Archive for the ‘media’ tag
Rob Hulse STAYS!
Rob Hulse: Staying put.
Do you remember when we had a tall polish striker called Gregorz Rasiak? Do you remember how influential he was in the team back in 2005? Do you remember what happened on 31 August 2005? That’s right. We sold him at the eleventh hour for a tiny fee and no hope of signing a replacement. This summer, many Rams fans were expecting history to repeat itself.
This time it was a tall lad from Crewe who was the potential departee, and the date was 1st September 2009, but many fans had the outcome down as a bad result for the Rams from the off. Middlesbrough, the smaller of the two North East clubs to be relegated from the premier league last season, were long known fanciers of Rob Hulse, Derby County player of the year 2008/09. He scored 19 goals in his first full season back from injury and caused opposition defenders plenty of problems all year round, so the fact that he was attracting attention came as no surprise.
The Rams had been knocking back speculation all summer regarding ‘Boro’s interested in the Derby talisman. Back in July, Adam Pearson said “Rob is our player of the year, an important player for us and not one we are looking to sell” while also denying that Middlesborough had even made a bid for the player. Speculation continued to mount as the Rams carried on with their pre-season which, ironically, didn’t include Rob Hulse due to injury.
Rob missed the opening games of the year and only made his first start in the new Derby strip in the 3-2 defeat against the red dog scum bags this previous Saturday. During this game he managed to score what appeared to be a perfectly good goal but the referee decided he’d seen something he didn’t like and disallowed the goal. Having nearly seen Hulse open his account for the year at the weekend, Rams fans would have been devastated to lose him knowing just how dangerous he is.
It looked as if he was staying put as the transfer window was closing in. Then, on the final day of business, the Derby Evening Telegraph runs the story that Rob Hulse was the target of a big money bid from Middlesbrough. Word on the internet suggested the bid was as anywhere between £3.5 - £4.5 million pounds. That’s enough to buy three Luke Varneys!
That was it for many Rams fans as they took to the inter-radiotelewaves to tell everyone how we were being sold up the swanny. Forums were awash with doom merchants passing on their wares to all that would listen. It was a like walking though speakers corner only in small font and the occasional bit of txt spk, lolz.
Whenever someone sensible said something like “FFS - it hasn’t happened yet!!” they were immediately shot down by gun fire that sounded like a manic depressive listening to Radiohead while trying to think of reasons not to die. “It’s just a matter of time……………….” they’d say as they plunged their scalpels into their limp, scarred wrists.
By 3pm the tension was downright scary. I genuinely thought some Rams fans were going to throw themselves from the top floor of the internet, splattering the Derby County forums with blood coloured pixels spelling “DCFC 4 LIFE” across the TFT monitors of Rams fans worldwide.
Sky Sports decided to re-run the bid from Boro story for a second time late in the day, which only served to compound people’s woes. There was no news on the official site and no news on Radio Derby; the silence was deafening. This, according to the non-believers, could only mean one thing- Goodbye Rob Hulse.
That’s what they all thought.
Oh yee of little faith. News came in over the official website that Rob Hulse was staying! ROB HULSE WAS STAYING!
We cheered, we celebrated, and we punched the air with glee. This was great news…or was it.
Yes, it definitely was great news but still some people moaned. Why? Because it’s what they do. Radio Derby’s Monday moan-in is full of these people and so, it would seem, are internet message boards. Rob Hulse stopping at Derby only served to prove the conspiracy theories are true if you believe what you read on t’internet.
You see, the official version of events (which I have no reason to doubt) goes like this: club receive bid for Rob Hulse, club tell Hulse about the bid, Hulse sits down with Nigel Clough to discuss options and Rob decides he wants to stay. The end.
But to some people this means that the club had accepted the bid and were quite happy to sell one of our better players without having a suitable replacement lined up. They say this is all nonsense and shows our club is being run by fools. How so, I hear you ask? Surely this proves that the club is run by people who respect other people’s right to be informed. Surely the first person who should be updated of interested in a player is the player himself because if he doesn’t want to leave, the deal is dead in the water. Offer as much as you like but if the man won’t leave, you can’t pull him through the door to your club.
In this instance, Rob Hulse decided that he was happy where he is. He weighed up the pros and cons of playing for Middlesbrough under Gareth Southgate or staying at Derby with Nigel Clough and he rightly concluded that he was better off in the Midlands than the North East. You really cannot fault the man for that.
In a world of Manchester City’s millions and Christiano Ronaldo’s ridiculous face, it’s refreshing to see a player make a decision based on his own desire to succeed rather than false promises and the lure of more money. While Derby are big spenders in the Championship, it’s probably a safe bet to assume Middlesbrough would have paid Hulse more wages and they definitely wouldn’t have made him give up his win bonus. For every Rob Hulse there are ten Mark “greedy bastard” Pembridges or Paul Kitsons , so it’s rare that a club like ours can find a player with even an ounce of loyalty when the money is on the table. Let’s hope Rob has many great years at Derby and can get up there with the Derby greats of yesterday year. At 29 years old, he still has plenty to offer the Rams.
Forest Vs Derby Media Round-Up
We love him because he's mental
As usual Ramballs has scoured the internet for the match reports and coverage of the weekends game. Having seen the highlights on The Football League Show, I now think Connolly’s reaction to Tyson’s run for the third goal were poor. He steps up with his arm in the air when Tyson was already on the ball. Also, I still have no idea what Hulse’s goal was disallowed for given the ease with which Morgan (I think) went down.
If you missed it, check out Bywater laughing amongst the post-match nonsense. It’s on the Iplayer around the 15m 16s mark and it’s just another reason to love Bywater.
If you haven’t done so already, check out the RamBalls report here.
Here are the match reports from around the net.
Derby County 2 - 1 Plymouth Argyle: Media round-Up
I thought I would save you the bother of trawling the internet to find some Derby vs Plymouth match reports and I have added the ones I can find to this page. Happy browsing!
TheRams.co.uk
DCFC Official Site
BBC Online
Sky Sports Online
Daily Telegraph Championship Round up
Daily Mirror Report
The Sun CCC Round-Up
Daily Star Match Report
ITV Match Report
ESPN Match Report
Western Morning News Online Report
Sporting Preview Match report
Plymouth Argyle Official Site
Plymouth Argyle Mad
Derby COunty Mad
Football365 Report