Ramballs

This is the RamBalls article which was posted on www.Ramzone.net yesterday

June was a terrible month for an obsessive football fan like me. There is no club football news, no transfer activity to speak of, no pre-season friendlies to attend on miserable Tuesday evenings; it’s rubbish except for one specific time.

Wednesday June 17th was that date this year, 10am to be precise, and I was giddy with excitement at 9am. By 10:01am I had a still-warm-from-the-photocopier copy of the fixtures in my hand and my beady eyes were scanning the text for two words: Nottingham Forest. It didn’t take long to find and by 10:02am I had cleared my diary for August 29th so that I could be at the City Ground for the first big game of the season.

Holidays can be rescheduled and excuses can be made to miss your best friend’s wedding because quite frankly, given last season’s visits to Nottingham, this is a must see game.

I’d rather not sound as excited as a child on Christmas Eve but I am so I will. Derby vs Red Dogs is a game that always gets the blood pumping and brings out the passions of each set of supporters and this time I feel something special is in store.

We Rams fans have enjoyed holding the bragging rights over the red dogs since February when we took the champagne from the ice when we beat forest twice and we aren’t in a hurry to let them go anytime soon.

Local derby games are always difficult to predict because all of the pre-match energy and super hyped build up to the games mean the form book can be shredded up and used as ticker tape.

Derby have got off to a decent start with seven points from a possible twelve where as Forest have been less successful with only two from twelve. Although their win in the cup against Boro on Tuesday night will have given their spirits an untimely rise.

According to reports, that low return in the league doesn’t reflect Forests performances which has seen them play well only to struggle in front of goal. On the other hand, Derby fans haven’t been blown away with dominant performances but, most importantly, on two occasions the lads in black and white have managed to score more than the opposition.

Forest have been desperate to add a new central defender to their ranks, as their 4-2 defeat at the hands of Watford highlighted, but they missed out on two of their main targets; Reading snapped up Matt Mills and we showed Shaun Barker that we wanted him a little bit more.

After the defeat to Watford, Wee Billy told the press that he saw it coming and the defeat only served to highlight the problems that he had been continously bleating on about. He has since changed his tune as this week he said “very shortly, one or two teams will suffer big losses at the hands of this team” and it’s up to Nigel and the boys to make sure it isn’t us and I for one expect it won’t be.

While we haven’t blown teams away this season, we have largely played as a decent team (Rotherham aside).. Our biggest problem is likely to be the pace of the Forest forwards against our back four. Tyson and Earnshaw could potentially run our lads ragged, but the five man midfield, with Savage sitting deep, should prevent the trees from being able to play the ball through the defence but it won’t stop long balls over the top.

Our main threat, assuming he makes the starting eleven, will be Kris Commons who was superb in last year’s encounters. Commons, once the hero on the red side of Shottingham, will be well rested for the game and his addition to the squad makes the game more exciting (particularly for us Rams fans).

He had a reputation while at Forest of not turning up in certain games and while that has been true on some occassions while with Derby, it isn’t true of the local derbies.

Rob Hulse could also make a return to the starting eleven, having missed pre-season, which is good news especially after Steve Davies was stretchered off against Plymouth. Hulse will be looking to get on the score sheet for the first time this season in order to catch up with current leading scorers, Miles Addison and Gary Teale.

Whatever happens, it will be an exciting affair. Last season had almost everything; penalties, an own goal, a terrible referee, a red card, disallowed goals, comebacks, scarf waving, Derby victories and even an inflatable phallus in a Forest top. Just about the only thing missing from that list is a Forest win.