jono

I've been sent a picture of my 14 year old Grandson with Eiran Cashin on the pitch, Now that's one to treasure 😊

 

I think you’ve been incredibly straight in saying so. None of us have a monopoly on “the right call”  I wanted Tommo to start yesterday as I felt he’d deserved it, then maybe give Max the last 20 to say good bye. Rather glad the manager didn’t agree ! 

I’ve been thinking a lot about that this week.  If you think about the last 4 years since COVID started it’s been an emotional rollercoaster as a Rams fan.  We seemed to lurch from one disaster to another - FFP charges, fake sheiks, tik-tok takeover failure, transfer embargo’s, forced to play kids in the cup, staying up on the last day, administration, points deductions, dodgy Yanks, relegation, 5 players, 1 week from disappearing and probably more.
It feels like this is end of the first chapter of the David Clowes era.

I’d question if any Derby fan is actually human if they didn’t get emotional at least once yesterday. 
We nearly lost it all. Everyone has their ritual, whether it’s going with lifelong friends and getting on the beers, travelling from afar to visit home, seeing family they may otherwise rarely see… would be all gone  
There were kids that pitch who were probably too young to remember the Villa play off loss, let alone the QPR one, they wouldn’t have seen a single moment of success watching us. I’m 33 and don’t remember promotion in the 90s, all I have is 07. Suppose we could support Man City? Nah, never, that’s not football. That’s not belonging. That’s not family.  
There’s a lot of pain in the recent past, and yesterday was a stark reminder of what may never have been again. 

Not sure if I am alone in this today but I feel an overwhelming sense of closure after yesterday’s achievement. What a relief to be back in the Championship. But it’s more than that.
It feels like all the hurt over the last couple of years: the administration, the points deductions, the financial turmoil, the humiliation, the relegation; it feels like we can finally turn the page on that sordid chapter of our history. Like we can move on. 
I’m not sure why I’m sharing this, but it feels even more personal for me than that, too. In the summer of our relegation, I lost my grandmother to cancer. She was the major connection to Derby for me. My whole ritual of going to the matches involved staying with her for the weekend. For some reason Derby County, the city of Derby, the supporters bus that would pick my Grandad and I up from outside The Gate in Swanwick, the cone of chips before the game, all just seemed to have disappeared.
I know it sounds strange but I feel like I lost my connection to the club in so many ways that summer. 
Yesterday, watching everyone celebrating and the tears and David Clowes and Ed Dawe’s’ tears, just felt like closure. The end of the trauma and the start of something new. It felt like moving on.
Thank you, Mr Clowes, for all of that 🐏

I don’t want to start a squabble at such a happy time but “crap and going nowhere” illustrates this misplaced demand for instant success. It’s something that rarely happens. I’d say, that at that time we looked lacklustre, disjointed, not working in harmony or being better than the sum of our parts (which is what a team game needs) Warne was new at the time, had inherited players and little room to buy. He needed time to build that group in to team. He needed to Instill his culture and methods. That took time.  He succeeded.
That is why I get so narky when the knives come out after a couple of bad results. I am going to say the same next season when we are 15th in the table  just had a bore draw at home against a lower ranked side. Patience. 

I think you’ve been incredibly straight in saying so. None of us have a monopoly on “the right call”  I wanted Tommo to start yesterday as I felt he’d deserved it, then maybe give Max the last 20 to say good bye. Rather glad the manager didn’t agree ! 

Thanks guys! I personally am fully on board the Evatt train. He took us over when we had unpaid players, a low wage cap and has got us promoted from league 2 and competing to get back to the championship, bringing on younger players, playing nice football. A lot of our morons suggesting we should sack him if we don't go up but I don't see what that achieves personally, we've got better every year he's been in charge and that's despite losing James Trafford and Conor Bradley last summer who both have played regularly in the premier league this season. I'm dreading that it's Barnsley in the semis, they will limit our away allocation to 2000 again I imagine (but at least we're home 2nd leg this time) and we'll have played them 10 times in 3 seasons after these 2 games (won once and lost twice of the 8 so far) so I expect a nervy tight game. Having thumps Oxford 5-0 a couple of months ago I quite fancied them. We will see! I agree that we're probs the better team of the 4 but we all know that means very little in the playoffs so we need to be on it and hopefully our strikers take their chances when they come. Bet you're all so relieved it's done and dusted and can relax and wait for fixture release day now haha

Hi all,
I just wanted to pop on and say congrats on a successful season and well deserved promotion. I know there's been some ill feeling between fans, mostly on the toxic social media platforms (not helped by a large number of idiots of which we at Bolton have f****** loads). I've scanned through your forum and a few others to regularly to check in on the thoughts of some of our promotion rivals over the season and as forums go, this one is generally positive and full of good and honest opinions. We have another fan called Wanderlust who often peruses the various forums and I feel he is a good fan for honest opinions too. I hope we can join you, I'm sure there's plenty of you hoping we stumble and end up stuck in L1 for at least another year, mainly for the fans who've been making stupid excuses for us not winning points this season. Reality is, you and Pompey were the most consistent teams over the season and thoroughly deserve your promotion, so well done and good luck in the championship next year. With your stadium and fanbase and what your fans have been through (trust me, I know what it feels like too), you deserve some good times now!
 
All the best gents (and ladies)

Fair enough. At the time, it just felt like we weren’t going to ever put together a consistent enough run of results to get us up. 
I’ve never been so delighted to be wrong.

I don’t want to start a squabble at such a happy time but “crap and going nowhere” illustrates this misplaced demand for instant success. It’s something that rarely happens. I’d say, that at that time we looked lacklustre, disjointed, not working in harmony or being better than the sum of our parts (which is what a team game needs) Warne was new at the time, had inherited players and little room to buy. He needed time to build that group in to team. He needed to Instill his culture and methods. That took time.  He succeeded.
That is why I get so narky when the knives come out after a couple of bad results. I am going to say the same next season when we are 15th in the table  just had a bore draw at home against a lower ranked side. Patience. 

I don’t want to start a squabble at such a happy time but “crap and going nowhere” illustrates this misplaced demand for instant success. It’s something that rarely happens. I’d say, that at that time we looked lacklustre, disjointed, not working in harmony or being better than the sum of our parts (which is what a team game needs) Warne was new at the time, had inherited players and little room to buy. He needed time to build that group in to team. He needed to Instill his culture and methods. That took time.  He succeeded.
That is why I get so narky when the knives come out after a couple of bad results. I am going to say the same next season when we are 15th in the table  just had a bore draw at home against a lower ranked side. Patience. 

I don’t want to start a squabble at such a happy time but “crap and going nowhere” illustrates this misplaced demand for instant success. It’s something that rarely happens. I’d say, that at that time we looked lacklustre, disjointed, not working in harmony or being better than the sum of our parts (which is what a team game needs) Warne was new at the time, had inherited players and little room to buy. He needed time to build that group in to team. He needed to Instill his culture and methods. That took time.  He succeeded.
That is why I get so narky when the knives come out after a couple of bad results. I am going to say the same next season when we are 15th in the table  just had a bore draw at home against a lower ranked side. Patience. 

I don’t want to start a squabble at such a happy time but “crap and going nowhere” illustrates this misplaced demand for instant success. It’s something that rarely happens. I’d say, that at that time we looked lacklustre, disjointed, not working in harmony or being better than the sum of our parts (which is what a team game needs) Warne was new at the time, had inherited players and little room to buy. He needed time to build that group in to team. He needed to Instill his culture and methods. That took time.  He succeeded.
That is why I get so narky when the knives come out after a couple of bad results. I am going to say the same next season when we are 15th in the table  just had a bore draw at home against a lower ranked side. Patience. 

I don’t want to start a squabble at such a happy time but “crap and going nowhere” illustrates this misplaced demand for instant success. It’s something that rarely happens. I’d say, that at that time we looked lacklustre, disjointed, not working in harmony or being better than the sum of our parts (which is what a team game needs) Warne was new at the time, had inherited players and little room to buy. He needed time to build that group in to team. He needed to Instill his culture and methods. That took time.  He succeeded.
That is why I get so narky when the knives come out after a couple of bad results. I am going to say the same next season when we are 15th in the table  just had a bore draw at home against a lower ranked side. Patience. 

I don’t want to start a squabble at such a happy time but “crap and going nowhere” illustrates this misplaced demand for instant success. It’s something that rarely happens. I’d say, that at that time we looked lacklustre, disjointed, not working in harmony or being better than the sum of our parts (which is what a team game needs) Warne was new at the time, had inherited players and little room to buy. He needed time to build that group in to team. He needed to Instill his culture and methods. That took time.  He succeeded.
That is why I get so narky when the knives come out after a couple of bad results. I am going to say the same next season when we are 15th in the table  just had a bore draw at home against a lower ranked side. Patience. 

I don’t want to start a squabble at such a happy time but “crap and going nowhere” illustrates this misplaced demand for instant success. It’s something that rarely happens. I’d say, that at that time we looked lacklustre, disjointed, not working in harmony or being better than the sum of our parts (which is what a team game needs) Warne was new at the time, had inherited players and little room to buy. He needed time to build that group in to team. He needed to Instill his culture and methods. That took time.  He succeeded.
That is why I get so narky when the knives come out after a couple of bad results. I am going to say the same next season when we are 15th in the table  just had a bore draw at home against a lower ranked side. Patience. 

I'd actually forgotten it was his "First FULL season".
Even better then!  

I don’t want to start a squabble at such a happy time but “crap and going nowhere” illustrates this misplaced demand for instant success. It’s something that rarely happens. I’d say, that at that time we looked lacklustre, disjointed, not working in harmony or being better than the sum of our parts (which is what a team game needs) Warne was new at the time, had inherited players and little room to buy. He needed time to build that group in to team. He needed to Instill his culture and methods. That took time.  He succeeded.
That is why I get so narky when the knives come out after a couple of bad results. I am going to say the same next season when we are 15th in the table  just had a bore draw at home against a lower ranked side. Patience. 

And he has stylised the bobble hat which, let’s face it, isn’t easy to do!

I think Sibs has developed tremendously over the last half of this season. 

I’ll second that. Could hear “Untited United” way into the second half. They also didn’t look like a bottom side, they played some neat football. I hope they bounce back. 

I’ll second that. Could hear “Untited United” way into the second half. They also didn’t look like a bottom side, they played some neat football. I hope they bounce back. 

I trust his abilities. We may not be play off contenders next season but given half decent recruiting we won’t be struggling.
 
PW and his team know what they are doing.  A small upgrade in first touch/natural ball skills, signing Ebou and a scary striker and we won’t be pushovers. 
I don’t agree with the criticism of his football style. It was designed and shaped by the necessity to get out of this league. This league isn’t pretty, the football often isn’t perfect either. We are somewhere else now. I am looking forward to the next chapter.?