Dave Mackay Ate My Hamster

So following on from Sir Alan Hinton sending me over his treasured signed and worn White Hummel boots to restore and share things then moved on a step further, Alans two younger brothers Roy and Brian came over to visit me, they brought some more of his books over from the publisher who is based near to where they live, as you can see from the photo there is no mistaking them for any other than Hintons, they were great company and full of stories of their older brother who was obviously their hero growing up before he was famous.
I have known Alan a long time maybe twenty years since he first came over to my mum and dads house with John O'hare for a cup of tea and we have always stayed in contact and i have always been over to see him whenever he comes to the UK which is most years so he knows what i am about and my ethics and what i try to do in putting together the history of teh club mainly through the shirts but also many other items of intrest that i rarely post.
I am not some sad old anorak i am a normal fella with a beautiful wife and a great son 12 year old son and a dad who i treasure and include him with what i do as it was him who started me on Derby County from birth so he can now endure the obsession as its his fault, i have built up an acquaintance and in some cases a friendship with many of the ex Derby County players especially those form the 70s and 80s for the obvious reasons that the team from 1968 to 1976 was legendary and the team from 1982 to 1990 was the one that i grew up with in my teen years and went on that fantastic journey with them, i am a genuine person and my collection is built upon trust that i wont use it for financial gain.
So back to Alan, himself and the family want me to put many of Alans Derby County related items into my collection, these will be shared with the DCFC family through events with the Rams Heritage Trust that many of you know i am one of the founding trustees with Jamie, Paul & Joe, we all have the clubs intrest at heart and our aim is to work closely with the new owner and to try and find a way of a display area being set up within Pride Park and maybe attach it to the ground tour, very much in the way that Arsenal have done it so well, made it all about the history of the club not just trophies. i will of course share items online as always, mainly through my twitter feed @phillowe1 as that way people can follow it who want to see it and it doesn't bore those who don't wish to see it.
I have built up a a good reputation online with many other football historians and collectors and work closely with Andy Ellis & Jason Shardlow on the book that we did and is updated each year with new content based on the shirt collection and the colours of the rams from 1884, i also speak with and spent time with Peter Seddon who endorsed the Racecourse Shirt collection of the first five shirts worn by Derby County, he actually is one of the 12 members of the collection.
There are some great items so i will post them over the next few days and hopefully this will become one of those posts that you can come back to each time you see it appear on the time line as new content will have been added.
Finally how great it is that we have our club back, for one moment a few weeks back i thought that we had reached the end game !
massive respect to David Clowes who really is just one of us ! 
Up the rams !!
 
 

I even managed to bump into our Lord and Saviour David Clowes. I shook his hand and said thanks for making half a million people much happier. He laughed and said I'm much happier too.
My missis looked at me a bit pityingly and called me a "fan boy".
He's so unassuming. Someone else had to point him out to me. You would never spot him in a crowd. Jeans and polo shirt.
Thanks DC. ???

I even managed to bump into our Lord and Saviour David Clowes. I shook his hand and said thanks for making half a million people much happier. He laughed and said I'm much happier too.
My missis looked at me a bit pityingly and called me a "fan boy".
He's so unassuming. Someone else had to point him out to me. You would never spot him in a crowd. Jeans and polo shirt.
Thanks DC. ???

So, my in depth reportage of the evening....
The team in Light Blue ( Derby ) played the team in Yellow ( Matlock ).
The blue team looked very young and full of athleticism, whilst the yellow team looked less athletic and older.
For the first 20 minutes the blue team looked very fit and fast, whilst the yellow team huffed and puffed against them.
The blues ran around very fast but just looked like a random collection of fast runners.
The yellows looked slightly overawed for 20 minutes, impressed by their collective speed.
Then the yellows realised  that the blues weren't actually a team, but a collection of random fast runners.
So, after being initially impressed they decided to fight back as a team.
The two teams cancelled each other out at half time. Half time result 0-0.
Second half yellows thought " These are just a team of fast runners, they're not that special, maybe we should fight back "
Cue first goal for the yellows - a headed goal - early-ish in the second half.
Blues got indignant and ran around even faster for a few minutes after that. No end product.
Yellows got more ebullient, unafraid of the blues, culminating in a flying air kick volley for their second goal.
2-0
Game fizzled out....
That's my seasoned journo's analysis of the evening.
Henry Winter eat your heart out...
Oh, I might add, a great night at Matlock. Think football meets Peter Kay characters. Very entertaining.

I even managed to bump into our Lord and Saviour David Clowes. I shook his hand and said thanks for making half a million people much happier. He laughed and said I'm much happier too.
My missis looked at me a bit pityingly and called me a "fan boy".
He's so unassuming. Someone else had to point him out to me. You would never spot him in a crowd. Jeans and polo shirt.
Thanks DC. ???

I even managed to bump into our Lord and Saviour David Clowes. I shook his hand and said thanks for making half a million people much happier. He laughed and said I'm much happier too.
My missis looked at me a bit pityingly and called me a "fan boy".
He's so unassuming. Someone else had to point him out to me. You would never spot him in a crowd. Jeans and polo shirt.
Thanks DC. ???

I even managed to bump into our Lord and Saviour David Clowes. I shook his hand and said thanks for making half a million people much happier. He laughed and said I'm much happier too.
My missis looked at me a bit pityingly and called me a "fan boy".
He's so unassuming. Someone else had to point him out to me. You would never spot him in a crowd. Jeans and polo shirt.
Thanks DC. ???

I even managed to bump into our Lord and Saviour David Clowes. I shook his hand and said thanks for making half a million people much happier. He laughed and said I'm much happier too.
My missis looked at me a bit pityingly and called me a "fan boy".
He's so unassuming. Someone else had to point him out to me. You would never spot him in a crowd. Jeans and polo shirt.
Thanks DC. ???

So, my in depth reportage of the evening....
The team in Light Blue ( Derby ) played the team in Yellow ( Matlock ).
The blue team looked very young and full of athleticism, whilst the yellow team looked less athletic and older.
For the first 20 minutes the blue team looked very fit and fast, whilst the yellow team huffed and puffed against them.
The blues ran around very fast but just looked like a random collection of fast runners.
The yellows looked slightly overawed for 20 minutes, impressed by their collective speed.
Then the yellows realised  that the blues weren't actually a team, but a collection of random fast runners.
So, after being initially impressed they decided to fight back as a team.
The two teams cancelled each other out at half time. Half time result 0-0.
Second half yellows thought " These are just a team of fast runners, they're not that special, maybe we should fight back "
Cue first goal for the yellows - a headed goal - early-ish in the second half.
Blues got indignant and ran around even faster for a few minutes after that. No end product.
Yellows got more ebullient, unafraid of the blues, culminating in a flying air kick volley for their second goal.
2-0
Game fizzled out....
That's my seasoned journo's analysis of the evening.
Henry Winter eat your heart out...
Oh, I might add, a great night at Matlock. Think football meets Peter Kay characters. Very entertaining.

I even managed to bump into our Lord and Saviour David Clowes. I shook his hand and said thanks for making half a million people much happier. He laughed and said I'm much happier too.
My missis looked at me a bit pityingly and called me a "fan boy".
He's so unassuming. Someone else had to point him out to me. You would never spot him in a crowd. Jeans and polo shirt.
Thanks DC. ???

I even managed to bump into our Lord and Saviour David Clowes. I shook his hand and said thanks for making half a million people much happier. He laughed and said I'm much happier too.
My missis looked at me a bit pityingly and called me a "fan boy".
He's so unassuming. Someone else had to point him out to me. You would never spot him in a crowd. Jeans and polo shirt.
Thanks DC. ???

I'm there now. Love Matlock's ground.
Anybody have any idea what team we're putting out?
I must be getting old. They all look about 14.

Cheers RM5.

it doesn’t make business sense to keep him but we have little choice. 
 
He is more likely to stay because of nothing apart from nobody else will be willing to take a punt on him. high wages and poor injury record just means teams won’t risk it
 
but from a football pov that’s good news.

Of all the comings and goings of the last few weeks, Byrne's reluctance to sign up, or more particularly the lack of transparency of how he's gone about it particularly saddens me.
He IS too good for Division 1. He could easily hold his own in an upper Championship team, even a lower Premier League side. I just wish he'd not burnt his bridges by ( bad agent advice? ) doing it the way he has.
He's much loved and respected here. Go with our blessing Nathan, but show a bit of class lad.
I still hope we and him can reign it in a bit and classily have a second remarriage.
If not, can we not just end as "friends"?
 
 
 
 
 

Oddly, I do think that keeping him for this season is a distinct possibility.
Our wage bill without him would possibly be £8m a year and with him £9m a year.
In the great business plan, as ridiculous as it sounds, having him in our team, in the absence of anyone else wanting to risk signing him, could actually make business sense.
If he stays fit - and that's a huge if - with our other signings, we could easily be very likely to get back to the Championship at the first attempt.
In terms of a c. £60m investment by David Clowes, getting promoted at the first attempt the extra £1m could be viewed as a potentially sound investment.
The likelihood of it happening is slim, but if nobody else comes in for him, it's not as ridiculous as it sounds.
 

Oddly, I do think that keeping him for this season is a distinct possibility.
Our wage bill without him would possibly be £8m a year and with him £9m a year.
In the great business plan, as ridiculous as it sounds, having him in our team, in the absence of anyone else wanting to risk signing him, could actually make business sense.
If he stays fit - and that's a huge if - with our other signings, we could easily be very likely to get back to the Championship at the first attempt.
In terms of a c. £60m investment by David Clowes, getting promoted at the first attempt the extra £1m could be viewed as a potentially sound investment.
The likelihood of it happening is slim, but if nobody else comes in for him, it's not as ridiculous as it sounds.
 

It's interesting that the OS is talking about him proactively and managing expectations about his fitness etc. Implies that he is still in their plans but clearly they aren't taking risks, either for his intended role in our L1 side or to keep him injury free for a move. 
Given that there is no murmur of external interest, you'd expect him to be in our plans until evidence to the contrary.
I'm being the king of stating the obvious this evening...

No. It got rubbished about an hour after the rumour started. 

Less pun more mixed metaphor but it might distract the hoards whilst you exit stage left...

Was that Cocu's backroom staff? 

Oil tanker?  I've seen faster moving glaciers. ?

I know some people are saying not get to excited but really really cant help it but with players signing new contracts and new players coming in if we gets like David mcgoldrick from sheffield untied right under the nose of boro or otherwise known as gibson now that is justice. With looking scoring so few goals we could be scoring goals for fun. And with likes curtis davies is staying and maybe shinnie coming back home to derby. 
I think league one teams be shaking in fear of playing derby county I think we could have a team fighting for league one title.

Yes