Ramballs

Sheffield United at home has been moved to a 1pm kick off. The date remains 12th September

Swansea away will now be a Friday night (November 20th) 7:45pm kick off

Forests trip to Pride Park has been moved to a 1pm kick off but remains on the 30th January

Ramballs understands that Norwich City are chasing Derby county striker Liam Dickinson. The recently relegated canaries are said to be preparing a bid of around £500,000 for the striker who has yet to feature for the rams although Blackpool are also said to be in the chase.

Dickinson, 23, has failed to make an impact since joining Derby County from a year ago. Last season saw the 6′4″ striker loaned out to Leeds, Hudderfield and Blackpool as the rams looked to give Liam some first team experience. Blackpool are said to be in the hunt for the striker after he scored 4 goals in 5 starts and 2 substitute appearances while at Bloomfield Road.

Tyrone Mears has sealed his transfer to Turn Moor. Burnley have paid £500,000 for the defender although this figure could rise depending on add-ons.

Derby County took Mears on loan in January 2007 and later signed Mears on a permanent basis. Mears played 48 times and scored twice for the rams.

Bye Bye Tito

News has come in that Tito Villa will be leaving Derby County for Mexican side Cruz Azul.  Yahoo! Sports are reporting a deal has been reached between the two teams. “We have reached an agreement with Derby County of England for the transfer of Emmanuel Villa, who will arrive (in Mexico) on Tuesday to undergo a medical and sign a contract,” Cruz Azul said in a statement.

Tito Villa looks set to leave Derby County

Popside strikes again

Internet football forums are strange, but brilliant, places. Unlike many other forums on the internet, such as digital photography, pc gamer or butterfly murderer forums, football forums bring in a real cross section of society prepared to discuss all of lifes many aspects. Take, for example, the typical PC gamer forum. It’s filled with 15-30 year old guys who can spend hours debating the pros and cons of the lily power magic potion in the latest “Fairies and Daisies: Wrath of Pollen” MMORPG. You might find the odd female gamer on there but she probably looks like a man and thinks a snog is a character from World of Warcraft. Likewise, on a specialist photography forum you’d find a group of yawn inducing dullards patting each other on the back as they all understand why the Nikon D700 is worth £600 more than the Olympus E-30. Boring.

Football forums provide people tend to draw people in from a larger pool. From your middle class sorts, with their tickets in the west stand lower and a flask of organic fair trade coffee with garbaldis for dunking in their half time drinks, to the working class joe bloggs who eats pies, drinks watered down lager and leaves 5 minutes before full time so they can get back to the pub and to the bar before the crowds arrive. These people come together on the internet to discuss general stuff with the occassional word about football thrown in for good measure. And sometimes, just sometimes, you get a genuinely quality post that will make your day. Read on…

Popside.com is my first choice Derby County message board. Good banter, reasonably efficient modding (occassionally bordering on Nazism) and it has, as all good messageboards should, a resident rival fan. Hello Russ!

Last week saw the discovery of a post by Russ P, now Pablo due to his post count getting worryingly high for a Forest fan on a Derby message board, from back in 2005. As a rule Russ has an opinion that he wants everyone to hear so in this instance, I’ll do my bit to make it heard by a wider audience.

Russ said 
“If you ever saw JJ [Jermaine Jenas] in Forest shirt, you would know that there was no gamble; he’s the English Patrick Vieira, and he’ll be captain of his country within the next three years. He’s that good, Paul Hart said when he broke into the Forest first team that he had the ability to be the player of his generation and he genuinely wasn’t exaggerating. He will, I believe, go on to be better than Lampard; Jenas and Gerrard will be the first choice England midfield by the time of the European Championships in 2008.”

I won’t be asking for Russ’ lottery numbers, stock market investments or racing tips anytime soon. Thanks JR for uncovering that gem from the archives.

Fotheringham Joins Derby For a Trial

Mark Fotheringham will be joing Derby County for a Trial

Mark Fotheringham will be joining Derby County during the pre-season period for a trial period. Nigel Clough has brought him in as the rams only have Paul Green, Robbie Savage and Stephen Pearson who can play in the centre midfield position. Fotheringham started his career with Celtic before moving to to the swiss team Aarau, Rangers and then Norwich. During his time at Norwich he became club captain and scored 4 goals in 76 appearances. Read more about Mark Fotheringham here.

Wordpress & Derby County

This blog appears to be one of the few dedicated Derby County blogs on wordpress so when I started searching from Derby County related blogs I wasn’t expecting much. That’s why I want to show you this little piece which is a great write up about the appointment of Nigel Clough as our glorious leader. This article cuts through a lot or the tabloid nonsense and tells a more likely story.

The Derby Evening Telegraph are today reporting that the energentic rams midfielder, Paul Green, has recovered from the fractured metatarsal which ruled him out for the season back in March.

Lee Croft has told the official site that once he visited Moor Farm, and spoke with the Nigel Clough, he knew Derby were the club he wanted to sign for. I’ve certainly heard that before. It’s almost as if the club release the same statement from every new player that signs. Surely one day there’ll be a player who says “I’m here for the money. Anything else is a bonus.”

Arsenal has released Cormac Hegarty, 16, from their academy and he has now joined Derby County on scholarship terms. Hegarty is a central midfielder who featured in the gunners youth side which won the Atalanta Cup and the Zinédine Zidane Tournament last summer.

Former rams midfielder, Stefano Eranio, has been voted into the rams all time top XI as voted for by fans as part of the 125th Year celebrations at the club.

Stefano joined the rams from AC Milan in 1997 and spent four years with the club playing under Jim Smith. During that time Eranio firmly established himself as a fans favourite, demonstrating silky skills and a touch of quality that earned him 20 caps for Italy. His link up play with Francesco Baiano at times seemed telepathic and when he played alongside Asanovic, Stimac, Baiano, Kinkladze and Wanchope we had a team that was capable of mixing it with the big guns.

I’m glad that he got the nod from the fans as he has always had a good relationship with rams faithful. For as long as I have a pulse I will remember the send off that he received in what was supposed to be his final game for the rams at the end of the 2000/2001 season at home to Ipswich. He received a deafening farewell when he was substituted late in the game; banners were out, everyone was standing and the name of Stefanio Eranio was echoing around Pride Park.

Stefano Eranio: Fans favourite

He returned the following season in a short stint which ended when Jim Smith left the club.

Stefano is remembered fondly by all Derby County fans and, unlike other “legends” on the modern era, he did nothing to suggest he had anything other than a genuine love for the club, saying once “”I have played at some of the world’s biggest clubs but I never felt more at home than with Derby. I love the fans and I can’t think of anything better than returning to finish my career here.”

Eranio now coaches the youth team at AC Milan and was last seen pulling on a Derby shirt during the Ted McMinn testimonial.

Read the full story here

This being what it is, the first blog of the series during the middle of the closed season, I figured most of you will already be aware of Mile Sterjovskis and Andy Todds departure to Perth Glory, as well as the signing of Jake Buxton and Ben Pringle from Burton Albion and Ilkeston Town respectively. Yes, that’s right, we’ve signed a two previously semi-professional players. Woohoo!

I jest. There have been many grumblings across the messageboards regarding the signing of two unknowns, especially after a pretty poor season spent trying to avoid relegation. A few have voiced concerns that Nigel Clough is out of his depth with regard to playing the transfer market at a professional level and doubt the ability of our first two signings and, while it would be easy to knock these unknowns, I shall refrain from doing so.  I’m quite happy with these additions. Jake Buxton, a former Mansfield Town defender, received high praise from many in the Blue Square Premier after his fantastic performances throughout Burton Albions promotion season last year; he’s young, hungry and Nigel Clough knows his well. Likewise, Ben Pringle is a talented young midfielder who will be joining Derby as part of the clubs new development squad (or reserves as most people call them). Neither of them has cost the Earth and both will be wanting to show exactly what they are capable of in the CCC. With any luck, they’ll be prove to be excellent additions to the squad and I look forward to seeing them play.

Back to this weeks news.

The Rams have snapped up Lee Croft (above) from Norwich City on a free transfer (although i am reliably informed that there is no such thing as a free transfer.) Derby were forced to wait to until Croft turned 24 before they could sign the winger as he arrived on a Bosman and, as such, they would have had to pay compensation if he was still 23. The official site describes Croft as a “flying winger” but we’ll have to wait until August to see if he can soar to new heights (sorry).

Dean Moxey, 23, has agreed personal terms with the club. Moxey, who can play at down the left side of midfield or in defense, arrives from Exeter City for fee believed to be around £300,000. He’s an Exeter lad who worked on the turnstiles for the Grecians on the day they got relegated in 2003. I’m sure that’s a happy memory for him. Here’s a link to the Exeter City website listing their top 5 Moxey moments.

Dean Moxey loved his new scarf

This week sees the launch of the clubs new home kit with a “kit parade” scheduled in for Friday 3rd July in the Market Place. This is the clubs fifth new strip in as many seasons, something has angered some irrational fans who believe that when the club launches a new kit they must buy it and these new kits are costing them a fortune. I heard one guy on the radio saying his kids would pester him for YET ANOTHER new strip and it’s more expense during these hard economic times. My advice: JUST SAY NO! The kid will deal with it in time and if they don’t, you could always put them up for adoption. Here are the kit launch details.

Burnley look set to sign Tyrone “quick, through that window” Mears. Mears played in important role in the promotion season under Silly Billy Davies and was later accused of fleeing through a window to catch a flight to Marseilles by former boss Paul Jewell. Burnley have reportedly had a £500,000 bid accepted by the rams leaving Tye free to agree personal terms with the newly promoted premier league side.

Finally, because I really should wrap this up, the court case involving former Derby County directors Jeremy Keith, Murdo MacKay and Andrew Mackenzie has ended with them all being found guilty. MacKay and Mackenzine were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the club while Keith (you know, the fat one who looks a like Hermes from Futurama) has been found guilty of false accounting. Some previously unknown goon called David Lowe was found guilty of money laundering while a fifth man, we’ll call him Mr Innocent, walked away from the charge of false accounting. For full coverage of the story check out the DET coverage here.

Jeremy keith

Hermes Conrad

Back soon, I promise.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Ramballs. This is my new blog  which is, first and foremost, a blog about Derby County Football Club, however, I should warn you that I will veer off topic occassionally but I’ll try to keep it football related as best I can.

I decided to start this blog because I haven’t really come across any Derby County blogs that satisfied my wants, so I figured I’d provide it myself. I aim to keep this regularly update with all the latest Derby County news, my views on the news and the thoughts from across the Derby County messageboards. I’ll also do my best to keep you  entertained with a few regular features, such as:

• Match reports from games that I attend (I am a season ticket holder so that’s at least 50%)
• Transfer news and profiles of new signings
• Football related links from across the soccersphere (c)
• More stuff that I haven’t yet considered

I’d like your feedback and I’d be happy to post your contributions and link to your Derby County site. There is a nice community of Derby County fans online and I’d like slot in there somewhere. I’ll be back soon with more updates.

Love

Martin Ramballs

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