November 29th
There must be a
flurry of optimism around my family: my brother texted me
last night to say money was on for us to stay up at 9/1 and
my dad was on soon after to say it was 16/1 for us to stay
up and Wigan go down. I had a quick look myself to see that
skybet actually have a selection of "Derby Specials"- most
relating to us getting no goals or no points by various
deadlines.
I made a point a
couple of days ago about our ex-coaching entourage having
very little top flight experience between them so it was
good to see Stan Ternent appointed today. There's not
a lot in football that Stan hasn't experienced. One unhappy episode
I wasn't aware of, until Simon gave me edited highlight's of
his autobiography over the summer, was when Stan was coach
of Chelsea in the early 90's. Working with an arrogant, ill
disciplined bunch- lead by Dennis Wise, he was referred to
as BBC- Balls, Bibs and Cones. To give you some idea
of the quality of the Chelsea team around that time; Frank
Sinclair was player of the year.
I wouldn't advise
any Rams players getting cocky though; after texting Simon
to tell him of Stan's appointment he replied: "He's just got
off with a charge after he smacked someone at a cricket
match in the summer". (Legal note: obviously he didn't smack
anyone if he was found not guilty)
November 28th
Welcome to Paul
Jewell. It was a strange day at work yesterday with those
supporting other clubs eager to offer an opinion on Paul
Ince, usually with words 4-letters long, and me feeling
obliged to defend him- just in case. By the same token I
deleted the line "...at least if it all goes wrong we all
get to scream abuse at Paul Ince" a couple of days ago as it
seemed a slightly negative way to start. I think a few Rams
will share Bob's sentiments who texted me to say "Big wide
Vs to Pince" as soon as Jewell was confirmed. (U.S. readers
"V's" are like the middle finger salute- but twice as good).
A quick note for
Jewell- in about three weeks a bald Glaswegian will turn up
at the training ground. Don't call security- it's Bob
Malcolm. (on second thoughts, DO call security).
November 27th
Colin Miller, John Ireland,
Pete Williams, John Davies. No, not members of
Oasis who aren't Gallagher's but some of the back-room staff
who left the club along with Billy Davies. Unemployment
figures in Derbyshire saw a definite spike yesterday as a
total of 10 people (including BD), the equivalent of a small
firm, found themselves unemployed.
Billy Davies often said how the
players needed to learn about the Premier League- the truth
is that the vast majority of the playing staff have at some
time or other but been in the Premier League but as far as I
can see, the same cannot be said of the coaching staff. A
couple of playing stints by David "Ned" Kelly seem to be the
sum of their experience.
Talking of Kelly, what a couple
of years for him. Firstly, he gets paid for a whole year by
Preston for doing absolutely nothing ("gardening leave").
Then he signs a three year Premiership contract, works a few
months of it, then receives a sizeable pay-off (I presume it
was sizeable- it was a three year contract afterall). The
actual Ned Kelly must be up in heaven wondering why he
worked so hard to make a living.
November 26th
King Billy or
Silly Davies? I have to admit, I've tended to lean towards
the latter but I still felt some sadness over his departure
today. In retrospect, the writing was on the wall with
Billy's recent public praise of both the fans and his
relationship with Gadsby. Contrast this with his post
play-off rant and it's clear that Billy realised he was no
longer untouchable. No-one can take away his achievements of
last year though and it's certainly been an interesting 18
months. It was a shrewd move by Davies to renegotiate his
contract in the summer and he's been well rewarded for his
efforts.
I know quite a few Rams fans weren't keen on his
apparent arrogance and frequent self-congratulation so it's
interesting to hear that Paul Ince is the bookies favourite
to take over. (Regular readers will remember the self-styled
Guv'nor comparing his move from Macclesfield to Milton
Keynes to that of Henry's to Barcelona). Credit where
credit's due though: Ince took over the worst team in the
country around this time last year and performed wonders.
Could he repeat the feat for us?
It's usual when
such events occur for Sky Sports to stop a few players
driving out the training ground for a quick word. No Derby
player stopped to talk. So what did the editor decide was
the best few seconds footage of this silence? Earnie driving
past in his Hummer.
November 25th
The game was a
bit more encouraging yesterday but still no goals. It's
funny that Billy can rival any tinker-man when it comes to
full-backs and wingers but has stuck with the single striker
formation for two months despite us not scoring once. In
contrast, the Miller-Howard partnership yielded a goal blitz
in September with us scoring in consecutive home games. Ok,
it was only two goals but it was also four points.
A lot of the post
match talk surrounded Davies' comments that he hadn't a
conversation with Adam Pearson for 3-4 weeks. By my
calculations, that is basically since he became chairman.
Presumably, Mr. Pearson has been jetting around pursuing
investment. Well, I may have the answer. Can you remember
SISU the company who were apparently funding JK's takeover
bid? Well, they are now sniffing around Southampton. Think
about it- they were allegedly prepared to pump £40m into us
when we were £56m in debt and near the bottom of the
Championship. Now we're in the Premier League, a fraction of
the debts (if any- I don't know) and money rolling in. Give
them a bell Adam, then you can spend some quality time with
Billy and stop your carbon footprint rivalling Robert
Earnshaw's.
November 23rd
What a week for
Lionel Ainsworth: scored a hatrick last Saturday; scored the
winner at Elland Road on Wednesday; signed for Watford on
Thursday; no doubt he'll be making love Friday, Saturday and
chill on Sunday (a predictable punch line but there for the
taking). For those who missed it, Watford have signed him on
loan with a view to making it permanent when the transfer
window opens.
I don't want to
be hypocritical as I wasn't up in arms when we released him
but it is worth reflecting on. Lionel represented England at
both U17 and U19 level and after a few injuries was given
his Rams debut by Terry Westley. However, at the age of 18
he was sent on a demoralising tour of the lower divisions
before being chucked on the scrapheap. Meanwhile, our own
coaching staff, who in an ideal world would be bringing on
young talent, are spending time with Macken, Malcolm, Currie
etc. trying to polish a turd (as the phrase goes). A year
later, they're all in the same division (except Currie) with
only Lionel on an upwards trajectory. What's the moral of
the story? Get Nyatanga back and axe Todd and Griffin (no
offence chaps, I'm just thinking of the future).
November 22nd
With the Rams
struggling and now England's Euro debacle, it's worth having
a moments respite from football before the Chelsea game.
I always like a
good bit of marketing spin so how about this from the music
world: Why do middle aged rockers Orson always where hats?
The PR spin: "to keep a sense of old fashioned Hollywood".
The journalist: "it turns out they're just a bit bald".
November 21st
Today's press is
full of stories about Billy Davies allegedly having two
games to save his job. With Chelsea first up, he's not
exactly being set up to succeed (if he's told "fair enough,
we'll give you three games" you know he's in trouble, the
third is Man Utd away). I'm not even sure who would be the
person to "give him two games": Peter Gadsby? Adam Pearson?
Ronald McDonald? the Sultan of Brunei?
One argument
people have for keeping Billy is the lack of decent
candidates to replace him, an argument strengthened by
Bolton's appointment of Gary Megson. It's interesting to
look at Birmingham though, a club comparable to ourselves
(if we had less fans and no history), and also on the verge
of receiving substantial foreign investment. Since Steve
Bruce departed, they have approached Martini Jol and World
Cup winner Marcello Lippi about taking over at St. Andrews.
Admittedly both turned them down flat but the ambition shown
makes the whole thing look a bit more spicy- definitely more
interesting than Joe Royle, Peter Reid and the rest of the
gang.
In Lionel
Ainsworth news (see Journals Nov 18th): for those who didn't
clock it, he scored the winner for Hereford last night as
they beat Leeds away and knocked them out of the FA Cup.
November 19th
It seems like
every idiot feels qualified to have a pop at us at the
moment- the latest being unfunny one-trick-pony comedian
Alan Carr on The Times website (they'll let any riff-raff on
there you know).
As the punch line
of a jibe about the Disney rumours he writes
"...looking at Derby’s recent
defeats, 5-0, 6-0 and 4-1, I think they’ve already got seven
dwarves in defence, including Goofy in goal." Firstly,
having seven men in defensive positions would be great
(height is not an issue, it's all on the floor in the
Premiership); secondly, I wouldn't advise calling Bywater
"Goofy" seeing as his hobbies include boxing, jujitsu and
judo (see Journals November 14th); thirdly, he's got his
facts wrong on the scores. Us lose 4-1? Never.
November 18th
Congratulations
to ex-Rams striker Lionel Ainsworth. He not only achieved
something that the Rams have failed to do all season
yesterday- score an away goal- but the show-off did it 3
times in 33 minutes during Hereford's 3-2 win at Stockport.
I was going to make some comparison with the Rams away
record but mathematically you can't do a lot with "zero".
You can't multiply, divide it or get any percentage from it.
Instead, I'll include our home fixtures: what took Lionel 33
minutes has taken us an incredible 1,080 minutes!
Ex-England U19
Lionel was released last summer after three unspectacular
loan spells at Bournemouth, Wycombe and Halifax but with two
hat-tricks in the bag already this season, don't rule out
him "doing an Izale McLeod". Unfortunately, I doubt we'll
have a sell-on clause this time.
November 17th
Here's some
figures that might be of interest to some of you who have
have endured all manner of ridicule, piss-taking and even
pity from "fans" of other clubs recently. According to
recent research 30 million Brits claim to be "big fans" of
certain clubs, with Man Utd., Chelsea and Liverpool the most
popular. However, less than half of them (46%) have ever
seen their teams play live and another 10% will only do so
once in a lifetime.
More
interestingly, armchair fans can be so fickle that just over
a quarter maintained an interest in their team for three
years; even more bizarrely, 2.6m armchair fans will change
allegiance five times during their lives!
It's strange to
imagine walking into the office and giving it a big "aaaaaaaaagggghhhh!!"
to a Man U fan over a Champions League debacle you're not
really bothered about anyway- to be told "I don't support
them anymore". I don't know how I'd respond to that.
November 14th
According to The Mirror,
Stephen Bywater is a martial arts expert who spends his
spare time "scrapping with his pals", indulging in judo,
boxing and jujitsu. That might explain why when I saw him in
Morrison's last year he was dressed like a ninja in
training- black towelling hoodie, black towelling traggy
bottoms, chunky black trainers. Expect to see an immediate
decrease in "chocolate wrist" comments on this site. It was
Simon who said it anyway- obviously I think he's England's
no.1 and just having a bit of bad luck.
November 12th
A couple of interesting
texts from Simon:
First one: "Friends of
[players name removed just in case] have just been telling
me that the main focus of training is seven defenders v.
five attackers every day"
If our attack was good
and defence weak, or vice versa, our weaknesses would become
clear within half an hour. The problem is that with our
defence and attack being as good, or dare I say bad, as each
other, there must be some epic struggles on the training
ground but come Saturday the poor chaps don't know what has
hit them. I wonder if this is why Tyrone Mears recently
claimed he was aiming for an England place? "Eddie Lewis
hasn't had a kick all week, I must be brilliant".
Second one: "Ten
thousand people have signed a petition trying to get Austria
banned from next years Euro's. "Let's not embarrass
ourselves" the campaign calls itself as they are ranked 88th
in the world and fear a thrashing. Hope our lot don't hear
about this"
A great slogan. One for
the Rams Protest Group if they ever decide to reform.
November 10th
Last week I did the
phone interview for the Observer and was asked several times
"are Derby doomed" to which I refused to agree, arguing that
we're not adrift and will soon be picking up points. The
interviewer, ironically a West Ham fan, must be in stitches
tonight.
The day didn't look good
from the start; I've got a heavy cold and was ruled out of
any pre match socialising. Then my son's temperature also
rocketed and we had to dash across town (on Doctor's
advice), waiting for an hour to be told that there was
nothing to worry about. I made it home long enough to make a
flask and dash straight to the game.
At half time we were
still optimistic; West Ham had a virtual reserve team out
and Derby were so poor we could only get better. However,
pouring my coffee out I realised I'd got the quantities
hopelessly wrong: far too much brandy; weak watery coffee;
and milk enough to discolour and make the whole thing look
like dishwater (and taste like it if Fairy added "Autumn
Brandy" to the range). In true British style, Simon drank up
with out a word of complaint- but the omens weren't good.
The second half was pure
embarrassment. A word of credit has to go to my 5 year old
nephew who waited a full 85 minutes before saying "Granddad,
can we go home? I don't like this match". He dutifully
watched until the end.
Just to cap it all, as
the final whistle blew, the stadium DJ reached for his newly
acquired Hits 2006 album and chose Razorlight's "America" as
his drown-out-the-boo's song. "What a drag it is, the state
I'm in"- my sentiments entirely J-Bo.
So where do we start
after that? Well I'd start by sacking the DVD analyst. You
can guarantee an opponent will run through one on one with
Bywater at least 3 or 4 times a match (e.g. both Everton
goals) but the coaching staff don't seem to have registered
this. I'm convinced I could have saved us at least 4 goals
over the season armed with just a Betamax and a few Match of
the Day repeats.
November 10th
It seems Birmingham are
still having a job pulling a crowd. Text from Simon: "Half
page advert in The Mirror...you can pay on the gate for the
game v. Villa on sunday. Crap club, mind you, the tickets
start at twenty five quid"*.
Chatting to Villa fans
last week, they couldn't wait for the fixture; the Villa fan
summarising the game in the Observer used two lines on Derby
and the rest on the forthcoming derby (without a capital
"D"). I hope there's plenty of stewards on duty.
Twenty five quid is not
bad though in this day and age. I bought a child's ticket
for today's game and it cost me £21. (that's £3 more than
Child Benefit incidentally- sorry son, it's beans on toast
again). Don't worry- I'm not trying the scam highlighted on
the official site (adults entering with kids tickets), it's
a legit swap around.
*regular readers will
recall Birmingham did a similar trick for that other hard to
sell game- Man Utd. at home.
November 8th
It's often said, usually
by people like myself, that football isn't as good as it
used to be, prices are too high etc., etc. so how about this
for a random statistic:
Leeds v. Millwall League
1, 2007 (i.e. third division) attendance: 30,319
Leeds v. Luton Division
1, 1974 (i.e. future Premiership) third home game after
winning the league, attendance 26,450
It shows just how many
more people go to football nowadays. Of course it might also
indicate how fickle Leeds fans can be, considering they got
off to a flier this year and had a crap start in '74.
(Info taken from The
Damned Utd., the novel based on Cloughies time at Leeds. A
brilliant read. Hopefully a longer article on it will appear
on the site soon).
November 6th
WARNING- For
trainspotters only: a couple of quick "where are they now?'s"
that I've come across:
Pierre Ducroqc doing a
diving header for Strasbourg in France's top division (as
seen on Channel 5's French Football round-up).
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.
November 4th
Well, I did try to tempt
fate with yesterdays comment but still no joy. Will we score
away before Christmas? We have three away games before:
Sunderland, Man U and Newcastle. The BBC are digitally
remastering Roy Castle* in preparation for the Match Of The
Day Christmas special.
Visiting Villa Park
yesterday, it's amazing to think that it was widely regarded
as one of the countries top stadium's until the last couple
of years. At first, it was great to be in a "real" ground,
close to the pitch, four different stands etc. However,
after spending most of half time queuing on the stairs, to
join the queue to get down the back, in order to queue on
the concourse, dividing to two queues for bogs and food
(both still long when the second half resumed) I found
myself guiltily wishing for "better facilities"- I've
finally been corrupted! It was a similar feeling to saying
"I love real old men's pubs I do", then entering one, having
a choice of two beers, the bogs are in tatters and the last
thing you want to do is speak to, or even look at, one of
the fabled "old men". At which point you all say "shall we
just go to Wetherspoon's?"
*Foreign readers-
trumpet playing presenter of childhood TV staple "Record
Breakers". Died a few years ago from cancer, apparently
contracted by passive smoking whilst playing his trumpet in
working men's clubs. This had the effect of simultaneously
power inhaling several hundred fags every night. Not good
for the lungs.
November 3rd
From an email I sent:
"fortunately, when you support Derby you can go away for a
fortnight and not miss any goals". Now I'm back and about to
set off for Villa- let the goal scoring resume.
November 2nd
I'm now back from
holiday, updates over the weekend...
October 18th
One of the great things
about football (or one of the most infuriating depending on
circumstances) is how the man on the terraces can see a
signing or appointment and think "that will never work" and
it doesn't. It makes us all feel like an expert in our own
little way. The most recent example of this was Bolton's
appointment and subsequent sacking of Sammy Lee. The
appointment was questioned in these very pages as long ago
as August 23rd with Simon's theory of "the coach is
generally the class joker, leading the club farting
competitions and the like. Then one day, he puts a suit on
and starts asking people to turn up on time- it just doesn't
work."* Maybe more clubs should take a leaf out of
Scunthorpe's book: after manager Brian Laws' departure to
Sheffield Wednesday, Scunthorpe appointed club physio Nigel
Adkins as manager. He not only maintained the promotion
challenge but won the league at a canter. Scunthorpe fans
have since adopted the chant "Who needs Mourinho? We've got
our physio!".
I'm off on holiday now
for a couple of weeks- don't burgle my house.
*For more of Simon's
insights, have a look in Sunday's Observer or tune into
Match of the Day 2 on Sunday night. Possibly the only
ex-Cantaloupe pupil to appear in the Observer and on the
BBC.
October 16th
It's difficult to avoid
all the international hype at the moment but one detail that
caught my eye was that the Russia match was kicking off at
4pm. To explain why, I'll rewind a couple of weeks to a tip
I received predicting that Arbroath would win (they did),
this was followed a week later by a tip on Elgin (they also
did). This revealed two things: 1) the tipster (a work mate)
knew his stuff; 2) he was in deeper than a couple of quid on
the Premier. Last week at an afternoon meeting, I noticed he
was becoming uncharacteristically agitated as it dragged on-
this from a man who can stretch a "quick word" over several
hours. As the meeting wrapped up around half four, he
whispered "thank God, I've got to get my football bets on by
5" which immediately made me think "in which time zone do
they kick off at 5pm?". He must have been betting on the
Russian 2nd division.
As we left, he was
telling me about an Albion Rovers victory he predicted the
night before, I replied "blimey, you'll be betting on the
Johnstone Paints Trophy next" to which he replied "it was
bloody Bristol Rovers in that that let me down!".
October 14th
Some schizophrenia on
the text by Bob:
21:26 Saturday night
"Like it or loath it, that egg chasing result in Paris was
the business"
Two and a half hours
(and possibly some Sauvignon Blanc) later, without a reply
in the interim "Rugby is Fucking shit isn't it?!"
My reply on Sunday
morning was "Heard my neighbours shouting so looked what was
happening. Saw twenty blokes having a man tangle so axed it"
(If it had been the other neighbours; shouting would have
indicated something entirely different. I know what you're
thinking but it'd be war not love).
October 13th
One of the back page
stories in the Derby Telegraph this week said how Scotland
manager Alex McLeish used the Telegraph coverage of Derby's
Scotland internationals to keep tabs on them. I've got
nothing against the Scot's but just for a practical joke- I
think the Telegraph should start bigging up Bob Malcolm
everyday. 6 weeks later- "Malcolm in shock call up for
Scotland's crucial clash with Italy".
October 12th
A few bits of
correspondence I've received this week:
First up, seemingly
everyone's favourite topic: Hummers. The Jackal writes
"Jeremy Clarkson driving Hummer on UK Gold...background is
General Motors have bought name and made it commercial...60k
and it's yours, 3.3 miles to the gallon...and he says it's
shit!". £60k? you should get a lower division footballer
free at that price. Did we get the Hummer free with Earnie
or was it the other way round?
Secondly, Simon on his
new favourite topic: Craig Brown (well his favourite topic
is actually Mark Ronson but I haven't got enough space
here):
"Craig Brown's talking
up Scotland's chances on BBC website. No mention of Rams".
I suggested that Derby could be linked with Shevchenko and
Voronin following Brown's latest European scouting mission.
(Scotland are playing Ukraine if you really need the
joke explaining). I also noted the internet use during work
hours Simon, new office nice is it?
Thirdly, reader John
wrote about our ex
"Peroxide blonde mistake prone centre
back". I'm glad he said "Peroxide blonde" or it could have
been one of about twenty. The subject matter was Andrew
Davies annual loan-with view to permanent- he's back at 'Boro
routine. Are they asking too much or do people realise that
he's just not that good?
October 12th
My neighbours have just
come back from holiday. We were talking about the new
Starbucks and I was telling her about their statement (see
yesterday). She thought they should make it "one moment, one
human being, one extraordinary cup of coffee at a time,
thousands of
exploited Third World workers".
October 10th
Don't worry that we are
probably the last team in Europe to yield either a goal or
point away from home this season because as the official
website proudly proclaimed yesterday "Pride Park will become
the first football stadium in Europe to house a Starbucks
outlet". The news that the Baseball Bar and Grill is being
converted into a cafe was accompanied by some 5 star
corporate nonsense including "We feel the presence of a
Starbucks store will greatly enhance the experience of
visiting the stadium" from our chairman (not as much as
three points would Peter) and "...we are actively looking
for more partners in the leisure and attractions sector"
from Starbucks (is football now "leisure and attractions"?)
The most cringeworthy
statement comes at the end "Starbucks Coffee Company
provides an uplifting experience that enriches people's
lives, one moment, one human being, one extraordinary cup of
coffee at a time". Is it just the British who snigger at
things like this?
It's good news for those
working at Egg who want to spend three quid on a cup of
coffee or fans who have trouble staying awake for 90
minutes. As for me- I shan't be bothering until they
introduce the "Jackal's hip flask Matchday Special".
On the subject of
football's increasingly corporate priorities, I read a story
today about an Inverness Caley player on a drugs charge
after Police "found cocaine placed
on a CD" in his car (is that what they call a criminal
record? Boom! Boom!). A club statement announced "The club
would like to reassure the club's commercial partners,
supporters and the public that the club adopts a very firm
stance in relation to the use and/or possession of drugs." In that order.
October 9th
The Premier League is
widely regarded as the richest in the world, especially when
it comes to TV money but just how far are we in front of
some of our EU friends? According to World Soccer, Slavia
Prague were offered just £24 by Ceska Televize (Czech BBC I
presume) for the rights to their Champions League qualifier
against Slovakians Zilina. They declined the offer.
On the subject of Europe
and money (also from World Soccer), it's no wonder clubs are
so desperate to get in the Champions League and not the UEFA
when you look at the figures. With the new format of the
UEFA Cup, which makes the Cricket World Cup look short and
snappy, Tottenham received £2.92m for reaching the quarter
finals after playing every team in Europe home and away.
When you're squad men cost £16.5m this isn't a great return.
Compare that to the economically efficient Bulgarians Levski
Sofia who lost all their games in the Champions League group
stages but still earnt £4.87m, almost twice Tottenham's
meagre haul, for a fraction of the effort (literally).
October 7th
Bryan Robson's latest
excuse for Sheffield Utd.'s indifferent start to the season:
"A number of
players are not as good as I thought they were when I took
the job"
What's the phrase about
a bad workman blaming his tools?
October 6th
Text received from
Simon:
"I'm in Mark de Vries
fan club. His last minute winner bought my treble home" (see
October 3rd)
In fairness to de Vries,
when I slated him a month or so ago I employed the tactics
of proper journalists by glossing over certain facts. When I
said he'd been "farmed out to Holland" he was actually
playing for Heerenveen for part of it. Looking at the roll
call of ex-Heerenveen strikers, he's not in bad
company: John Dahl Tomasson (think Milan not Newcastle);
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar; Ruud van Nistelrooy; George Samaraas
(think £6m); Marcus Allback (again, he must have been good
sometime); and current Brazil international Afonso Alves.
Let's get Craig Brown a season ticket!
October 5th
I've just cancelled the
myspace account basically because I didn't use it a lot and
as a result no else really did. I didn't want it floating
around in cyberspace hopelessly out of date. I did make an
effort one weekend by going to one of the football forums
that befriended me but I made one comment and got a barrage
of semi-literate cyber abuse- never again.
October 3rd
A bit of a typo in Neil
Hallam's Trader column last week, according to his
calculations the Rams have conceded an average of 2,857
goals per game this season! Neil has previously classed
himself as somewhere between realist and optimist so it's
interesting to see that he devoted said column to the
likelihood of us conceding 100 goals this season. On a happy
note, he points out that although Leicester conceded 112
goals in 1957-57 (sic- you can't expect proof readers on a
free paper) they still didn't get relegated.
On the subject of
Leicester- a Mark de Vries update (see Journals August
16th). After featuring in almost every Leicester game this
season, he's been shipped out on loan to Leeds.
October 2nd
Has Billy started the
mind games for the Reading match already? We played Reading
reserves last night and Davies was reported as saying that
Giles Barnes would get a good run out but Earnshaw would
"definitely not" play. As it happened Earnie played a full
90 minutes whilst Giles didn't feature at all.
I actually went over for
the second half but there were no turnstiles open.
Fortunately, a kindly old gent on reception lead me through
the inner sanctum, via the trophy room and onto the
pitch-side track so I could walk around from the West Stand
to East- not something you usually get the chance to do.
The game finished 1-1.
The most notable incident was Earnshaw achieving something I
can't ever remember seeing at Pride Park- he managed to
clear the South Stand with a shot. How did he manage that?
He spun and whacked a bouncing ball around the edge of the
box; he certainly caught hold of it but didn't get over it
particularly well (to put it politely).
His Hummer was even more
conspicuous in the car park given the lack of first teamers,
fat cats and other cars generally. My 5 month old son has a
t-shirt with a teddy bear driving a bus and the image always
springs to mind when I think of Earnie driving around.
October 1st
A couple of points to
note from Saturdays game:
1) Billy Davies has
never been slow to say the fans when the fans have been
impatient and critical (Howard, Mears, tactics, early
results etc.). So it should be noted, if only here, that
with the Rams bottom of the league, the fans sang his name
at length on Saturday.
2) The DJ at Pride Park
has finally found a copy of Chelsea Dagger and unveiled this
anthem of football celebration 5 seconds after the final
whistle of Saturday's slightly disappointing 1-1 draw. (This
habit of playing a song immediately irritates me as it
drowns out the real atmosphere whether it be cheers or
boo's. Does anybody really want to hear Take That "Shine"
when you've lost 2-1 to Birmingham?)
Journals August to September 2007
Journals of Derventio 2006/7 Season | 
