Ramballs

Pride Park was bathed in sunshine today for the Rams match against Plymouth Argyle. Paul Sturrock’s side came to Derby looking for their first win of the season but it wasn’t to be as the Green Army couldn’t match the Rams in the second half.

The starting eleven featured Steve Davies as the lone striker with support from Spurs loanee Jake Livermore and Stephen Pearson in midfield with Croft and Teale playing out on the flanks. Once again, Nigel Clough saw fit to stick with Jake Buxton and Miles Addison in the heart of defence with Shaun Barker warming the bench alongside Kris Commons and Rob Hulse.

From a Rams fans perspective the first half was poor up until the 30 minute mark. The lads were wasteful in possession and the movement just wasn’t there, nor were many simple passes to feet. Bywater nearly landed himself in trouble when his pass fell well short of the target and Dean Moxey played a fantastic ball, from inside the Plymouth half, out to the other side of the pitch for the Argyle wide man to run onto. Composed football this wasn’t.

Argyle went close on ten minutes when Derby failed to clear the ball and Karl Duguid hit a first time shot that deflected wide. The Greens didn’t have to wait too long for the lead though, as Jamie Mackie ran onto a long ball and struck the ball against the post. Alan Judge followed up and tried to take the ball past Jake Buxton who brought Judge down and conceded a penalty in the process. It was Judge who was fouled and Judge who handed out the punishment as he slotted home a powerful penalty. I didn’t see the replay at half time but someone who sits near me did and he said the foul was committed a yard outside the penalty area. I can’t comment because from where I sat it looked like a nailed on penalty but we’ll soon find out on tonight’s Football League show.

Plymouth continued to press and spent much of the next ten minutes camped inside the Derby half but failed to make any serious inroads. It wasn’t until the 35 minute mark that the Rams started playing with a sense of urgency and incisiveness that had been missing until that point. The Rams started to get bodies forward and they got their reward five minutes before half time.

A deep free kick was cleared to Robbie Savage, the new Rams captain, who was just outside the box and hit a low ball back into the area which found Jake Buxton who slotted home from 6 yards.

Half Time 1 - 1

The second half was a different game completely as the Rams found their stride but once again struggled to find the net. Stephen Pearson came close to giving the Rams the lead but the ball travelled wide of the left hand post. What followed shortly after will no doubt cause problems for Nigel Clough in the coming weeks.

Steve Davies was fighting for the ball and then went down on the deck in a lot of pain. The stretchers came on and took the young striker off and now we have to wait to find out what the damage is. It’s a real shame for Steve as his Derby career has been blighted by injury so far and you just feel that if he had a decent run in the team he could really give opposition defenders a problem. Fingers crossed that it is not as serious as it first seemed.

Rob Hulse replaced the injured Davies and his height gave the wide men something to aim for in the middle. Around the 70 minute mark he headed wide and it’s just a matter of time before we get Rob Hulse returning to the starting eleven and firing on all cylinders.

Kris Commons entered the fray shortly after 70 minutes replacing Lee Croft. Croft’s performance today caused the Argyle full back a lot of problems and won the Rams a number of free kicks. With Croft off the pitch, Gary Teale moved onto the right hand side and Kris Commons took up left wing duties.

Derby eventually took the lead in the final minute of the match after a string of corners finally resulted in the ball finding Miles Addison who is proving to be a real handful for the opposition during set pieces. Miles rose highest and put the ball in the net giving Derby a late winner.

Possession
Derby 43% Plymouth 57%

Shots on target
Derby 9 Plymouth 2

Shots off target
Derby 4 Plymouth 6

Corners
Derby 13 Plymouth 5

Fouls
Derby 6 Plymouth 23

Attendence: 26,186

RamBalls Additional Comments

The first half was not pretty viewing and we made hard work of getting the win against a Plymouth side who didn’t really threaten us all that much. The attendence at today’s game was also disappointing as Pride Park was home to just over 26,000 fans for the afternoon which, quite frankly, is poor. I recognise the low number of away fans meant we were unlikely to break the 30k mark but 26k is low by our excellent standards. Kids under 8 were free but that still didn’t help. I’d also question the logic of chanting “is that all you take away?” to Plymouth fans who faced a 500 mile round trip to see a team which is struggling to perform under Paul Sturrock.

Jake Livermore had a good debut. He has bags of energy (although he did appear to cramp up a little towards the end) and is comfortable playing a passing game, especially in close quarters. When he was subbed off I heard one “supporter” shout “fuck off back to spurs, you’re shit!” which is not only wrong but also a really strange way to get behind the team. Hopefully our lads get more support from the rest of our fans in future.

Finally, the match day announcer did a better job today than the guy who did it against Peterborough but that wasn’t hard. Simply announcing the right team coming onto the pitch was better than the last game although announcing the attendance without the away fans included was a little strange but it didn’t make that much difference to the total.

Bring on the Forest!

The sun shone down on Derby market place this Friday afternoon as crowds gathered to see the rams launch their new home strip.

At 5:30pm the event officially kicked off with Ram FM DJs Dino and Pete introducing the evening entertainment. First up were the derby based trinity dancers. The Trinity ladies (sorry, i forgot their group name) did a short dance routine followed by the Trinity warriors. After an excellent display of break dancing there was a five minute interval before players, along with Nigel Clough, emerged. Ramballs has also been told that the away strip will be the same as the home kit with the black and white inverted.

The DCFC ladies team were next, accompanied by a local Derby model (Melony? Melody? Melissa? Melinda? I’ve no idea), and Dino (or Pete) asked them banal questions such as “are ladies as good as men at football?”

Modelling the new training gear were the academy lads.

View all of Ramballs pictures from the event here.

Feel free to use these images on your websites, message boards or where ever. It’d be nice if you linked this blog at the same time but there is no obligation by any means.

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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.