ariotofmyown

In the past 50 years twelve teams have been crowned champions of England, just twelve, one of those teams was Derby County, we were champions of England twice ! The size of a team can surely only be measured over the long term, it’s cyclical, sure we can’t compete with the big teams financially but we do have a glorious history, don’t just judge us over the past ten years, and certainly not by this season, give us some credit ! Our time will come again and until it does keep the faith ! 

We're Derby County. We aren't Derby City. Comparing city sizes is completely irrelevant to size of support when most of our support doesn't live in the city and I would also suggest Leeds are the same. Leeds have fans all over Yorkshire and whilst they might be the only team in Leeds they have a lot of other rival clubs in very close proximity. They have more fans than us - nothing to be ashamed of, but they've got a bigger population - simple as that. 
If we drop into League 1 or we have a few seasons with the same tripe as we are watching now or we have a Fawaz type owner you will soon change your tune regarding Leeds low number of fans in the ground in recent years. We've had relative success for the last few years which has pulled more fans in to the ground, but you can't compare that to a Leeds side that have been terribly run until recently - we can very easily see our numbers in the ground collapse again in the coming years

I live in the West Midlands and while you're correct that Villa are far and away the biggest club, a lot of their fanbase comes from outside of Brum across several counties and they also have a lot of support nationally. Blues are pretty much the local team across the south and centre and have a large city presence even though most of them don't go! ? By contrast to you in the 30 odd years I've lived here, I've met loads more Blues fans than Villa. Both teams have great away support but at St Andrews they just don't turn up. 

Leicester have almost done enough recently?! Since we won anything of note they've won the League Cup twice, the Premier league and the Championship and are firmly established in the top reaches of the league. They have a similar sized fanbase and the grounds are roughly the same size. If I were a Foxes fan I'd relegate us and the Dogs to your Brum and Stoke tier. They are so far ahead of us both now and are currently the top Midlands team which makes our plight even more depressing. 

What crazy rationale are you using to say QPR are a bigger club than Derby? They never won anything, got a small ground and lower attendance. Guess Sinclair did that amazing overhead kick though.
And what criteria makes a previously successful club like Forest a sleeping giant? Are there 1000s of fairweather Forest supporters, all ready to flood back once they climb the league? Are there loads of Nottingham millionaires ready to invest when the time is right? Have they got plans to stop renting their stadium from the council and build a 70k seater stadium out of town?
I grew up surrounded by Wolves fans, who kept repeating the idea that they had this huge fanbase (who just didn't attend matches) and were a much bigger club than Derby because...erm...they won some league titles 20 years ago before Derby did? When they did get back to the Prem, even now when they are a good side, they still have a similar attendance to us. That huge fanbase still isn't turning up.
I'm not sure there are any actual sleeping giants.
There are some sleeping mid-sized clubs like us, Forest, Wednesday, Sunderland, Ipswich, Charlton.
There are some larger clubs that are in the Prem but below the "big 6" level: Newcastle, Everton, Villa, West Ham, Leeds.
Maybe Arsenal are about the only possible candidate in terms of a huge club that is currently nowhere near challenging for the Prem/Champions League.

Seen that before and forgot about it or blanked it out.  Memo from Moldovas Eurovision entrants 1994 'We want our song back.

Agreed, there isn't. But generally having a few honours goes along with it. Arsenal and more recently Chelsea win a lot. Spurs have some decent history, West Ham don't. 
It can be whatever you want it to be, but West Ham seem to have been forced as a bigger club than they are, in my book. 

All opinions but I wouldn't put West Ham as a bigger club than Derby to be honest. A fancy new stadium but despite the repeated proclamation they never  won the world cup in 66 or indeed sod all else. Everton are a bigger club by far to me than Chelsea in the big 6 or Leeds and a bigger club than Man city.
 

This is a wind-up with some of those clubs listed in the top third. However, even as a Derby fan I'd accept if you were to poll other fans across the country and even globally (lets face it our opinion doesn't matter) that Forest would be placed ahead of Derby in size due to the two European cups, arguably we're slightly ahead of them on most other metrics but other fans won't see that and you can't ignore a massive deal such as those honours. Good rivalry between us as we are so similar in size.
The only other team in the Championship I'd place ahead of Derby would be Wednesday, they are a sleeping giant in a lot of respects. There is no other club in the Championship as it stands that has earned the right to be "bigger" than us, on paper we're one of the heavier "middle weights" of English football, we've sparred in around the top for most of our history.
My top 6 for Championship:
Wednesday
Forest
Derby
Birmingham
Blackburn (6)
Norwich (6)
...I cheated, I can't split Blackburn and Norwich out so placed them joint 6th.
We're often overlooked which suits us perfectly fine IMO (well we used to be before we got media managers and turned into a circus), we're a pretty unfashionable club from a fairly unfashionable city afterall, most managers and players I think generally learn pretty quickly we're a decent sized club in my view. 
I think you could create a list of "proper" football clubs a lot more easily. And all the names like Brum, Weds, Sheff Utd, Derby, Forest,m Wolves, West Brom, Sunderland would appear. People could argue until the cows come home who is bigger out of those lot but truth is all have prestige to them. There is a rank of clubs beneath that that may have tasted top flight football who think they belong in such company but don't...Stoke being a prime example. I live in Reading and they do too. They just aren't. As they say form is temporary, class is permanent. You expect the above listed to eventually get back to the top flight if not already.
 

What crazy rationale are you using to say QPR are a bigger club than Derby? They never won anything, got a small ground and lower attendance. Guess Sinclair did that amazing overhead kick though.
And what criteria makes a previously successful club like Forest a sleeping giant? Are there 1000s of fairweather Forest supporters, all ready to flood back once they climb the league? Are there loads of Nottingham millionaires ready to invest when the time is right? Have they got plans to stop renting their stadium from the council and build a 70k seater stadium out of town?
I grew up surrounded by Wolves fans, who kept repeating the idea that they had this huge fanbase (who just didn't attend matches) and were a much bigger club than Derby because...erm...they won some league titles 20 years ago before Derby did? When they did get back to the Prem, even now when they are a good side, they still have a similar attendance to us. That huge fanbase still isn't turning up.
I'm not sure there are any actual sleeping giants.
There are some sleeping mid-sized clubs like us, Forest, Wednesday, Sunderland, Ipswich, Charlton.
There are some larger clubs that are in the Prem but below the "big 6" level: Newcastle, Everton, Villa, West Ham, Leeds.
Maybe Arsenal are about the only possible candidate in terms of a huge club that is currently nowhere near challenging for the Prem/Champions League.

What crazy rationale are you using to say QPR are a bigger club than Derby? They never won anything, got a small ground and lower attendance. Guess Sinclair did that amazing overhead kick though.
And what criteria makes a previously successful club like Forest a sleeping giant? Are there 1000s of fairweather Forest supporters, all ready to flood back once they climb the league? Are there loads of Nottingham millionaires ready to invest when the time is right? Have they got plans to stop renting their stadium from the council and build a 70k seater stadium out of town?
I grew up surrounded by Wolves fans, who kept repeating the idea that they had this huge fanbase (who just didn't attend matches) and were a much bigger club than Derby because...erm...they won some league titles 20 years ago before Derby did? When they did get back to the Prem, even now when they are a good side, they still have a similar attendance to us. That huge fanbase still isn't turning up.
I'm not sure there are any actual sleeping giants.
There are some sleeping mid-sized clubs like us, Forest, Wednesday, Sunderland, Ipswich, Charlton.
There are some larger clubs that are in the Prem but below the "big 6" level: Newcastle, Everton, Villa, West Ham, Leeds.
Maybe Arsenal are about the only possible candidate in terms of a huge club that is currently nowhere near challenging for the Prem/Champions League.

Funnily enough, you could now argue that we are in the exact same sort of place we were in when Nigel Clough came to the club.
Hurtling down the table. Club finances out of control. Unbalanced squad. No playing identity. Big names at the club who don’t seem to care. Severed connection with the fan base.
I can’t believe Mel has essentially brought us back to a place where we arguably now need another Nigel Clough job ?‍♂️?

I’m not sure about this condom.

Should have tried harder to keep Paul Goddard. Said it at the time. 

I stopped reading when QPR were listed as being a big club...

Jesus QPR, Watford, Boro. Big as Preston. That's the worst list I've ever seen. What were you doing when you put this together. Use the list to roll another one.?

Although it's been hammered into me that I am 'highly vulnerable' owing to lung damage I suffered a decade ago (swine flu - most people thought it was nothing, yet it nearly killed me), I've had my two jabs, so has the Memsahib, and we have decided that the time is right now - or at least soon - to rehabilitate ourselves into society. We are having weekly shopping trips now (essentials are still delivered - this is 'pleasure' shopping I am talking about), occasional walks and we will probably consider a pub visit shortly. The big next step will be public transport - something that we are keen to start using again.

I was being a little facetious. I don't think I'm cleverer than the government, even if I am. 
However I would have locked down earlier, like when body bags were piling up in Northern Italy and we were still allowing people to fly into the UK from there, on flights I would have already stopped.
I would also not have moved people from hospitals into care homes full of vulnerable people, without giving them Covid tests.
I wouldn't have given people warnings that they might lose their jobs if they don't go back to the office in early September when cases were already starting to climb.
I'd have listened to the expert predictions in September about what was gonna happen by Xmas, then lockdowned when they said it was vital that we did.
I wouldn't have got my party to tweet out abuse about Starmer saying he wanted to destroy the economy with another lockdown, then days later announce another lockdown.
I wouldn't have announced a lockdown in London starting the next day, without informing trains/police etc so they could help prevent 1000s of people carrying new variants across the uk on packed transportation.
I wouldn't have told the schools to go back after Xmas for a day before implementing another lockdown, based on no change in data.
I wouldn't have screwed up so many times that we are now in this weird position that people who have had 2 vaccinations are still not supposed to see anyone indoors (but packed tubes have been allowed for weeks now).
Many people on this forum alone are cleverer than most of the people in charge. And if they aren't cleverer, they are certainly more trustworthy.

I was being a little facetious. I don't think I'm cleverer than the government, even if I am. 
However I would have locked down earlier, like when body bags were piling up in Northern Italy and we were still allowing people to fly into the UK from there, on flights I would have already stopped.
I would also not have moved people from hospitals into care homes full of vulnerable people, without giving them Covid tests.
I wouldn't have given people warnings that they might lose their jobs if they don't go back to the office in early September when cases were already starting to climb.
I'd have listened to the expert predictions in September about what was gonna happen by Xmas, then lockdowned when they said it was vital that we did.
I wouldn't have got my party to tweet out abuse about Starmer saying he wanted to destroy the economy with another lockdown, then days later announce another lockdown.
I wouldn't have announced a lockdown in London starting the next day, without informing trains/police etc so they could help prevent 1000s of people carrying new variants across the uk on packed transportation.
I wouldn't have told the schools to go back after Xmas for a day before implementing another lockdown, based on no change in data.
I wouldn't have screwed up so many times that we are now in this weird position that people who have had 2 vaccinations are still not supposed to see anyone indoors (but packed tubes have been allowed for weeks now).
Many people on this forum alone are cleverer than most of the people in charge. And if they aren't cleverer, they are certainly more trustworthy.

John Lewis & Partners (@JohnLewisRetail) Tweeted: Good thing we have a recycling service for old pre-loved furniture ??? https://t.co/uVB9krdDJH
 

Tory or Labour or even Lib-Dem, this lot in power are literally not very clever at all. But they think they are and for that we all suffer, particularly in this covid pandemic.

I heard he won a competition

Could you ask Van der Laan and Igor what they’re doing on Saturday? 

Evening all - cautious to not even acknowledge that the current situation is a reality and not a dystopian nightmare, I'm working on a second book at the moment that will build off the back of Pride (available in all standard book stores, probably)
A few interviews deep now (The Mac is coming up shortly...) I just wanted to put it out there that if anyone has any questions for:
Robin van der Laan Igor (no, really. I'm not sure how either) Spencer Prior I'd love to be able to put a few to them during the conversations I've got planned. Feel free to either drop a post below or DM with anything you'd like me to ask them.
Here's to Saturday. I think. 

Pinnochio!!!