derby day, the street's of our fair city are buzzing tonight, forest, the ram's biggest rival's are coming to town, making their way down the sixteen miles of road that link the two cities, brian clough way, or the a52 if you want the official designation, they are after revenge for the defeat at the city ground when derby beat them with only ten men, the goalkeeper, frank fielding having been sent off early in the game, we are desperate to beat them tonight and inflict damge to their hopes of relegation survival as well as 'doing the double' over them for the first time in almost forty years, as we make our way to pride park, the home of derby county football club, we can hear the chanting of the rival supporters, the derby fan's walking in from the town centre and the forest fan's under police escort from the railway station, half a mile stroll from the ground, their are groups of fan's standing under the statue of brian clough and peter taylor, the dynamic duo who had massive success with both club's, as we queue for the turnstiles we see our rival's for the first time, and the tension rises again, up the stair's and the concourse is packed, singing, swaying people, drinking and spilling beer as they jostle and sing, just a coke for me and the boy jack tonight, it's a 'school night' so no alcohol, i honestly don't need it and make my way to my seat, the team's take to the pitch and the noise is incredible, a moment after kick off and the first tasty tackle goes in, yellow card and the scene is set for the rest of the half, it's a scrappy affair, the ball spend's most of the time in the air, being launched forward in the hope of connecting with a respective striker, the second half continues in the same vain, more bruising tackles and card's, one particularly savage assault on a derby player sparks a twenty two man melee on the half way line that see's our goalie running the length of the pitch to get involved, turn up the gas to mark 7, the next challenge see's our centre-back badly injured and stretchered off with career threatening knee damage, the forest fan's gloat and chant while the stricken player, shaun barker is receiving attention from the medical staff, a section of the derby fan's decide to retaliate with their own chant, 'where's your chairman gone?', reffering to the death of the forest chaiman nigel doughty a few week's ago, it's getting hot in here, time is clicking away,but due to the ref sorting out the battling players and barkers injury there are 8 minutes of extra time, then, it happens, jake buxton, on as a substitute for barker, stoop's low to head in the ball at close range, 95 minutes gone, the ground explodes in noise and i can actually feel the upper teir shaking as the derby faithful go wild, the next 3 minutes take an eternity, then mr durso raises the whistle to his lips and blow's...........'tell me mam, me mam, to put the champagne on ice, we beat the forest twice, tell me mam, me mam............'

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  1. Well done mate, scintilating read, I've never been so up for news on the round ball game in me bleedin life !!! Stoked for you and the lad, must've been one hell of a buzz . . . I'm rapidly becoming a Derby fan, might have to relinquish my life long passive following of the 'Spurs, no real allegiance there other than I thought Marty Chiv. was the bomb when I was a wee lad . . . . where's your chairman gone , bloody classic, now I can't get the original tune out of me bloody scone, bastard !!! XXX

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  2. What is wrong with Derby fans right now? Slaggin off Cloughy at the last game now havin a go about Nigel Doughty, have a go at the players on the field and the opposing fans but leave the dead out of it.

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    1. bit more complicated than that Med, you know the history between the two clubs, the same managers, players swapping between the teams and the bitter rivalry, the doughty incident was insensitive i agree, but, if you follow the forest forum like i do, [keep your friends close and your enemies closer], you will see that mr doughty and his family were the subject of a sustained hate campaign for him and the chief executive to pump more money into the club or 'do one', a little cheeky when mr doughty had pumped around 60 million pounds of his own money into forest, he had been slagged off on the nottingham evening post forum and him and his wife had to stop attending games because of the forest fans verbally abusing them, little wonder then that when he died and they suddenly started giving it the old 'great bloke, top man, we will miss him' bollocks that it all started to ring a little hollow, not to condone the derby fans, but, you know what a derby match is like, any chance to needle the opposition is seized upon and in the rams fans defence, they aren't whiter than white either, their is a chant that they gave to one of our players about his baby that i'm not going to repeat here that was sickening and they sparked it off the other night singing 'let him die' when our player was receiving medical assistance for a horrific injury, nigel clough is the manager, he makes the team choice and decides on the formation, playing players out of position is always going to attract criticism, after all, there's nearly 30,000 other people in the ground who are football managers!

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