Vimto Enjoyer

I know that we are back within one tier of the PL but I can't say that I have any great urgency to get back in there. I don't know how you become competitive without spending either a shedload of money (and spend it well) or have really good business model like one or two of the smaller teams that have managed to get established (but they are the exception to the rule).

Otherwise it just looks like a 38 game season where you have to get the better of your clashes against the half dozen relegation fodder clubs around you and otherwise just accept regular rogerings from the likes of Man City while while pundits describe your 5-0 home defeat as "pathetic", "hopeless", "spineless" or whatever, despite the fact that your squad cost less than De Bryne's boots. I've watched quite a lot of games this year and the Sheff Utd games have just been relentlessly depressing and yet I fully expect them to be right up there in the Championship next year. 
This last year it's been nice to watch Derby games with a decent expectation of victory home or away, but for a whole bunch of clubs, the PL seems to be about trying to get 40 points or a point a game and hoping that there are 3 teams worse than you and getting put to the sword in most of the others. At least to be fair to them, Forest have had a go in most games and haven't been battered too often. Obviously our last effort in the PL re-defined abysmal, but this year Sheff Utd have just been awful and must be a really hard watch for their fans. They have just broken the 100 goals conceded milestone with still 2 games to go and that puts even our record to shame. So we never held the most goals conceded in a single PL game and now we don't even have the most goas conceded in a 38 game season. They are on 16 points which is only slightly better than our record breaking awful season. If there hadn't been some other really poor teams to steal points off then they might even have beaten it.

Will Stand - South
Cant physically Stand - West
Not allowed to Stand - East
Cant be bothered to Stand -North
Functional and informative that should do it!!
 

Hope you are joking.

Not sure how you could have watched the above interview and come to the conclusion that he’s a person you’d want managing your team 😬

David Clowes is the owner I always hoped we'd end up getting one day.
A lot of fans seem utterly fixated on the respective spending power of owners but unless you have materially more wealth than all of your competitors (extremely rare), the differentiator becomes how you manage your club. What culture are you looking for? Do you back your managers when things get tough? Do you have a long term plan? Quite apart from the extraordinary sacrifice David Clowes undertook in grossly overpaying for Derby County, everything since has been an exercise in how to run a club properly. He is an elite level owner & best of all, he cares - he's one of us.
Its no secret I'm a Warne-sceptic but I had to admire Clowes sticking by Warne during his decidedly dodgy autumn. Sitting outside the playoff spots as late as 24th November would have had many chairmen pulling the trigger but there was absolutely no sense Warne was even on his final warning - he was given time & Clowes was utterly vindicated by the subsequent promotion. That is the kind of responsible stewardship successful clubs need & that we have so often lacked in the past.
Tales of his humility elsewhere in this thread endear him even more, as does that open letter on the official site today. A successful businessman, a qualified pilot & now a successful football club owner - that is a bloody rare skillset & all credit to him that he lets his actions do the talking rather than resorting to the egocentric approach of many of his peers. I'm genuinely excited to see how he approaches the challenge of competing with clubs with bigger budgets & more reckless strategies - I strongly suspect this is where the backroom structure he brought in 2 years ago starts to bear fruit - quality recruitment, quality youth progression & a tight, respectful culture that gets the best out of everyone in the building. Progressive ownership is the only sensible game in that snakepit of a division & Clowes is smart enough to realise this.
Most of all, I hope he's enjoying it. I loved seeing him get the limelight on Saturday - the fans singing his name & him picking up the trophy - he deserves every accolade going. I hope David Clowes stays with us for many years, I'm certain he will steer us back to the Prem if he does.

I maybe old school, but no way would i want a mega rich foreign owner, but im probably in the minority. If that happened to all the so called big clubs in the championship and league 1 what happens to all the small clubs, prob go out of buisness like we nearly did.

Just watched the game on Rams Tv and the celebrations afterwards which were very emotional. Need to say a huge thank you to Owen Bradley who I think has worked tirelessly this season to bring us superb coverage of matches, interviews etc. He gets better and better. Shaun Barker has also made a great contribution to the season. Please say thank you to the entire team that you front. Hope you are back next year(

I do hope Rams TV continues, even if they have to trip amount of cameras etc to cut costs. Its an excellent service.
I will not be subscribing to anything Sky TV offer as a matter of principle, they have used their financial muscle to reduce market choice. I hope we all do the same.
Boycott SKY!

My thoughts are that it feels like proper football. I’m becoming increasingly alienated by modern, elite football. I watch it less and less now, and when I do watch it, the enjoyment is sucked out by the way it’s organised and run.
There’s real supporters who support less glamorous clubs because they love them. Not because they win anything or because it’s a tourist attraction. 1700 fans travelled from little Carlisle, just to watch their team that were relegated weeks ago. That’s proper football.
There’s obviously far less money, the facilities are nowhere near as good, the players can’t quite play the same kind of football, but it’s strangely enjoyable.
From scoring two in added time at Port Vale, to Wilson’s header against Bolton, to watching Collins’ penalty at Forest Green from a grass verge outside the ground because the one single turnstile wasn’t working quick enough, it’s been great.
Although saying that, I’m hoping we don’t have to return any time soon!

I've really enjoyed league one, I love the fact that most of our games have been 3pm Saturdays, that won't be the case next year.
Some proper community clubs with lovely old school stadiums, proper football, but pleased to be out of it!

Sadly this will be my last match today. My first was in 1956 as a 13year old, My dad used to take me before that but he stopped going when we went down to the third division north. My mate and I would catch the 12 oclock bus from Melbourne and be the first in the ground. We stood in the Normanton end pigeon loft, I think it was 3 shilling. To this day I remember that team. We were champions in 1957 and I ran onto the pitch after the last match against Southport, Ray Straw scored 37 goals that season, The next ten years saw me start work, get married and have two children, I had moved to Derby, and after my family, the Rams were the most important thing in my life I never missed a home game in those ten years even though we were only an average second division side. And then in 1966 after England won the world cup my mate and I decided to have a season ticket, Little did we know what would happen that season, I was at work one day and a Rams supporting work mate told me we had signed a player from Bradford Park Avenue, his name was Kevin Hector I'd never heard of him but he was without doubt the most wonderful footballer to grace the Baseball Ground I had ever seen, and because of this we wanted to see more players like him which led to Tim Ward getting the sack and BC becoming Manager, what followed was ten years of unbelievable success and enjoyment. And then things started to go wrong off and on the pitch and I stopped being a season ticket holder during Peter Taylors time as manager, i still loved The Rams of course and when I turned 65 and retired my old mate from Melbourne and I bought season tickets again. But sadly covid left my best friend of 80 years with a dementia problem and he know no longer knows me. For the last two seasons I have been going alone to the match but its just not the same for me. Therefore I am calling it a day, as I write this I am welling up as I will do this afternoon. Thank you Derby County for every thing I will love you till I die.     

Thanks mate! I’m down the road from the Alex and already well acquainted with the Magnet 😎

I’ve just moved to Edgeley - I’ll be even happier for the local community (us two) come next week 😉🤞🏻

Hi All,
Don't really post much but I thought some of you might like to see these film photos I got at Pride Park. Hoping to get down and do this again sometime. Fingers crossed when we're in the championship next season. Let me know what you think.
Link here
Derby County v Blackpool

This camera was my Dad's (Also a big derby fan, he's on here somewhere) and had been sitting in the loft for years before getting a new lease of life. It's an Olympus OM1 if anyone cares, think it's from the 80s. Shot on Ilford XP2 film.

A few also up on instagram and some other photos if anyone wants to see.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C50d-TZiHqL/?igsh=b2RwbnpmdnF0OTFp

Well, I hate to side with Forest fans on anything but their club is well and truly screwing their fans over. 
They’ve announced their season ticket prices and they’re frankly disgusting. Tickets going up 200% in 2 years, shifting age categories so some tickets going up £700… you name it, they’re doing it. My missus, for my sins, has a season ticket and hers has gone up £200 since the Championship - and this is after giving them money during COVID to keep them going. 
Meanwhile, the club gleefully crow about having 10,000 on a season ticket waiting list. Pay up, or another customer (not fan, customer) will do.
Latest in a long line of things where their ownership really doesn’t get the difference between fans and customers. Premier league? You can keep it. 

Eíran won the Supporters Clubs Player of the Year trophy tonight. 
Photo courtesy of Jembie. 

The great news is that Big Bad Sonny is back for the final push !!! 
 
 

Cheers mate , bar staff have okayed it as long as we keep Rams shirts covered and refrain from any behaviour that’s likely to cause a reaction