The season ended as it had progressed - in total disarray.

There was a mob on the pitch at full-time (besides the hapless team) and Derby players avoiding a ‘lap of dishonour’ for reasons of their own safety. 

On Monday morning, Tom Glick declared that by August, the team would be ‘unrecognisable’ from the one we saw this season. That’s good, because that rubbish is certainly unrecognisable from the Rams I’ve watched over the last 40 seasons. 

What an abject bunch Derby County are. Signing off with yet another disgraceful performance in a shocking 4-0 thumping from also-relegated Reading assured most of the current Derby players that they would only step on the Pride Park pitch again as opponents. That’s if they ever prove capable of holding down a first team place again at the same level as the Rams.

Despite having an apparently very thin squad in terms of quality and reliable cover, the Rams still used more players than any other during the 2007-08 Premier League campaign. Instability, controversy and change has again flushed through the club from top to bottom as Derby County sadly caricatured their own seesaw, self-damning history. Was that BBG gipsy spell truly exorcised? Why are we so cursed?

Derby used 39 players, with 18 debutants during the campaign, scored an abysmal total of 25 goals in all competitions and let over 80 goals in. The other two relegated teams claimed 3 times as many points as Derby’s laughable 11 total; there would be an A4 page filled with the negative records collected.

Rams fans are trying to blank from their mind the worst season ever in their - or almost all other clubs - entire histories. The squad was a disaster, littered with individual failings and collective ineptitude. Pitiful!

Booing opposing ex-Derby players always seemed like a petty nonsense until now - but the reception to be accorded to any of these misfits should they ever have the privilege to tread Pride Park again will hardly be convivial. What other power does the average fan have to register the deep disgust they feel?

Derby supporters earned their plaudits from several quarters, however. Though the mood was often dark and sometimes dismissive and frivolous, as the on-field fare from their ‘team’ was reduced to an irrelevance, Rams fans recorded the third highest League average gate in the club’s history at 32, 432.

That’s even a shade higher than the Derby faithful flocking to the Baseball Ground in 1971-72 to witness the Cloughie Boys take the League title! Derby were 12th best supported team in the land last season and their stadium-fill percentage (96.5%) exceeded Anfield, Villa Park, St James Park and Goodison Park.

In a season of turmoil and disappointment, Derby blew yet another chance of establishing themselves amongst the elite or sustaining their progress, echoing those fateful episodes from their past in the Longson, Maxwell, Pickering and Sleightholme eras where damaging instability, conflict and crisis set the club spiralling backwards when poised for success.

If the Jewell/GSE axis doesn’t recover the current situation by imposing stability and order to build on the considerable advantages of infrastructure and fanbase that Derby County possesses, we won’t even qualify for a place in the ‘yo-yo league’ of ambitious Championship clubs striving for another shot at the big time.

There will be no rest for boss Paul Jewell in ensuring huge change in the playing staff and he knows as much as anyone that it will never be sufficient to shake his head in mystification at his team’s ineptitude and call them ‘pitiful’. His results have been woeful. He hasn’t excluded his own (January 2008) signings from such criticism and there is much conjecture as to how many of those signings will survive the cull.

Thankfully, the exodus from Pride Park Stadium was accelerating. Andy Todd and Michael Johnson are already on their way and on Tuesday it was confirmed that Marc Edworthy, Lee Holmes, and Ben Hinchcliffe had all been released. We also learned that Derby had agreed a £2.5m fee for Robert Earnshaw with Nothingham F*rest.

Earnshaw is due for talks with F*rest during the next week. Adam Pearson said that other clubs were still “sniffing around” the player. Knowing our luck, whoever signs him will get more than the occasional whiff of a goal out of the “striker”.

That’s a £1.1m loss on that misfit and Rams fans will watch with interest to see if the Welsh striker picks up his goal train in the Championship. Billy Davies had also spent £750k on the wretched Andy Todd and do I hope that write-offs like these don’t impinge too much on the player budget put aside for Jewell to replace all the duds with people who want to play for Derby and will produce the goods on the pitch.

Preston North End and Wolverhampton Wanderers show interest in midfielder David Jones and the Rams expect their £1.1m investment to be returned should the player elect to move. Jones (23) was effective in the Rams’ promotion campaign in 2006-07 but injuries restricted his contribution in the Premier League. Despite his cultured left foot he could look lightweight, though Billy Davies quickly declared he seriously underpaid Manchester United to capture the player. Jones scored 7 goals in 47 appearances for Derby

Plymouth right-back Paul Connolly (24) agreed to join the Rams and Jewell tied up the deal promptly. He’s tall and athletic, that’s two of Jewell’s selection parameters, and he’s made 177 appearances for the Pilgrims over 7 years. He was out of contract and wanted by several other clubs. Everton’s ex-Ram Lee Carsley, Watford’s Jordan Stewart, Wolves’ Freddie Eastwood and Nothingham F*rest’s Kris Commons are also reportedly in Jewell’s sights.

Whilst the players are not ‘roof-raising’ names, Jewell knows what he wants (to a greater extent than did Billy Davies did, perhaps) and isn’t wasting time obtaining it. Given Derby’s failure with  promising or revived player careers such as Jay McEveley, Claude Davis, Dean Leacock, Mo Camara, Bob Malcolm, Craig Fagan, Rob Earnshaw, Gary Teale and others, a turn of good fortune and productive blend is overdue at Pride Park - it is difficult to see a fresh group of players failing as comprehensively again!

Other straws in the wind include interest from several clubs in Scottish midfielder Stephen Pearson. Derby received a £500,000 loan fee from Stoke City in January; now they are promoted, City may pursue a full deal. The glorious Wembley winner remains his only goal for Derby County in 40 appearances. Coventry, Ipswich and Hull are reportedly showing interest in defender Dean Leacock.

Like others, Dean remains an enigma in my opinion, a ‘nearly’ player - capable of solid displays as well as truly mediocre and careless ones. Somehow, we have to get consistency and full value from investments from here on in.

Rams’ want-away striker Kenny Miller was the only one of Derby’s Scottish contingent to be selected for their squad’s summer friendlies; Lewin Nyatanga and Lewis Price were selected for the full Welsh squad for their upcoming friendly matches. Robert Earnshaw was again not selected to play for Wales.

Egyptian midfielder Hossam Ghaly is looking elsewhere for his next contract even though Paul Jewell let him know he was keen to sign him for Derby. Ghaly had his moments but ultimately didn’t turn any games for Derby or arrest the slide - and Jewell’s made it clear he wants loyalty, consistency and commitment to the cause.

Having aborted a £3m move to Birmingham City last summer, he thus returns to the football wilderness low down in Tottenham’s pecking order unless other offers arrive. So with the four players released, Ghaly leaving and Earnshaw moving subject to contract, Jewell has already shipped out 6 players since the Reading fiasco, Adam Pearson declared that the club expected an ‘absolute minimum’ of ten signings and 12 players departing the club by the end of June. Hurry up and sod off then, you other six. 

Giles Barnes will return to the USA in late June for arthroscopic surgery to the knee which was operated on in March. He is progressing satisfactorily but will not be fit until September or October, making the 2008/09 preparations the second pre-season he will miss. He picked up a broken foot in the Wembley play-off final; it’s a shame for Giles and Derby County that his potential still cannot be realised on the pitch or in the transfer market, as he could still be important to the Rams’ progress.

Ex-Rams’ prodigy Tom Huddlestone, sold in desperation by Jeremy Keith for just £600k in 2005, has been promoted to the full England squad after starring for Spurs in midfield and defence this season. Tom netted a penalty for England Under 21s last week in their 2-0 win over Wales.

Though he still is so much younger than a fair few of Derby’s younger first team squad members, Huddlestone has left the Rams light years behind him and seems destined for a key role in Fabio Cappello’s future England plans.

As acknowledged in Steve Eyre’s fitting tribute yesterday, one hundred and two years of history were also be put behind the Derbyshire sporting public this weekend, as the Derby Evening Telegraph ‘Green ‘Un’ ceased publication on Saturday, 17th March 2008.

The Saturday evening sports special has gone the way of many other local sports papers around the country. From 1906, in the decades before television or portable radios and generations before the internet, mobile phones and satellite media output, Rams fans would queue to grab a Green ‘Un, often released as soon as half an hour after full time!

In those days, that was the direct way to quickly access the day’s football results and local sports coverage to view at your leisure. Fans could digest reports and articles on the Rams, the rest of the league, Derbyshire cricket & rugby and all local sporting clubs through the efforts of journalists who had to transmit stop-press news down the phone or telegraph wires. The skewing of kick-off times and the media revolution has seen circulation of such printed media dwindle and the format become outmoded.

Thanks to all those involved at the DET over the last century - your weekly output formed part of our sporting education and enjoyment. There are no doubt a fair few fans besides me who have boxes of Green ‘Un cuttings stashed in their loft which track the fascinating history of Derby County!

How different things were in RamsWeek 20 last year from this turgid campaign!

That cataclysmic, rain-sodden spectacle against Southampton unfolded in Derby’s favour, as the Rams went through on penalties after a skilled and combative Saints took the Rams to task in the 2nd leg of the Championship semi final. Having lost at home 1-2 to Derby in the first leg, the Saints came out fighting.

It was such a dramatic and tense night, bitterly cold with unrelenting slashing rain making it a fast and fearless game. Darren Moore bundled in an early goal to send Rams fans into delirium but Viafara fired an instant equaliser home from long range when Bywater dealt inadequately with some hasty defending by clearing the ball straight to the advancing Saint.

Viafara struck again to equalise the tie and worry the Rams before Giles Barnes equalised to nose the Rams ahead overall once more. Right at the death, ex-Ram Rasiak scored from close range to grab extra time at 2-3 to Southampton and either team could have triumphed in a thrilling cut-and-thrust match.

Derby looked more likely in extra time but penalties beckoned; Derby players held their nerve and hit great strikes - then ultimately the Rams’ ex-Player of the Year Inigo Idiakez smashed his crucial kick high over, and Derby fans exploded onto the pitch in wild celebration despite the teeming downpour!

Apart from the great game and the utter soaking afterwards in thrashing rain, vivid memories of shirtless, exuberant drenched fans dancing all the way home, and huddling for shelter at Shopdcfc, grinning at the Wembley seating plans on the posters in the window, linger to remind us of how good it really can get!

Photo: Action Images

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