has recently said "my reign as manager could be 13 months if I am very, very lucky" and stories regarding Davies' dissatisfaction with the Forest board player recruitment are frequently in the local papers. Davies appears to follow a "live fast, die young" management policy and even though Forest were the summer's biggest spenders in the Championship, more signings are expected to follow as Davies bemoans his lack of defenders almost daily, pushing for a level of expenditure impossible to sustain with Forest's home gates. Forest's acquisition of new players over the summer is likely to give them a higher finish than last season but the collection of new players, comprising mainly of Championship journeymen and QPR reserves, looks purely and solely geared to get a good Championship finish. If Davies did manage to get lightning to strike twice and reach the play-off's, he would be staring at same situation he created at Derby - and we all know what happened there. To be fair to Davies though, if you're not expecting to there in a year, why do anything different?

So, it's first blood to Forest but Rams fans feel slightly more upbeat than they did at half-time on Saturday. I look forward to the chance of revenge in January and despite the unsavoury finale, the local derby is still alive and well.

August 28th

I'm a bit worried by Silly's pre-match comments for tomorrows match. Usually he takes the approach of "if we win I'm a genius, if we lose it's not my fault" but he has been positively positive about the Dogs' chances tomorrow. The only consolation is that he was making similar noises before Watford routed them at the City Ground a couple of weeks ago.

Whilst looking for Davies' comments I stumbled across "Davies: Young talent not coming through" where the story read: "The manager today admitted his frustration at the lack of young talent coming through the ranks in the club's academy". June 2009 - Davies sacks reserve team coach Jon Pemberton and scraps the reserves despite Forest producing plenty of home-grown players in recent years (quote from Notts Post: "Pemberton believes there are many young players at Forest who can make a big impact at the City Ground"). Davies also scrapped the Rams reserve team. As a result, Davies' sole contribution to youth development at Derby was playing Jason Beardsley once in the Carling Cup. Remember Miles Addison had already made his Rams debut before Silly's appointment but didn't even make the bench for the following two years.

August 26th

I rarely go into the forums but a thread on the Telegraph website caught my eye yesterday. The subject was Radio Derby's new match commentator Colin Bloomfield and the thread was a succession of  comments calling him all the names under the sun and slating his match coverage.

A few pages in, who should enter the fray but Bloomfield himself! In summary, he said thanks for the feedback and feel free to email him directly. Funnily enough, despite the anonymity of the internet, everyone immediately backed down and gave him due respect. Click here to see the thread. After a few supportive comments he came on with a crowd pleasing reference to the "Red Dogs" - I have to admit, he went up in my estimation.

From the little I've heard of Bloomfield, he just sounds like Ross Fletcher Mk2, a young BBC journalist trying to make his way in the world, serving his apprenticeship in local radio. The puzzling thing is why Radio Derby have several sports reporters for the hourly bulletins (less during the day?) but when it comes to the main event on a Saturday, they draft in the bloke from the drive-time show. One minute he's talking about my great auntie's 100th birthday tea-dance, the next he's being John Motson. Good luck to him anyway, the only tip I'd give is to be as partisan as possible.

August 25th

Someone who knows a lot about spending money on agents (see yesterday) is Peter Risdale. I'm currently reading his book "United We Fall - Boardroom Truths About The Beautiful Game (another book on-loan from the Hull Fan At Work).

It's a good read and gives many an insight to the inner workings of a football club and things that happen behind the scenes. Some of the revelations are real eye-openers. One particular anecdote gave a great insight to the macho hard-man culture of David O'Leary's turn of the century Leeds side. Risdale writes:

"...the atmosphere on the coach trips home was of a team buzzing with belief. 'You're still the one' by Shania Twain would belt out from the coach stereo, and players at the back would bellow along, disrupting the concentration of those playing cards. Then, more often than not, a few of them would burst into 'Flying Without Wings' by Westlife..."

Blimey, what can you say about that without sounding homophobic?!

August 24th

I was interested to see the difference in how the "Football League Agents' Expenditure" story was reported last week. Or more to the point, how The Rams expenditure was spun:

The official DCFC website went for: "Agents Fees Fall By £2m", saying that the total fees paid to agents by all Football League clubs had fallen over the past year. Not one mention of the Rams, only a list of lower league clubs who had paid nothing. (The story was the Football League press release published verbatim).

The Derby Telegragh site lead with: "Cash paid to agents slashed by £400,00", reporting that The Rams had vastly reduced the amount of money paid to agents. We were now the fourth highest spenders behind QPR, Cardiff and Birmingham. Crucially, the headline only considered the six month period from January to June 2009, rather than the year.

Headline on Sky Sports news: "Derby County last seasons highest spenders on agents fees" (the wording may have been different but the message wasn't). The BBC also reported Derby as the highest spenders for the season (rather than the six months reported by the DET). The scores on the doors were: Derby £1.04m, Birmingham £757k, Cardiff £540k. A comfortable gold medal for The Rams.

August 23rd

At about ten to five on Saturday, The Rams had just scored a last minute winner which also meant a win on my coupon; news was reaching us that England had a lead of 500 in the last Ashes test and The Libertines was blaring out across Pride Park. It was one of those days - in a good way.

I'd predicted before the game "A narrow Rams victory. We’re not in our stride yet..." and that sums up Saturdays match. I only hope that we are striding by next Saturday as our old friend Billy is making plenty of noise about how well Forest are playing (despite results). Having said that, after Forest's 2-4 defeat to Watford in the week, there were about 80 comments on the Notts Post website that would beg to differ with Billy's assessment. In the paper today, Davies' post-match comments were all about David Pleat's role with Davies saying "David's role is none of my business", a far from harmonious situation by the sound of it. Billy may come good; or injuries, the Forest board, the fans, bad luck etc. may stand in his way. Either way, I'm sure he'll keep us posted.

August 20th

A questionnaire completed for Saturdays programme:

The Game…

• Which player are you most looking forward to see in action today?

Shaun Barker – our biggest summer signing hasn’t yet made his Pride Park debut.

• Who from the opposition would you most like to sign?

Jamie Mackie comes recommended by Dean Moxey, although I wouldn’t mind seeing Paul Sturrock in his heyday!

• Your prediction for today’s game?

A narrow Rams victory. We’re not in our stride yet but should have enough firepower to get the win.

• How do you think the season will pan out for your team?

Definitely a top half finish but I think the play-off’s might be optimistic in what is a transitional year for the squad.

 All About Derby… 

• Most memorable moment as a Derby supporter?

When we beat Rotherham 2-1 in 1986 to get promoted from the third division.

• Is there a player from the past you’d most like to see in today’s Derby team?

I wouldn’t mind seeing Mounir El Hamdaoui back. He only managed nine games for The Rams but is the reigning player of the year and top goalscorer in Holland.

• Is there one you wished had never been in any Derby team?

There are a few Billy Davies signings I could choose from. I’ll go for Bob Malcolm, he was particularly bad.

• Where do you think the Rams will be in five years time?

If the plan of year on year improvement works, I would estimate we’ll be 10^th in the Premier League.

Supporters soapbox…

• What most annoys you about football these days?

Media obsession with the Big Four and all the associated hype.

• Who is the soccer pundit you think talks the most sense?

       I’ve got to go for the BBC’s new protégée Robbie Savage.

• Do you think video referrals on referee’s decisions should be introduced in football?

I was going to say “no” until I saw Crystal Palace’s phantom goal last week. Maybe just for goal line decisions. 

• Do you think England will get to host the 2018 World Cup?

A European country should be due to host it so why not? At least it would guarantee qualification!

August 19th

Is Nigel Clough a secret Ramspace reader? Our "Rams Captain" poll had no votes for Connolly with Savage holding a comfortable majority and now the armband has been given to Sav! This follows hot on the heels of the all-black away kit being voted as the Ramspace readers favourite, shortly before being unveiled as the new strip.

I'm quite sure that  there is no influence whatsoever but it goes some way to proving my long held theory that Ramspace readers are brighter than your average bear.

So far so good with the captaincy, Connolly is relieved of the added responsibility and hey presto, our first clean sheet of the season.

(For the record, I voted for Addison as captain and the orange Patrick kit as my away strip of choice).

August 17th

With the today's departure of Roy Carroll, there remains one sole survivor of Jagger's first transfer window - ironically the man he was desperate to get rid of, Robbie Savage. Jewell signed eight players in January 2008, ranging all the way from unsuccessful to disastrous. Here is the full trip down misery lane: Laurent Robert (contract cancelled before the season was out); Tito Villa (sold at a remarkably small loss); Danny Mills (injured after only two matches); Hossam Ghaly (after a good performance at 'Boro Jagger said we might sign him if he kept up the good form. As unappealing offers go, it was like a student cleaning bogs for the summer being told he might be offered a full-time job. Now in Saudi Arabia); Mile Sterjovski (released from his contract a year early); Alan Stubbs (retired injured in his first game as club captain); Roy Carroll (contract terminated with two years left); and Robbie Savage.

I thought Billy Davies had some bad windows but this must take the biscuit. The ironic thing is that I genuinely thought we'd made some decent signings at the time!

August 16th

I've recently finished Behind The Curtain, an excellent book about Eastern European football by Jonathan Wilson. In the Yugoslavia chapter, he relays an story about the Yugoslavian youth team in Chile for the 1987 World Youth Cup. With the team based in the capital Santiago he writes:

"And Santiago was worth staying in. Mirko Jozic, the Yugoslavian coach, had a reputation as a disciplinarian, and tried to rein in his players, but Stimac had met the winner of Miss Chile 1987, herself of Yugoslav descent, and nothing was going to get in the way of his socialising."

Yugoslavia ended up winning the tournament as well. Sounds like Igor had the ultimate lads holiday to me!

August 12th

I'm glad last nights game against Rotherham wasn't our first game of the season or I'd be seriously worried about the year ahead. When you've been outclassed by Pablo Mills, you know it's been a bad day at the office. Thankfully, there were no points at stake, so we can file the match along with many other cup disasters we've had in previous years. It was about as encouraging as our 1-3 defeat at Lincoln a few years ago - and we went on to reach the play-offs in that season.

One reason for going was to see a new stadium, Rotherham's temporary (?) home, the Don Valley stadium. It was like a big version of Moorways with only one stand open and play taking place a fair distance away. During the second half, with the floodlights on, I felt as though I'd flicked onto Eurosport. Watching a low key European match in an empty stadium surrounded by a running track. It's always good to see a new ground but when it surpassed the match as a point of interest, you know it's a poor display.

If any of you went to Milton Keynes Hockey stadium for our 0-1 defeat in 2004, it was a very similar experience.

August 10th

It was reported in the Telegraph last week that Rams players will give up their bonus if we finish outside the top six. Apparently, the senior players had a chat and then rest of the squad agreed to waive the payment. Last years bonus, for a poor season, was around £16k according to the story. It's all very noble but I couldn't help wondering about some of our younger players. The senior players have all been in receipt of a few years Premier League wages; a slice of a transfer or two; a large Bosman payment; or a combination of all three. On the other hand, the likes of Pringle and Buxton are fresh out of non-league and even a couple of years of professional football would have been a dream come true this time last year. £16k might come in very handy.

As the senior players climbed into their racing cars and monster trucks on Saturday, they may have caught a humbling site in their rear-view mirror -  three of their colleagues (Addison, Pringle and Mendy), all climbing into a VW Golf. Or maybe the trio are a rare breed of footballer - normal people. The carbon footprint of those three going home together was probably the same as Earnie leaving the car park in his Hummer.

Even so, it doesn't detract from the fact that waiving the bonus is great gesture and hopefully signals a derailment of the gravy train that has been riding through Pride Park in recent years.

August 9th

You can't ask for any more than a victory on the first day of the season and The Rams certainly delivered. There were a few parallels with last season: newly promoted opponents who could play; a newish Rams side; and a full house expecting us to win. There were a also a couple of major differences; the football played by The Rams bodes well for the season (last year it didn't); and the manner in which we scored . Last year we failed to score, this year we scored twice through sheer determination to get the ball over the line - a trait so rarely seen in the past two years. 

I had a few post-match conversations which were curiously divided by people saying "we played well first half" and those saying "we played well second half". Veteran Rams fan Chris Kendall simply went for "we played really well" when asked in a newsagents afterwards.

If there is one question mark for me, then the captaincy might need looking at. In a team with several natural leaders (i.e. Miles and Sav), Connolly doesn't look like one of them.  He was implicated in the goal yesterday and although you might say "Bywater committed the foul", an almost identical situation occurred earlier in a less threatening position. In that case, Croft had to act decisively; in the 84th minute Bywater had to act decisively but with disastrous consequences. For the sake of an extra £100K or so, I wouldn't be surprised to see Brayford arriving soon. (Connolly also spent part of Saturday night lamenting Everton's FA Cup final defeat to Simon whilst reminiscing misty eyed over the Toffee's semi-final victory over Man United. It's nice to know he was so happy that about the club he captains winning the first game of the season. Simon dealt him the ultimate sporting insult - he didn't invite him to join the infamous "stalkers gallery" on his camera-phone - and I can assure you the bar is low to join this. (only joking Simon)).

Anyway, I see we've just slipped out of the automatic promotion places on alphabetical order following Coventry's win today so let's concentrate on the Cup for a few days. I just had a look at the Don Valley website for directions for the Rotherham match and see that U2 are playing there a week after us -  the best Bono insult scrawled in the bogs wins a bottle of Babycham.

(One of the reports on the Ramspace newsfeed reads "Shaun Teale's Late Winner Gives Nigel Clough Edge Over Darren Ferguson". Can you remember Shaun Teale? A moustachioed ex-Villa defender who stopped playing meaningful football a decade ago. I wonder if anyone seriously thought it was the same person?)

August 6th

After yesterdays mention of the McDonalds link, The Rams have now announced our latest sponsorship deal with a Casino and Poker firm. Sponsorship deals usually try to match the product with target audience so I assume a marketing firm somewhere has profiled the average Rams fan as being a bloke chomping a burger, whilst playing on-line poker. Charming! The story says a "commemorative mark" will be "prominently displayed at Pride Park and across all club marketing materials". May I be the first to suggest "Get Fat and in Debt with Derby County. Good Times!".

On the subject of the gambling deal, the story on the official site continues by promising "superb events with the Rams First Team" (their capitals). No wonder Pearo has seemed so upbeat during pre-season.

(Have a Punt With Pearo - as featured in earlier Journals - wasn't an arbitrary choice of player although there's no suggestion of anything untoward).

The ironic thing is that on-line gambling was banned in America in October 2006; but when in liberal Europe, do as liberal Europeans do.

Onto another topic; it looks like Billy Davies' new-found bromance with Lee Camp is getting stronger. After signing the bloke he bombed out of Derby, he has now made him vice-captain! I suppose it suggests that Camp is definitely Forest's no.1 - and they're more than welcome.

August 5th

I had a couple of texts when the season tickets were delivered last week - both referring to the McDonalds offer on the back. One said "Glorious!...burger and fries for £2!", the other " 'I'm Lovin' it'? I think fucking not!". I certainly had to do a double-take when the new season ticket was unveiled on-line, all I could see was the McD's voucher.

It reminds me of years ago when bus tickets used to have a 2-4-1 McDonalds voucher on the back. We frequently used to buy a return to Notts for about three quid but accidentally surrender the return journey for a free 59p cheeseburger! That's not a danger with the season ticket though, you can fill your belly all season, which does give the season ticket some added value. If we have a catastrophic start to the season, what's the resale value of a years worth of cheap food? Get it on ebay, I'm sure it would save some chubby fella a fortune between now and May!

August 4th

I read today that the Irish winger we had on trial last year, Jay O'Shea, has signed for Birmingham City. Plenty of scope for a "one that got away" story in the future if he manages to do anything. We had a deal lined up for around £400k but it fell apart when Jagger departed. I can understand Clough not sealing the deal though; when he took over, we had three international right-wingers (Teale, Sterjovski, Pereplotkins) plus Barazite. With a huge squad and no reserve team, a fifth right-winger probably wasn't priority.

A bizarre footnote to the story comes in a reference to "Galway CEO Nick Leeson". I thought there was plenty of scope for a cheap joke about his namesake until I discovered that it is the actual Nick Leeson! In summary, his wife divorced him whilst he was banged up in Singapore for his infamous rogue trading; after his release, he married an Irish beautician and apparently does a turn on the after dinner speaking circuit. He was appointed commercial manager of Galway in 2005 and is now in charge. How odd.

In other strange news today, I read that The Duke is on trial at Blackburn. It may come to nothing or Sam Allardyce could turn him around Kevin Davies style. Allardyce has the knack of getting the best out of players whilst Jagger frequently got the worst. Or maybe Big Sam is another one trying to reunite the aristocratic one with Jason Roberts in the belief that the partnership will automatically yield forty goals.

August 2nd

In August 2003, a new look Derby County side were about to take the field against Stoke at Pride Park. The previous season had been the first back in the Championship following relegation and expectations were high. John Gregory, a manager of high regard, had joined too late to retain Premier League status; but with a strong squad, Gregory was was fully expected to guide the Rams back to the top flight at the first attempt. However, things didn't go to plan. Gregory departed mid-season and George Burley was appointed with a very different brief - save The Rams from a second relegation and cut some fat from the expensive, bloated squad. Burley began the new season without many of the previous years high earners and included a mixture of young players and economical new arrivals.

August 2009, a new look Derby County side were about to ...just read the first paragraph again and swap Gregory for Jewell and Burley for Clough.

The similarities are uncanny although the comparison isn't exactly perfect. In 2003, Stoke were merely a bunch of Neanderthals managed by Tony Pulis whereas in 2009... moving swiftly on, in 2003 it was the first match of the new season whereas yesterday was just a friendly. (If my memory serves me correctly, in 2003 we faced Real Mallorca in our glamour friendly and the Rams won comfortably despite a late consolation from Samuel Eto'o).

In 2003 we lost 0-3, whereas yesterday we drew; so a better omen for the forthcoming season. Especially considering that Stoke are now Premier League high-rollers.

Onto another subject - a few weeks ago I mentioned that the club were advertising for a new stadium DJ. Well, word reaches us that last years man has successfully defended his title, as evidenced yesterday by the usual mix of Britpop and "pop" pop. (In fact yesterdays mix - from Joy Division to The Saturdays was strangely reminiscent of last week in the Blue Note where the doorman was manning the decks after a no-show by the proper DJ). So for those of you who interested, there'll be more "Making Plans for Nigel and "Sheep" this season.   

July 29th

Around this time last year, you couldn't open the Derby Telegraph without a Ruben Zadkovich story. Before we'd even seen him kick a ball, we had a daily dose of "Ruben has an Olympic Chance", "Zadkovich named in Aussie Olympic squad", "Ruben set for Messi challenge in Olympics" and "Zadkovich confident Aussies can claim Olympic medal". But where is he now? There was an inference a few months ago that he had a knock but he hasn't appeared in any stories relating who might be staying or going. I thought we might have sent him to Perth on a 2-4-1 with Bruce but the ever reliable Wikipedia stills has him as a Rams player.

The other day at work, I had to get something from a particularly big cupboard and said "I've just seen Ruben Zadkovich in there", I thought I had an easy audience - one Derby fan - but he looked at me as if to say "I've no idea who you're talking about".

(I suppose the clue to his disappearance from the media is in the first paragraph -  before we'd seen him kick a ball, he was in the paper every day. Once we had seen him kick a ball, well, it speaks for itself doesn't it?)

July 28th

There's an interesting article about Nigel Clough on the BBC website which you may have already seen (if not it can be reached here: Clough times at Derby )

What you may not have read is some added nuggets of information amongst the comments. The comments are the usual Derby v. Forest debates (including someone saying that Clough, along with Crosby and Metgod have "burnt their bridges at Forest" - a bit like an ugly ex-girlfriend saying "I'd never take you back!") but the author joins the fray to answer some of the comments with "well actually I asked him that and he said...". Its worth scrolling down, look for the comments with a blue background.

July 26th

There was an interview with Robbie Savage in today's Independent on Sunday which begins with the line "Robbie Savage will make his debut on the pundits sofa on Match of The Day 2 during the coming season...". He talks about how his Derby career had sunk so low that on returning from his loan at Brighton, Adam Pearson suggested he should ring Ant and Dec for a vacancy on "I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here" (all in jest apparently).

The one slightly worrying comment by Sav was "If the BBC say 'Go down and watch Torquay on a Tuesday night', I'll do it". Let's hope it doesn't coincide with a dip in form, hopefully someone is checking the "policy on second jobs" part of his lucrative Rams contract.

July 24th

A couple of recent entries about African footballers stemmed from the book Elephants, Lions and Eagles by Filippo Maria Ricci. At one stage of the book, Ricci is talking to Cameroon defender (and ex-Rams trialist) Salomon Olembe when Olembe lists a lengthy biography of clubs he has played for. The author wonders how this is possible for a player in an under-17 tournament.

On that note, it was interesting to see in the paper that at the tender age of 19, Ben Pringle has played for West Brom, Morpeth Town, Gretna, Newcastle Blue Star, Ilkeston Town and now The Rams. Someone book him in for a MRI bone scan! (see Journals July 17th).

July 22nd

I had an email from Lee today regarding the Sven appointment at Notts County:

"I assume I'm not the only one who finds the goings on down at Meadow Lane hilarious?... What I really find amusing is the image of Silly holding court with all the local press only to hear their mobile phones start bleeping and see them all suddenly grab their cameras, notepads and pens and high-tail it across the road for a far bigger story."

What a great image! Forest were in the news themselves today for what the BBC described as "their latest high-profile transfer" (I presume the beeb were being ironic here, Forest had signed a QPR reserve striker). I can just imagine Davies and Blackstock entering the hall to be greeted by a sixth former on work experience and a fanzine scribe.

I would imagine Notts council are now reconsidering the colour scheme for Nottingham's new "super stadium", surely the best thing would be to paint it black and white with "County" written in the seats?

July 21st

Text exchange today:

Big Nick - "They were a bit harsh on the former DCFC directors. They'd have got less for murder"

Reply - "If you want criminal use of club funds, how about £3m for Claude Davis on a 4 year contract rumoured to be 20k* a week!" (*that is rumoured it could be half but a small fortune either way).

I reckon the whole Claude Davis episode from start to finish will end up costing us somewhere between £5-7million when his fee, wages and potential pay-off are added up (he also cost us several goals and points). Not only did we find out that last years parachute payment had already been spent on the likes of Clod but our Jamaican friend will also take a slice of this years. It's like Ravenelli without goals or headlines. For pure trivia, it would be interesting to compare the fee paid to get Shaun Barker in, to the fee for getting Clod out.

July 20th

In the Craig Burley post-Setanta story ("I hit the bottle after Setanta gave me the axe" Journals June 26th) he self-pityingly says "There's virtually no chance of any financial compensation. I guess I'll need to get the lawnmower out and start cutting neighbours' grass for a living." . Contrast this with his tone in another "Craig Burley debacle story" from the Daily Record "Scotland star Craig Burley's restaurant goes bust" where he nonchalantly says his losses were "the best part of a couple of hundred grand or more. I thought I could make it work but it turned out to be a pain in the a***."

If you ever felt that his heart was never really in it at Derby, then how about the small detail that Mr. Burley has evidently decided to set up camp in Notts!

July 17th

I wrote in the Journals recently about African football (June 8th). Or more specifically about the allegations of overage players in youth tournaments. A reader has kindly sent me the following story:

"Nigerian players taking part in the Under-17 World Cup will be subjected to MRI bone scans to determine their ages.

Accusations of age cheating have blighted Nigeria's success at international age group tournaments in recent years.

But Sani Lulu Abdullahi, president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), is confident the MRI test will bring to an end such accusations.

"We will use the MRI bone confirmation tests introduced by Fifa," Lulu told BBC Sport on Tuesday.

"This is important as we want to be sure that we do it correctly and that players who represent Nigeria at underage competitions are actually the ages they claim to be."

Nigeria have won the Fifa Under-17 World Cup three times - 1985, 1993 and 2007 - but fans and media alike have long questioned the ages of some of the player representing the country.

The Golden Eaglets, as Nigeria's under-17 team is known, will be playing in their own backyard in October as they this year's World Cup.

Lulu insists the present squad under John Obuh will be the first set of Eaglets to undergo MRI scans."

Around the time I wrote the last piece I came across the interesting story of Nigerian footballer Gbenga Okunowo. In 1998/9 when aged 19/20 he was playing for Barcelona including an appearance against Man United in the Champions League. In December last year, at the age of 29 he had an unsuccessful trial with Northwich Victoria before going to sign for a team in the Maldives. Loads of caps for the U/17, U20 and U23 sides but none for the full team since 2000. In fairness, every story about him refers to a career "blighted by injury" but even so, a ten year European tour including stops in Greece, Romania, Albania and Ukraine does suggest that his precocious talent started to burn out a bit early, or maybe he was just getting on a bit? (I've no evidence to say his ID was dodgy, its just an interesting story. In fact, Nigerians are leaping out of my subconscious and saying "injuries take their toll, do you expect Giles Barnes to be any better than he was in his teens?"

July 15th

Email received today:

Have a look at the comments at the end of this. Tremendous stuff! Not only is there the distinct tang of sour grapes in the air but now they're scrapping amongst themselves! Absolute quality. 

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/sport/Barker-signs-Rams-ahead-Forest

There's 100 comments on there so if you have an idle moment, it's well worth a skim through. Loads of worried Forest fans and plenty about our old pal Silly. One bit that made me smile was a reference to one of Forest's new signings - "Dele Adetombolla"

(Thanks to Lee for the above)

July 14th

When checking some facts for yesterdays entry, I stumbled across a small slither of football history in which Tito Villa and The Rams both had a little known walk-on part.

Before The Rams signed Tito, he was playing for Mexican club Tecos, managed by legendary Argentine boss Cesar Luis Menotti (above), who took his country to victory in the 1978 World Cup. Apparently, when Villa was sold to The Rams, it was without the knowledge of Menotti who subsequently quit his job at Tecos and as things stand, football altogether; thus bringing down the curtain on a management career that included managing Argentina, River Plate, Barcelona, Boca Juniors, Sampdoria, Athletico Madrid and many others. He's either a very proud man or really rated Tito. I think if most Chairman said "I've just got £2m for Tito", it would be high-fives all round.

July 13th

When the Tito Villa deal was announced, one strange detail was that his new club had finished bottom of the league last season but were not relegated. Simon has the following theory about how this might happen:

"I went to watch (Mexican film) Rudo y Cursi (it means Rough and Ready in English) and the general gist of the story is two lower class Mexicans being spotted by a scout and the both of them being signed up to a couple of pro clubs. Cursi signs for a Premier League club while Rudo gets signed by a first division side. Rudo's team fail to make the play-offs and he thinks his chance of the big time has gone, but then the narrator of the story goes on to explain that 'this is the beauty of Mexican football, even though the team has failed to get promoted, the owners decide to buy the franchise of a Premier League club, change the clubs name to that of their previous team and hey presto they have themselves a ready made premier league team'. Just like the pot noodle effect!"

I had a look on Wikipedia to check that Tito's new club (Cruz Azul) had finished bottom and found the following explanation of how the relegation system works in Mexico:

Relegation is determined by a quotient of the total points earned in the Primera División divided by the total amount of games played over the past three seasons of the Primera División (for clubs that have not been in the Primera División all three season, the last consecutive seasons of participation are taken into account). The club with the lowest quotient is relegated to the Primera División A for the next season.

Sounds a dodgy system to me; one set-up to avoid a Newcastle style catastrophe for teams whose budgets depend on Premier League income. Basically, you could stay up by virtue of finishing mid-table a couple of years ago, at the expense of someone who had fought hard on a small budget to keep off the bottom - hardly a meritocracy.

The rule of "for clubs that have not been in the Primera División all three season, the last consecutive seasons of participation are taken into account" also sounds a bit of a farce. If you weren't in for all three seasons, the chances are that one of your seasons counted is a relegation year! Someone like West Brom wouldn't have a prayer would they? Could you imagine our average if we ever got back up after the 2006/7 season? It would take decades to work off.

July 11th

It seems like I was behind the game with the last entry; although I'd assumed that Stewart and Albrechtsen didn't have a future with the Rams, I didn't realise that Clough had been on the radio a few weeks ago saying as much (according to my brother).

It's reassuring to know that other people make similar gaffs. It was reported yesterday that Rob Hulse wouldn't be risked against Burton because of a groin strain. At the bottom of the match report today, the first comment was someone jumping to conclusion regarding Hulse's absence: "23,000 season ticket holders and we sell our leading goalscorer...". The first reply was "Oh, fuck off will you".

July 8th

There came a point last season under Jagger, that Andy Todd was so far out the picture that no-one even bothered to mention him in team news. The prime example being when we signed Darren Powell because we apparently had no other defenders.

So it was interesting to see Clough in today's Telegraph talking about signing Shaun Barker to add to our current centre-backs. Apparently Miles Addison is "going extremely well in training"; Dean Leacock is "coming through training"; Nyatanga is "back in tomorrow" and Jake Buxton is "settling in well". Its no secret that we're not building the defence around Clod, so no surprises that he's not mentioned (rumour has is that he'll be going to Palace with us subbing his wages). But what about Alby? Is he in the Todd cupboard? There were a few rumblings about him towards the end of last season but this seems to be quite a clear hint. (Shouldn't a good journalist have asked "what about Albrechtsen?" and printed the answer?)

Another example of this was when we signed Dean Moxey. Pearson said something like "he'll provide competition for J-Mac". Taxi for Stewart!

July 6th

July 3rd

There was quite an amusing and harsh story in The Guardian this week about our old friend who Forest fans named after a mental illness - the Psychopath. After England under-21's were defeated by Germany in the final of the European Championships, the journalist decides to take a few swipes at Pearce: "His appeals for a nonexistent penalty were made with wide eyes and bulging veins into the face of the fourth official, and hysteria was in his voice when he wailed about a free-kick against England.

Then how about this for a bit of hysteria by the journalist himself "Pearce's excesses were not well received by Michel Platini and his fellow UEFA blazers. There were also fears that they might have been detrimental to England's image and the nation's chances of winning the race to host the 2018 World Cup."

Can you imagine? "Sorry England, great stadiums, great infrastructure but your under-21 boss got a bit overexcited five years ago, the 2018 World Cup will be held in Belgium instead". I'm all for some Psycho bashing but come on!

July 1st

Yesterday at work, I was reading about Tito's possible move to Mexico and could see people speculating in the Telegraph forum about how much we'd get for him; someone said a million, someone else half a million. I called the Hull Fan At Work over to say "can you believe people think we're going to get a fee for Villa! He got two goals in a whole Championship season, he's another one we're going to have to pay to leave".

I nearly choked on my tea this morning to see "Tito is set to leave for £1.7m". All I can say is - sombreros off to Adam Pearson.

I saw the Telegraph in my local shop this evening and the front page teaser for the story was the first time I'd ever seen the Telegraph use a funny pun and to be fair it was a cracker- "Tito's Finito"

June 29th

Promoting his new autobiography, Cardiff manager David Jones has been talking about the child abuse allegations made against him to the BBC . He became possibly the first person ever in football to paraphrase Whitney Houston in making his point when he said: "The one thing they wouldn't take away from me was my dignity".

Other excerpts from the book include:

Jones on youth development: "I believe that children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way, show them all the beauty they possess inside..."

Jones on moving from assistant manager to manager early in his career: "I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadow, if I fail, if I succeed, at least I lived as I believed..."

June 28th

Following news of Craig Burley's misfortune due to the collapse of Setanta, The Observer business section reports another unfortunate victim. The Doughty Hanson private equity group are reported to have lost around £85m. The story continues "Doughty, 51, also chairman of Nottingham Forest...like other wealthy individuals...has lost ten of millions during the credit crunch." My heart bleeds. On an upbeat note, the Observer adds "He is still in the black". When it comes to wealth, "still in the black" is hardly a ringing endorsement is it? Maybe this explains why Forest's next signing looks like being a 34 year old lower league journeyman from Bristol City.

June 26th

It looks like our old friend Craig Burley is facing some hard times. Click on the link below for the full tale of his misery:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/2009/06/25/craig-burley-i-hit-the-bottle-after-setanta-gave-me-the-axe-86908-21469720/

The link was sent to my brother from Dr. Andy with an accompanying unsympathetic comment. My brother then forwarded it to me with a similarly unsympathetic comment. For more unsympathetic comments, see the comments below the story. Not so much putting the boot into poor Craig but going two feet in the knackers (to borrow a one liner from Simon). For example "You will maybe have to get a real job, like ex-players used to have to do after their football career's were finished, bricky, taxi driver or considering your on the bevvy, a barman,"

(An interesting footnote from the story. It says Craig covered 70 matches last season alone for Setanta. He managed 73 in four years for The Rams).

June 24th

If there was ever, ever, ever any doubt that Liam Dickinson is persona non grata at the club, Adam Pearson's comments about loaning him out for a season (in last weeks Telegraph) confirmed that we will probably never see him in a Rams shirt. Despite scoring more goals than any Rams striker bar Hulse last season, Pearson reckons he would be fifth or sixth choice striker next season so its probably for the best that  he goes out on loan for a year. Usually if you loan a young striker out, in a best case scenario they score a hatful and return closer to the finished article. However, Pearson's plan for  Dicko's is "we might want to put him into League One, where we think he will score a lot of goals and his value will go up." There's a hidden acknowledgement here that he is a decent player, otherwise he wouldn't score "a lot of goals" at any level but the message is quite clear that he will be sold one way or another.

Considering the recent talk about Barnes and Mears coming back even though a) they don't seem keen to be here and b) we don't seem keen to have them here (breaking news - God bless Burnley!). It seems like Dicko has seriously upset someone (yes, there are stacks of rumours but I wouldn't want to get myself in bother).

June 22nd

Email received today (following Journals June 18th):

Absolutely gutted to hear we've hung (more likely sacked) the DJ at Pride
Park. The music last season was blinding in parts - often the best part of
the match day experience. Sultans Of Ping as you said in the Journals,
Making Plans For Nigel by XTC and my personal favourite 'I'm A Ram' by the
great Al Green. It's an obscure album track from his album 'Al Gets Next To
You'- God knows where the DJ discovered it, but it's a belter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6L_gK4KJN4

Listening to the Al Green track, I'm amazed that the riff has never been sampled for a worldwide-urban-hit (maybe sped up a little) Any budding musicians out there - it's there for the taking!

June 21st

June 18th

Unemployment may be rising but The Rams are have three vacancies advertised on the official website at the moment: Rammie, a PA Announcer and Matchday DJ. I can't help wondering if the DJ vacancy has anything with him playing "Let's all do the conga" during the Charlton pitch invasion. Or maybe the line in the person spec of "understand a broad mix of genres and age groups" - the previous DJ was probably pleased to unearth a copy of Sultans of Pings' obscure Nigel Clough tribute "Give him a ball and a yard of grass" but less pleased to see that 29,990 of the 30,000 would have preferred to hear "High-Ho silver lining". It will be a great shame if we never get to hear The Housemartins "Sheep" again at Pride Park.

The PA Announcer description includes the interesting line of "ability to work with and develop scripts". Whatever happened to reading out the teams before the match then saying "Derby County would like to thank you for your loyal support...see you at the Blackpool game, tickets still available"? Are we to have pre-match stand-up or some other form of sportertainment?

June 17th

When the fixtures were announced today, there seemed to be a common thought "oh no, it's Donny at home all over again!". At least this time round we probably won't be expecting to start with a massive win before romping on to a comfortable promotion (I wasn't expecting promotion last year but I was expecting us to put Doncaster to the sword. I'm now saying that Peterborough will be "a tough game".)

June 16th

Following the mentions of NorRam in these pages, a reader got in touch and we ended up swapping back issues of NorRam. As I said, my copies were 100+ page glossy magazines that won the Norwegian fanzine of the year award. The copy I borrowed was from May 1983 - a proper old school fanzine: 12 pages of typed A4, folded in half and stapled. The columnists have passport photos above their columns (what else would you have pre-digital? maybe a holiday or family photo that you could cut up) and handwritten fillers complete the layout. For example, a handwritten goalscorers chart documenting facts such as - Glen Skivington had scored once in the Milk Cup that season. Also documented for posterity is all the reserve results including an 8-1 victory over Preston in which Ferencvaros manager Bobby Davison (hat-trick) and Ilkeston Town manager Kevin Wilson were amongst the goals.

The 'zine also includes a column from the aforementioned (English) Journals reader titled 'Rapport Fra "Pop-Side" '.   The column ends "P.S. Slik ser jeg ut". This sounds like something the Popside would shout at any female who happened to walk past. I typed it in into a Norwegian to English translator and it came out as "so discern I edged". Either our friend had some serious literary pretensions or something been lost in translation here.

June 14th

The following entry appeared back in September where it became clear that we had far too many players than we knew what to do with.

	"Red or black, red or black, red or black......awww shite!"
	Have A Punt With Pearo!
		"How ya daein? When yous goat a squad a fifty players, ye cannae play them all. Ah'm sayin' yous'll see Santa before ya see some o these radges, so ah'm offerin' some odds. Yous wanna bet?"
Which of the following players will start a match for The Rams before Christmas? Steven Davies, Robbie Savage, Liam Dickinson, Mile Sterjovski, Andrejs Pereplotkins, Reuben Zadkovich, Andy Todd, We'll start with ya mon Steve Davies. He wis right in tha mix at tha star o' tha season but ah think he'll need snookers ta git back in noo (ya git tha pun likes?) Pearo's odds- 4/1  What kin ya say aboot Rab Savage? Ah didnae dislike tha guy but ya cannae deny that things jist turn ta shite when he's aroond. Now yours truly is back, Rab's even fairther doon tha pecking order. Pearo's odds- 10/1 Big Dick's been bangin' 'em in recently. The gaffer asked Stan for him back bit wis told- "git tae fuck or I'll ram yer heed intae the dug-oot again". Pearo's odds- 12/1 Bruce Sterjovski's been a bit busy recently- flyin' aroond tha world with yon Socceroo's and modellin' tha glow stick away kit. He jist hasnae had time ta play for tha Rams. We've goat more right wingers than yon Tories noo, so didnae hold yer breath. Pearo's odds- 16/1 When ah heard we'd signed Perry Plotkins, ah thought it wis yon postman from Trumpton town. He didnae look too bad at the start o' season bit ah think there'll be ice on tha pitch before we see Candido Costa-ski again. Pearo's odds 20/1 "Ruby, Ruby RUBY, RUBY...der, der der, der, da, der...where tha fuck are ye?..der, der der, der, da, der".Ah havenae seen this felly since he went tae China an ah didnae think yous will be seing 'im soon either. Pearo's odds- 50/1 Finally An-day Tood. Nae Chance. Pearo's odds- 100/1 (please note - none of these bets are available to the best of my knowledge and Pearo has not advised on them)

This is who we did and didn't see between then and Christmas:

Steve Davies: After injuries to Commons and, ironically, Pearo, Davies started a couple of games in October before joining the injury club himself.

Robbie Savage: Was not seen again until Jagger had packed his bags.

Liam Dickinson: Odds are now being offered on next Christmas.

Mile Sterjovski: Bruce started against Coventry back in October. He then disappeared until the Man United victory.

Andrejs Pereplotkins: Never seen again.

Reuben Zadkovich: Started twice in December against Wolves and Charlton before falling off the face of the earth.

Andy Todd: See Robbie Savage.

June 11th

We got quite a funny email today. The background to the following is that England U21's were leading Azerbaijan 6-0 and had used all their outfield subs. Lee Cattermole needed replacing so Stuart Pearce brought Peterborough 'keeper Joe Lewis on to play up front for the last quarter of an hour.

A reader sent us an excerpt from a Eurosport blog which said that Pearce had pulled a similar stunt before:

"Pearce's previous came in 2005, when Manchester City needed a win against Middlesbrough on the final day to get into the UEFA Cup.

With time running down and the score locked at 1-1, Pearce brought on sub goalie Nicky Weaver and sent David James up front for the last few minutes.

Anyone who had grown accustomed to Calamity's ludicrous forays outside his penalty area would have been unsurprised to learn that the result was both unsuccessful and embarrassing for all concerned, especially unused substitute Jon Macken."

Pearce needn't have felt embarrassed. From our experience, if you need a goal then Macken isn't your man. Maybe if we'd have used Lee Grant in an advanced role from January 2007, we might not have had to bother with the play-off's.

June 10th

Continuing the theme of dodgy foreign strikers....

June 8th

As it's all quiet on The Rams front, its a chance to share a story I read in a cracking book about African football - Elephants, Lions and Eagles by Filippo Maria Ricci. There's a chapter about some African countries playing overage players in youth tournaments which means success for the country but also a career for the players involved. The theory is that players who are allegedly in their teens are really in their twenties. They steamroll the youth cups then come to Europe where they appear to be prodigies whilst actually being at their peak. They secure a big transfer then spend ten years working their way down. The author names a couple of low profile examples whilst making a few hints at others.

Lets take a hypothetical case. Just imagine a big Nigerian defender, possible with coloured braids in his hair. At the age of "23", the player is the defensive lynchpin for Internazionale but at "26" be playing for Premier League strugglers Derby County. At the age of "31" when some defenders are reaching their peak, the player is struggling to get a game for Plymouth Argyle.

A player named as having questionable career stats is ex-Rams trialist Salomon Olembe. According to available stats, Olembe played over 100 games between the age of 17 and 21 (for Nantes and Marseille) but the next seven years in total are yet to equal that.

On a Championship theme is Obafemi Matins. The author himself became involved when he saw a different, older, birth date for Martins on the Nigerian FA website. After a big furore, it was put down as an administrative error. So the facts are: Martns was playing regularly for Internazionale's first team at the age of 18 and played 87 games before signing for Newcastle for £10m whilst still only 21. At 24 he must be about to reach his peak, right? We'll check him out next season. (Whilst checking some facts I stumbled on the "Age controversy" section on his wikipedia entry where it says he could be up to seven years older! Click here if you're interested.

June 6th

I was interested to see that Birmingham have spent around £9m (according to the Guardian website) on an Ecuadorian striker who has been banging them in, in the Mexican league (Christian Benitez). His strike rate is worryingly similar to that of Tito Villa - Benitez has scored 31 in 58 in Mexico whilst Tito scored 28 in 63 in his final two seasons. Slightly better but lets recall indie-pop Rob's analysis of the Mexican league (Journals January 26th):

"I might have cracked the Tito mystery.

I've never seen any Mexican club football before but I watched a couple of games on the sports channel while I was there and it surprised me how poor the quality was. It seemed like they were playing at the pace of a Sunday afternoon kick-about on the park, midfield getting loads of space and time on the ball, but the skill level of a mid-table League One team. The finishing was particularly bad, like the strikers were thinking "I know I'm going to get 30 attempts on goal in this match so I don't have to try too hard.. As long as one goes in that should do it"

I think Tito's selling point as "high-scoring Mexican league striker" is a bit misleading. I reckon even I could be a "high-scoring Mexican league striker" if they gave me long enough.."

Maybe it would be worth a call to Birmingham along the lines of "ey up, can you remember the bloke who scored against you at St. Andrews? He's also scored a load in Mexico, you can have him for £3m".

We'll see how Benitez goes.

June 3rd

Phil Brown's celebrations were all over the papers and web last week but he wasn't the only member of his family to hit the news for a bit of partying. His son was recently arrested for possession of cocaine. With his dad's new found Premier League stardom, you may imagine that his son has been gallivanting around a few celeb hangouts with his showbiz sherbet. Not quite so glamorous I'm afraid. He was "found slumped outside a nightclub" in South Shields at 10:30 on a Saturday night according to The Sun.

June 2nd

"Have a Punt with Pearo" was first featured in the Journals in July 2008 after Stephen Pearson was seen enjoying some leisure time in a Derby casino (I must add that there's no implication of a Matthew Etherington situation here - the Jackal asked the croupier).

Here's the original article along with the results:

"Red or black, red or black, red or black......awww shite!" Have A Punt With Pearo!   "How ya daein? Ya may ken ah like a flutter and ah'll be givin' yous ma tips durin' tha season. This week ah've bin lookin' at spread bettin' for goal scorin' in tha 2008/9 season."   First up is ma auld pal Craig Fagan. Will 'e play up top? Oot on tha right? Will he play at all? Ah'm sayin he cannae hit a bairn door...do yous wanna bet? Pearo's punt: Fagan to score 3 goals or less Next we've got wee Boaby Earnshaw. Now, he will'nae score if he disnae play but ah reckon this shower a' shite cannae leave him oot. Ah'm expectin' tae see that wee highland jig a few times. Pearo's Punt: Earnie to score 14 goals or more An finally is yer mon Tito Villa. Tha gaffer is tryin' tae buy another striker and judgin' by Tito's showin' at FC TOSS Off, ah cannae blame im. It disnae look good at tha mo, so ah'm going low. Pearo's Punt:  Villa to score 6 goals or less (please note - none of these bets are available to the best of my knowledge and Pearo has not advised on them)

Actual results:

Craig Fagan 3 goals: The prediction was spot on here. Craig's best total since he was last at Hull.

Earnie 17 goals: This included 12 in the league and 5 in the cups. If it was a true spread bet, there'd be some argument over the inclusion of cup goals. The prediction of 14 was bang in the middle.

Tito Villa 6 goals: Like the Fagan prediction, it was spot on; like the Earnie prediction, cup goals inflated it. Tito only bagged two in the league.

(Whilst looking for something else, I stumbled across a video on youtube intriguingly titled "Morten Bisgaard twatting a man". It's not what you think but if you're particularly bored at work, the slo-mo replay might amuse you):

May 31st

I had a couple of typing errors pointed out after Bad Worse Worst was printed, so its reassuring to know that even the professionals make mistakes. According to a reader, Andy, Don Shaw's new Clough book contains so many errors that it has an erratum sheet* attached, saying various errors will be corrected (presumably in the paperback version). Don Shaw was at the forefront of all the Damned United criticism and his book was billed as the real version of events. It's not a great start "this is the real story...except this bit and this bit and that bit etc..."

(In the interests of balance Andy does add that it's a "fascinating story and well told"). 

*Erratum - a list of errors. I'd not come across the word before so checked it on-line - it took me 10 seconds which makes factual errors even less forgivable in this day and age.

May 28th

Following on from the Lame Academy article, I was thinking about when we last tried to develop players from the lower divisions and non-league. I reckon Jackson, Bolder, Boets and Christie were probably the last batch. The combined fees were less than half a million and they appeared over 500 times for the Rams between them, with all playing in the Premier League. A better bit of business than some of our recent ventures (the added bonus being that Christies fee - whatever it actually was* - recouped the outlay several times over).

*As I recall, a complex deal aimed at denying Nuneaton Borough too much of a profit for the sell-on clause. The Christie "fee" was, according to stories at the time, built into Riggott's transfer with Malcy moving for next to nothing.

May 21st

A good point by Big Nick about the Andy Appleby video (May 19th): wouldn't the Football League have something to say about his plan "to raise more revenue by selling television rights"? (the closing statement of the clip). Surely he's not bought The Rams with a flawed plan akin to Jeremy Keith's tax scheme? Nick suggests that perhaps we could recapture Norway*, perhaps as part of a new midlands consortium.

(*NorRam Inge previously told us that in the 70's, Norwegian TV only showed a midlands football programme - the legacy of this is that Villa, Derby, Forest, Stoke and Wolves are to this day in the top 20 best supported British clubs in Norway (according to supporters club membership).

I'm going away for a long weekend and will tidy up some files on my return. It could be a week before the next entry. Over the summer I'll write some "Journals Revisited" and review the "Have a punt with Pearo" predictions.

May 19th

I was sent a YouTube clip by Simon a few months ago but it slipped my mind until now. It's from a US business programme called "High Net Worth" (in English - "rich") and is about our chairman Andy Appleby. Look out for the footage of us playing against Man U. strangely fading out when we reach the penalty box and the grandstanding climax - our deflected goal against Man City. Other highlights include when the narrator says Appleby is "treated like a rock star" in Derby - a lot of jokes about free drugs and women could be made here but the footage of one person asking for his autograph is probably a punch line in itself (Tito had at least five people around him after the Charlton game - including me and Simon - I wonder what that makes him?). Click below to enjoy:

May 17th

As I said a few days ago (May 12th), I received a couple of copies of NorRam. Along with this came a pamphlet from the Norwegian "Supporterunionen for Britisk Fotball", which included a league table of Norwegian supporters clubs by members. The Rams were 13th with 351 members, two places above Forest with 328 members. The top ten was pretty much as expected, with the exception of Ipswich in the number 10 slot, one place above Chelsea (512 to 446 members respectively).

I could bore you with no end of stats here: Torquay are 20th, two places below Celtic but above Bolton, Sunderland, Portsmouth, M'boro and many others; Woking have more members than Fulham; Scarborough are level with West Brom (after West Brom added three members with promotion); Leicester have only 11 members.... I could go on...

May 14th

News reaches us that the man formerly known as Stevie Strong (Esteban Fuertes) has been called up for the Argentinian national team at the age of 36. I can only assume that to combat the age-old problem of getting European players to fly over, Maradona has opted for players who are more restricted with their international travel options. To be fair, if Wikipedia is to be believed, Fuertes' recent record of 38 goals in 61 games is good by any standards. Certainly better than a certain Argentinian striker we recently signed. Keep going Tito, life's a marathon not a sprint, you too may mature like an Argentinian Malbec.

(Thanks to James for the above)

May 12th

I am now the proud owner of two copies of NorRam, the Norwegian DCFC fanzine. (Click here if you missed the original Our Friends in the Norse Times column). When Norse Ram Inge Haagensen offered to send me a couple of copies, I was expecting a few sheets of A4 stapled together with a few pictures and captions. When the package arrived, I was truly amazed. A 100+ page "proper" magazine jam-packed with stats and articles. Unfortunately I couldn't understand a word of it (although to be fair you can often get the gist) but everyone I've shown them to has been equally impressed.

Such is the quality of NorRam that it won 2008 Norwegian fanzine of the year. Inge explains:

"I'm not sure about my reputation [we were talking about his writing], but it's a fact that our Fanzine NorRam was last season voted the best Norwegian fanzine of British football. And it had some competition. As I told you we have just 350 paying members in our Norwegian Supporters Branch. This compares to Man. United's 37.000 (!) and Liverpool's 29.700 (!). They even have people who work fulltime for their Branches – including their Editors and some writers in their fanzines. While I and my Editor both do it for free."

Never let it be said that The Rams never win anything.

May 10th

Further correspondence on The Damned United. Firstly, a couple more "inaccuracies" pointed out by my Dad: McFarland is carried off wearing the no.6 shirt when he always wore 5; secondly, Colin Todd is described as the "best midfielder in the country" when his signing is discussed. For those of us from the post Clough generation, Andy provides some historical commentary: "That [Todd] mistake is unforgivable when you think that it made him the costliest defender in Britain at that time. His signing was the same week in February 1971 that Rolls-Royce went bankrupt and Clough always said that he felt guilty spending such a huge sum of money at the same time as thousands of Derby workers were losing their jobs .I’m surprised that they didn’t at least rustle up another edition of the ‘Derby Chronicle’ to illustrate that."

(This all follows the April 8th entry that laments the portrayal of the Juventus European Cup semi-final. In reality, the defeat was due to scandalous refereeing. In the film, we take the field with a virtual reserve team).

May 8th

I received the following email from a reader regarding The Damned United:

(Before I start, I must add the disclaimer that everyone I've spoken to has enjoyed the film, which is after all a work of fiction based on real events. The following isn't meant to be critical or petty, it's just some close-season amusement).

"Should you decide to publish a list of inaccuracies in ‘The Damned United’ film here are some I noticed.

1.       When Mackay is appointed as the new manager, Taylor enters the room announcing the appointment and holds aloft a copy of ‘The Derby Chronicle’ that he has obviously put together using Microsoft Publisher.

2.       On two separate occasions Longson is moaning to Clough about new signings, firstly Mackay and secondly Todd, when players signed the same seasons but months apart run past. ‘Who are they?’ asks Sam. Now, my investment in the club was only 6d every home game to stand in ‘Boys Corner’ but I knew these players were there. How could he not know them, didn’t Sam have a ‘Soccer Stars’ sticker album?

3.       In the same season as the F.A. Cup tie, Derby also played Leeds home and away in the League Cup semi-final, the home leg the week before the F.A. Cup game. Why no mention of this, did Revie show due respect that time?

4.       In the first season in Division 1, Derby lost 2-0 at Elland Road, not 5-0. What I will say though is that the visitors played in red so could the game actually have been against Liverpool or Forest, surely Derby didn’t play in red? (Unfortunately we did click here for evidence - thanks Lee)

5.       For the home game that season, Revie actually played a reserve side at the Baseball Ground, saving his first eleven for Europe. The Rams won 4-1 not 2-0 as in the film. Surely fielding a reserve side was also a sleight Clough would not have ignored?

6.       In an interview after the Juventus game Clough complains that the Chairman is spending a million on a new director’s lounge and box. A million pounds? Wouldn’t that buy a state of the art stadium in 1973.

7.       When Derby draw Leeds in the 3^rd round F.A Cup draw, Clough throws the fish and chips in the bin and says ’We’re going for a Bhuna, Uncle Sam’s paying’. Was there an Indian restaurant in Derby in 1967 or did he charge Sam for a family holiday to India? *See below

8.       Putting on my anorak, in the first season after promotion Derby still had the Rams head badge on the shirts not the rampant ram as worn in the film. The much repeated on TV clip of Clough shouting ‘ To miss the target from there Baz you want bloody shooting’ was shouted at Barry Butlin when training on Sinfin Lane not at the Baseball Ground. Perhaps Clough thought this so witty that he used it all the time.?"

*I googled this and found an article entitled When Did Indian Cuisine come to Derby? which appears to have been written by the author of the Little Book of Derby County. In brief, 1961 is suggested as a possible date for a restaurant frequented by Asian community. However, I quote "Arguably the Shabagh [1966] was the first Indian in Derby aimed squarely at an English market. The name has gone but the original premises, at No 165 [London Road], houses the recently-opened Mount Everest Gurkha Restaurant, which has added Nepalese cuisine to Derby tables". I only mention this as the Everest is my current takeaway of choice.

Thanks to Andy for the observations above, if anyone has anything further to add, don't hesitate to get in touch.

May 6th

I've heard it said a few times (but never officially) that a condition of our adidas kit deal is that we have a clean sweep every year and introduce three new kits, required or not (does anyone play in white and slime green stripes? Does the "Argentina" avoid any clashes incurred by the white home shirt?). With 50% off kits at the moment, it looks likely that we'll be getting the 7th, 8th and 9th kit within the space of three years. Tom Glick is currently looking at a Dulux test card for new colours.

With the pressure on to shift the stock, I had the following text forwarded on from Bob: "DCFC sent me a voucher for a free 08/09 away shirt...'cause it's bright slime green it makes an excellent hi-viz when I ride my push bike to work. I'm quite chuffed..."

I'm convinced half of our goals conceded away from home last season were due to stewards and police playing the striker on-side.

May 4th

Matt Oakley has been putting the boot into his old club Southampton regarding their managerial appointments. Remember, this time last year, Nigel Pearson kept the Saints in the Championship but was not offered a permanent contract. Southampton opted for the surprising appointment of unknown Dutchman Jan Poortivliet and the Saints subsequently imploded spectacularly on and off the pitch.

Oakley commented: "I hate to say it, but Nigel Pearson has changed the team at Leicester around. Everybody took his ideas on board and we've gone in the right direction, so unfortunately it probably proves that over the past year that's probably the worst thing that Southampton have done.
You see what he's done at Leicester. All the fans and players at the club love him, so you have to ask, why did he leave Southampton?"

So where can this scathing analysis of the Saints hierarchy be found -  Radio Leicester? A Portsmouth fanzine? No, its on the official Southampton website. Well at least the webmaster has some passion for his club. Whether he's got a contract extension is another matter.

(A stripey t-shirt to indie-pop Rob for the above)

May 3rd

The season's over thank goodness - let the squad cull commence. They'll be a few post-season articles on the main site within the next couple of weeks but in the meantime, here's a few points of interest from the Observer's fans review of 2008/9:

Only one Derby player featured in any clubs "Top five opposition players" - Blackpool included Chris Commons. Not surprising really given his goals against them this season. Marcus Tudgay features in two teams "Top 5's" and was also given a rapturous write-up by the Sheff Wednesday fan.

Derby fans were declared to be the best away fans by both Sheffield clubs, with the Wednesday fan generously writing "...very warm, welcoming  and loud - the craic was excellent". I can't imagine that I would be so kind after a dire home defeat, so credit to him.

Robbie Savage was chosen as "Top hate figure at another club" by two teams: Forest (predictably) and Plymouth. He must be mellowing.

For the same category, the Derby writer chose a manager from another midlands club...Mick McCarthy. "It dates back to his days as Millwall manager. I find him smug" was the explanation. Well, he wasn't very smug when we beat them in the Play-off semi's was he?

April 30th

The Rams Greatest Eleven was introduced with great fanfare on the official site but as it evolves into "team of the 70's", the profile of the project has taken a dip. I saw the latest addition was David Nish but when I went back to re-read the story (for this), the article had already been bumped off the homepage and erased from the news. I finally found it in the "125" section.

The acid test of "will any none-70's players be involved"? (with the possible exception of Steve Bloomer) is next with Mark Wright and Igor up against 70's heavyweights Roy Mac and Colin Todd (people of a later generation ask "weren't they just dodgy managers?"). The article on the website adds "men like Leon Leuty and Archie Goodhall [are] legitimate contenders for a place in the side". Which in voting terms is  like saying "the Green Party and Socialist Labour Party are also standing" i.e. worthy causes but unlikely to swing a majority.

With all the recent reverence towards the 70's, I had to laugh when 'keeper Colin Boulton was announced before one match as the goalie of choice. As people rose to applaud, a young lad near me cheekliy sang under his breath "who are ya?, who are ya?". His dad gave him a look like he'd just used the c-word at Sunday dinner.

April 28th

Phil Brown has finally broke his silence on a rumour that's been circulating since his Derby days if not before. In Saturdays Guardian he insisted "...I've never been on a sunbed in my entire life. It's just that I take the rays very easily".

The article, advertised as "The madness of Phil Brown" on the front of the sport supplement, discusses Hull's rise and fall during the season. It grandly attributes Hull's early season success to "a confusingly kaleidoscopic array of formations...an audaciously attacking Hull mixed cleverly choreographed set pieces with some surprisingly sweet passing".

The Hull Fan at Work assures me that "confusingly kaleidoscopic formations" can still be seen at the KC. This roughly translates as "no one knows what they're doing or where they're playing".

April 25th

The season at Pride Park closed in a similar fashion to how it began - a disappointing match decided by a single goal. The good news was that The Rams got the goal and I had a "home win" on my winning coupon.

As the match petered out, events off the pitch became more interesting as the stewards and police tried to cope with the inevitable pitch invasion. With about five minutes remaining, a group of mainly teenage lads started a conga along the front of the East Stand. Meanwhile at the away end, approximately 30 stewards were crouched in front of Charlton's following of about 300 (none of which had shown any inclination to "get down the front").

Just before the final whistle, the bloke on the tannoy asked the fans not to come on the pitch. A few Charlton fans wandered to the front ready to greet their players and suddenly, the stewards were supplemented by almost as many police - it looked like a G20 protest without the protesters.

When the whistle blew, fans predictably swarmed on the pitch. The stadium announcer was now in a muddle - follow the party line or play the crowd pleaser? In a schizophrenic display, he played Black Lace's "Come on and do the conga", interrupted it to ask fans to leave the pitch, then carried on with the conga! Needless to say, no one left the pitch. For me, it's all part and parcel of the last game: walk on the pitch, say "how can anyone mis-control a ball  / slice a corner / not play a ten yard pass etc. on this surface?"; bump into a few random acquaintances; then go home.

Leaving the stadium, we saw a few players and Simon decided to add Tito Villa to his stalkers gallery. Unfortunately, Simon's camera was playing up, leaving with him standing with his arm round Tito for an uncomfortably long  time whilst I tried in vain to take the photo. After fixing the problem, we then dragged Tito away from a conversation to try again. I have to say, he was the perfect gent for his patience during all this buffoonery.

April 23rd

My brother and I were discussing the possible defensive permutations for Saturday if Todd was declared unfit. It was a short conversation. Last nights reserve match might provide some clues: Jason Beardsley played left-back (no great shock) and... wait for it... Tito Villa played centre-back! Now lets briefly consider Tito's qualities: decent in the air; tackles like nutter; doesn't mind splitting his head open in the challenge; no great skill or craft on the ball. Exactly what our defence has been crying out for weeks! Maybe Tito does have a future after all?

Onto other topics, Tyrone Mears is touting himself for a move to England. The story is on the Telegraph website but the gist is that Mears wants a move to England for family reasons, ideally to a club matching Marseille's achievements (i.e. title contenders, Champions League next season etc.) to which Adam Pearson quite rightly says he needs to be more realistic.

A few weeks ago there was a lot of press about Mears scoring in the UEFA Cup and breaking into the Marseille team at last. According to his agent, half of Europe were trying to sign him. According to the latest story, he has lost his place already after just four games, to a youngster. It's worth adding to the story that Marseille aren't seeing out the season and giving a kid a run out; they are currently four points clear at the top of Ligue1 and chasing down their first title for 17 years. In other words playing their strongest team possible. Are Marseille going to spend a million quid on a third choice right-back? I think Forest is a more likely destination.

April 22nd

El Hamdaoui update - according to my brother, the latest edition of World Soccer reports that Barcelona are tracking him!

I mentioned the story to the Hull Fan At Work the other day and his response was: "you're telling me Phil Brown knew about this bloke all along". Incidentally, I was reading a Hull fanzine and one of the contributors named his favoured line-up - Craig Fagan was the lone striker. Hard times at the KC.

April 20th

AZ Alkmaar have won the Dutch title for only the second time in their history after a 28 year gap. They are managed by ex-Barcelona boss Louis van Gaal who finished 11th with them last season and lost the first two games of this campaign. I'll let BBC Sport take up the story:

"Things swiftly changed and Van Gaal's master stroke was uncovering a key player in prolific Moroccan striker Mounir El Hamdaoui, who scored his 22nd league goal on Saturday in AZ's 2-1 home defeat by Vitesse Arnhem."

So El Hamdaoui is Champions League bound; or more likely, he'll sign for a mid-table Premier League side for in excess of £10m.

(From the Journals November 6th 2007: "Mounir El Hamdaoui has now signed for UEFA Cup qualifiers AZ Alkmaar. A decent step up for saying he had yet another injury ravaged season last year, playing just 7 games for Willem II.")

April 19th

One of the nominee's for this years Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year was Derby born Edward Hogan for his novel Blackmoor. Unfortunately he didn't win, which is a shame as not only is it a great read but one of the few books ever to be set in and around Derbyshire.

One of the pivotal parts of the book is when a fire starts in an old pit village and starts burning an as-yet unmined coal seam. It's here that Hogan shows his roots - the fire is started by someone setting fire to a Forest shirt!

April 16th

Further to yesterdays entry about seetickets handling Rams telephone season ticket sales (and charging a tenner), a reader contacted us to say that his mate had got, shall we say, "a real bargain". Presumably the super-efficient teleseller was pre-occupied simultaneously selling Dancing On Ice tickets on another line. Well, we'll see if he's still so pleased with himself when he has to turn up in August with a stick-on grey beard and flat cap. It could be that Tom Glick included a few Willy Wonka tickets but I'm sure he'd have mentioned it.

(Now there's a marketing idea: "Renew your season ticket before May 31 and you may receive a Golden Ticket. This could be exchanged for a) a drive around Donnington in Robbie Savage's car b) a cage fight with Stephen Bywater or c) a night out with Liam Dickinson. Please note - Derby County's insurance will not cover you for any of the aforementioned activities")

April 15th

New articles are a bit thin on the ground at the moment: as my brother said "we're not going up, we're not going down, we can't sign or sell anyone, we like the manager and we're playing alright. We can't even do post-season analysis yet". If you're hungry for Rams comment, you might like to check out:

http://footballtalentspotter.com/blogs/thepowerofclough/default.aspx

A series of Rams articles by a seemingly like minded Ramspace reader.

It seems I have written something of interest though; imagine my surprise at work today when browsing the Telegraph website, there was yesterdays Journals in the "latest posts on the forums" section. Someone had started a thread by copying and pasting the whole entry. I don't mind at all and really pleased that someone found it of interest; I just wanted to make the point that it wasn't me doing some guerrilla marketing for the site! There are a couple of comments on the thread, one which reveals that the third party company are seetickets. It's annoying enough when they charge a couple of quid admin when you're buying a gig ticket, never mind a Jeff when you're trying to buy a season ticket!

The thread can be found at:

http://forums.therams.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=27512&tstart=15

(It's the thread entitled "3rd Party company for phone sales" if the link is playing up).

April 14th

Companies often employ third-party call centres to deal with a particular piece of work or when some extra capacity is needed. The trick is for the call centre to be absolutely convincing that they are the company they are merely representing. The company employed to deal with telephone season ticket renewals failed to do this at least twice.

First up: Bob rang to renew and was told there would be a £10 charge (presumably to pay for said call centre). After a lengthy debate about the validity of the phone-tax, the facade suddenly dropped: "you'll have to complain to Derby County" prompting the obvious question: "well who are you then?"

Second example: Simon rang up to renew and was similarly surprised to be hit by the stealth tax. His response was "ok, hold it there, I'll be down in half an hour" (conscious that the cost of the call was ticking over like a taxi-meter). He then asked "is it busy?" to which the answer came "erm...erm..I don't know", so he suggested "well, look out the window, are there many people around?" to be told "erm, I'm not actually there".

It could have been worse I told him, pressing the wrong option could have landed you with a subscription to Chelsea TV or a new broadband package.

April 12th

(re-edited late pm)

Sheffield Wednesday yesterday was a rare outing for a few of us, to celebrate my brothers birthday earlier in the week. It nearly got off to the worst possible start; we arrived in Sheffield to met by a group of police. One of the them asked Simon "are you Derby County fans?" to which he immediately replied with no hint of sarcasm "no, we're just doing some shopping". To my astonishment, the seven of us were allowed to pass. Note to terrorists - try Sheffield "are you here to blow up the Town Hall Mr. bin Laden?", "no, I'm just nipping to the Meadowhall to buy a new headscarf", "ok, have a nice day". To be fair, it could have just been some common sense by the PC in question, reasoning that a group including my 61 year old dad weren't about to start a Wild West brawl. I'm not sure what the consequences were for being a Rams fan in Sheffield at that time but I assume they weren't handing out free tickets.

Once past the barricades, we were able to enjoy a civilised time around Sheffield but for the first few hundred yards, there were literally police on every corner. The Damned United was discussed at length with Simon's analysis being: "Brokeback Mountain set in the East Midlands". As soon as he said it, I thought of the scene where Peter Taylor was feeding crisps into the mouth of a laughing Brian Clough; homoerotica if ever I saw it.

The match itself was instantly forgettable. I do occasionally forget major incidents after a couple of pre-match drinks but I'm quite sure that nothing at all happened apart from Hulse's goal. The Horrors have recently described their new album as "...like going to the top of a really tall hill with your best friends on the most beautiful summer's day and taking a load of really good E and then running down the hill really fast". Well, yesterday's win was like drinking a can of Trent Bitter then running down Ilkeston's disused ski-slope on a murky day. It was fine within the parameters you're working with.

I'm not complaining though; an away win at Hillsborough and a tidy coupon win all adds up to a good day out (the bookies were offering a generous 13/5 on a Rams victory). The day was paid for and there was still enough left in the kitty for a team bottle of M&S pink shampoo for the train journey home.

April 8th

I went to see The Damned United on Tuesday. I won't attempt a full film review but I thought there were a few points of particular interest to Rams fans:

1) I've heard a few people say that they aren't going to watch the film because the Clough family and some ex-players were quite offended by the book. A fair enough principle to hold but, for better or worse, the film is nothing like the book. Whereas the book is dark, intense and portrays Clough as a very complex man; the film is generally very light, very pro-Derby and pro-Clough. Don't not go on principle, you'd be denying yourself a good night. (I'd be intrigued to see an alternative version made by the same directors who did David Peace's Red Riding, recently on Channel 4).

2) The book has never claimed to be the complete truth but does stick to the objective facts e.g. scores, dates etc. The film however, strays from the facts a few times. Most notably showing Derby playing Leeds a few days before facing Juventus in the European Cup semi-final. The Rams get kicked off the park and the defeat to Juventus is attributed to having to play a near reserve team - the whole affair is the source of a major falling out between Clough and Sam Longston. In reality, the Derby v. Leeds match was a month before the Juventus game, where the Rams fielded a full strength team. With so much genuine material, it seems a pity to create pure fiction. (Facts confirmed by my brother thanks to the Complete Record).

3) Derby are consistently portrayed as the good guys and any Rams fan would feel proud to see it. It's a shame that there was so much negativity being peddled before the films release. Now if you were a Leeds fan you might have just cause for complaint. The film-makers goodwill towards Derby even extends to the final credits - during a "what happened next" sequence, Forest are introduced as a "small provincial club"!

April 6th

After a couple of quiet weeks, Billy Davies is up to his old antics again, this time being accused of playing mind-games with Barnsley before last Saturdays fixture. Barnsley manager Simon Davey said Davies was bordering on bringing the game into disrepute by saying that Sheff. Utd's Chris Morgan "embodied the attitude and approach he wanted to see in his side" (quotation from the Observer not Billy Davies). Don't forget that earlier this season Chris Morgan fractured the skull of Barnsley's £1.2m striker Iain Hume.

Davies defended himself by saying that, when asked about the type of player he'd like to bring to the club, he said "Chris Lucketti and Chris Morgan - their type of mentality and experience".  But how genuine was Davies' response? Only last week I read on the BBC "Huddersfield Town...have told Chris Lucketti to look for another club". A player being turfed out by a League One surely couldn't have been too costly? Or maybe he didn't get the green light from Forest's infamous "acquisition committee"? Who knows. If Davies was just referring to his halcyon days at Preston, he should have just taken Clod when he was up for grabs.

April 5th

I managed to tempt fate with a text for the second time  yesterday (the first being before the Bristol City game- Journals March 8th). Connolly has been a bit dodgy recently and yesterday was no exception; without being shocking he was showing all the hallmarks of being a lower division full-back, rather than one who will take us (or even captain us) to the next level. His nadir came during the latter stages when a long Burnley punt was sailing out for a Derby throw-in. Connolly, for reasons unknown, tried to control the ball but made such a hash of it that it didn't even bounce off him. He missed it completely prompting me to send a text I never thought I would: "Bring Mears back!".

Five minutes later: "Connolly...GOAL!" 

April 2nd

Could The Rams be getting a new celebrity fan? In an interview in the Observer Sport magazine, Michael Sheen (Clough in the Damned United in case you've been on Mars) said:

"...I'm now thinking of becoming a fully fledged Derby fan [...] I find myself listening out for Derby's results and going to the back pages of the paper and looking to see how they played. And I was jokingly thinking that I would donate money from the film to buy a new back four, because I know Nigel is very unhappy with his defenders".

I haven't seen the film yet but it looks like its quite clear who the good guys are. There'd be something wrong if he was saying "I'm thinking of becoming a Leeds fan"!

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