Ramballs

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.

Yesterday we all breathed a sigh of relief as Shaun Barker was officially unveiled as a Derby County player. The weeks of speculation as to whether he would sign for us or the red dogs had been doing the blood pressure of some fans no favours at all. Browsing the forums didn’t help either as they produced new updates every twenty minutes confirming he’d signed for us, or them, or us, or them. I even saw one dreamer declaring it’s was a done deal for Forest: they outbid us and were paying wages of £30k per week.

Capturing Barker was a always going to be a significant move for which ever club secured his signature; the Rams had made it pretty clear for a long while that he was a key target and it was no secret that Forest were in for him also so the following bidding war, ending with a Derby victory, was sweet. It’s nice to beat Forest at everything; on the pitch, on attendances and now to signing players. We should just be glad that Stuart Atwell wasn’t brokering the deal.

Across the forums you can almost feel the shift in confidence now that we have the man who describes himself as an “old fashioned defender”. I’ve seen messageboard contributors who had all but written us off suddenly believing the club are pushing forward and are heading in the right direction. Others are just glad that we’ve spent some money. Popside.com’s DSBean Leacock announced that this signature had “alleviated some of his fears” and appeared to be glad that we’d paid a fee, going on to say “I might have a choc ice later to celebrate”.

Some fans are never satisfied though. While browsing Come On You Rams, I noticed an distinct air of discontent coming from New England Ram who said “Wow so Nigel had noticed the need for a centre back after all. I just want to know why this was not his first signing. This signing should have been made weeks ago.” I’m no expert but I’d guess the hold up in the transfer probably had something to do with the the reluctance of Blackpool to just let their better players leave without a fight, the fact that we weren’t the only club intereted and the negotiation of personal terms. After all, this is real life, not sensible world of soccer.

Over at dcfcfans.co.uk there were reminders of what people thought of Barker when he played for Blackpool against Derby. JoeMadRam reminds us that many people had sour grapes and said Barker was a dirty player but those same people are now delighted that he’s our dirty player.

David, a dcfcfans administrator, agreed, saying ” when we play the likes of Forest which will be a dirty game you want Barker in your team to bully the forwards”, going on to say “every one loves a dirty bugger and thats why I’m still with the missus”. Ok David, there is no need to rub it in.

Over at ramzone.net there was talk of the rams having a more solid defence this season. Hemingway thinks that if the Rams signs Patrick Kisnorbo, things will be looking good for the coming year.

I agree. Against Burton, Kisnorbo put in a solid showing. He looked mobile, strong and he did well from set pieces, so a few goals throughout the season could probably be expected. Genuine competition for places is what Cloughie will be after and having filled his squad with hungry players with a point to prove, he’ll have competition in abundance.

One final thing before I go. If you haven’t checked out this article on Wee Billy down the A52, I recommend you have a gander. It may bring back some memories.

The weekends action against Burton Albion proved to be a worthwhile testing ground for Nigel Clough as he watched two trialists try to earn themselves a contract with the club.

Patrick Kisnorbo and Mark Fotheringham both featured at the Pirelli stadium. After the match Nigel Clough told Radio Derby that the club would not be offering Fotherinham a contract as he is not better than what the club already has in centre midfield.

Patrick Kisnorbo put in a solid performance in defence and the club are going to be speaking with the player and shortly. Kisnorbo was part of the foxes squad that got relegated two years ago, although it should be pointed out that they went down with the second best defensive record in the league.

incoming transfers are also on the cards with the Rams in negotiations to bring Shaun Barker in from Blackpool although forest are also after the centre back.

One of the most difficult things for any business is preparing for the future. Sure, businesses can make plans and try to position themselves as best they can for future changes in the marketplace but they can never be certain that their plans will pay off. We’ve seen it a thousand times over; Microsoft backed hd-dvd for the 360 instead of blu-ray, but blu-ray won the format war,; banks thought they could lend to people who didn’t have the means to pay them back and still make a profit but they got that wrong too.

The “normal” world of business makes investment decisions based on a number of factors such as demand, marginal costs and, of course, the amount of risk involved. Increased productivity and efficiency can save businesses huge sums which results in more profit but in the world of football productivity is a useless measure of success.

For football chairmen, there are no guarantees that a huge investment will bring about the results they desire. Where as a new machine in a manufacturing plant can bring greater economies of scale, the same can’t really be said for a new striker. Andrei Shevchenko cost Chelsea £30m and his form at AC Milan suggested he would be worth every penny. They were wrong. He was shite.

For a club like Chelsea, with Romans billions keeping them afloat, it’s easy to spend £30m on rubbish players because they just move onto the next one. Even with Romans billions, Chelsea still haven’t dominated the way many expected they might. Yes, they’ve had more silverware since Roman arrived but they haven’t won the Champions League and didn’t look much like winning the premier league last season either. Add Many City and their oil billions to the title race and Chelsea face even greater competition in spite of Abramovichs estimated £700 million investment into the club.

Clubs that aren’t in the top four, or don’t have billions in oil dollars backing them, face difficult investment decisions. Pumping extra funds into the squad, particularly in the lower leagues, can see a club rise up through the leagues. Doncaster have climbed from non-league to the championship under the ownership of John Ryan but that has cost him £5 million. That’s a remarkable success but for other clubs, the story hasn’t been so pretty.

The Premier League, with all it’s lovely branding, pots of television cash and international exposure, has driven some chairman to the brink of insanity as they chase down a Champions League place. While he was chairman at Leeds United, Peter Ridsdale went for broke as he pushed for a place at Europes top table. They failed. They had huge debts and couldn’t pay them back resulting in administration, a player exodus and two relegations. Years of turmoil have since followed as they dropped to league 1 where they remain for a third successive season.

Newcastle are the next club to find themselves teetering precariously on the edge. The media portrays the barcode army as some sort of super club when the reality is they have big support but haven’t won a trophy for fifty years or more. If league titles were settled by the number of messiahs a club can have, Newcastle would has walked the league last season. Had someone told Mike Ashley that he’d have both Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer on his management team during the season he’d probably thought they’d do the double, he’d get the freedom of city and god himself (or herself) would concede defeat as the chief deity of the north east.

The experience of clubs like Leeds and Newcastle should act a warning to others, especially those chasing the Champions League spots. The board at Derby County certainly appear to have taken notice and are working hard to reduce the clubs debt. Under the ownership of General Sports and Entertainment (GSE) the club will be seeing a small profit this season and while this is due to a certain amount of belt tightening, it is also down to the new approach to sponsorship that Tom Glick and the team have taken. Last season our sponsorship revenues were double what they were where the previous season in the premier league. While I understand sponsorship revenue and “a small profit” aren’t likely to get fans jumping out of their seats, they are indications that the team is in the hands of professionals.

Browsing the message boards and reading some of the negativity can be seriously depressing at the moment. There appears to be a lot of criticism of the current owners for their apparent lack of investment within the squad which, according to some fans, must mean they aren’t serious and they are just here to turn a “small profit” and skim off the cream for themselves. Transfer activity is often seen by fans as being an indicator of a boards genuine hunger to bring success to club but a belief that high wages and high transfer fees are a recipe for success is terribly misguided, as the example of Leeds and Newcastle, to name but two, points out. GSE reduced the debts of Derby County rather significantly, spent approximately £9m on transfers in their first year and have doubled sponsorship revenue while freezing season ticket prices for those wishing to renew. These are not decisions of a board looking to make a quick buck and run.

Given the recent history of the three amigos it is easy to understand some fans cynicism, although I believe their is no reason to be so sceptical. The current crop of investors in Derby County are already wealthy beyond most peoples dreams and have been very succesful in their own field of work. Having the likes of Jeff Mallet, former president of Yahoo! Inc, in the investment team is a major deal. This guy isn’t concerned with playing with a train set and getting wrapped up in a false accounting scandal; he’s a serious investor with an interest in the sports business.

These guys want the club to succeed and I’ve seen little evidence to suggest that they want anything but the best for the club. What they have brought to the club is a level of professionalism that has been missing with Derby County for years. Despite Peter Gadsbys protestations, when he owned the club we weren’t great on the pitch and were terrible off the pitch. Now though, if you speak to anyone that deals with the new management team, they only have high praise for the staff. This works well behind the scenes and with Adam Pearson and Nigel Clough running the football side of the business, we appear to have a highly talented team working pitch side also.

Unless Kris Commons and Rob Hulse are sold from under our noses and the money is not put back into the squad, I’d recommend having some faith in this board. They haven’t yet done anything wrong and they have allowed both managers to buy new players. The fact remains that Nigel Clough buys the players he wants and the lower league players he has signed have been identified by him, not an American sitting in Detroit trying to balance the books. As Derby County fans we know what makes our club great and we recognise it’s potential. As such, it should come as no surprise to us that our potential is recognised and we are able to bring investment from around the world into our wonderful club.

So the Rams have landed their main target of the closed season. Shaun Barker has signed a three year deal with the club. RamBalls has provided you with a short profile of the former Blackpool defender.

Shaun Barker, 27, (DOB: 19/09/1981) began his professional career at Rotherham where he started out as in the youth team back in 2000. Shaun broke into the Rotherham first team in March 2003 and collected the young player of the year award at the end of the season. Throughout his time at Rotherham, Shaun played at right back, a position he is comfortable playing, but his preferred position is in central defence. Barker played 140 games for the Millers before moving on a free transfer to Blackpool in 2006.

Barkers first season with the tangerines was a successful one as they clinched promotion to the Coca-Cola Championship after beating Yeovil 2-0 in the play off final at Wembley. In the following season Barker missed only one game for the seasiders (due to suspension) as the tangerines maintained their Championship status. This season also saw Barker given the vice-captaincy.

The 2008/09 season saw Reggie, as he is known by the Blackpool faithful, promoted to club captain as well as retaining the on-field vice captain status. Reggie also moved from the right back position, where he had been playing for Blackpool until this time, into the centre of defence. After another successful season, which saw him start 42 league games, Barker won the accolade of players’ player of the year.

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.