Yesterday, the Americans came to town and the Rams entered a new era in their turbulent 124 year history.

It looks to be a time of great change yet again. Adam Pearson came up with the financial investment that he was brought in to deliver and so begins a new era.

I'll leave it to others to do an in-depth exposition, however I'm pretty encouraged I think. It was always going to be a takeover rather than a simple financial injection and so any deal was always going to take the club out of local ownership.

The issue of local ownership is in my opinion at least, rather irrelevant. Does something being local necessarily make it good, or right for purpose? Of course not. What really matters is that the club is run “properly” (whatever that means) with the interests of its supporters genuinely at heart.

On this point, Andy Appleby and GSE are making all the right noises. I haven't had the opportunity to research their track record in the States but at least they have a (public) track record, unlike the three amigos.

Furthermore, Peter Gadsby has carved his own niche in Rams history by rescuing the club from the clutches of that bunch of chancers and ne'er-do-wells... and certain financial oblivion. He's spent the last several years patiently waiting for his chance to run the club but when that eventually came he was big enough to see that he'd done his bit and it was time to hand over to someone else.

If you love something, let it go, as they say.

Of course, after our experiences of the last few years, we Rams fans have every right to be a tiny bit cautious but I don't see Peter Gadsby risking his reputation by selling this club down the river.

It remains to be seen how GSE plan to take the club forward. Personally, I quite like the idea of Derby County being a global name (I don't like the term “brand”). I don't see any harm in it and it surely would for instance, be great to be able to walk into any sports shop anywhere in the world and have a good chance of being able to buy a Rams shirt.

So while the club's long term future may be assured and we're hopefully heading in the right direction, what fans want to see in the short term is some improvement in results on the field. Saturday's FA Cup exit was another low in a season of lows. It was just unacceptable. I don't think any reasonably minded fan has a problem with any player whose best isn't quite good enough but this was a struggling Championship team we were playing, not one of the “big four”.

In fact, we've played three and one third games in the Cup against struggling Championship teams and we haven't managed to win a single game... there should be no argument about ability here. Of course, after such a dismal season confidence is going to be at an all time low but again, I don't think any reasonably minded fan won't take account of this but there's just no excuse for not trying and there never will be.

I've seen some pretty talentless Rams teams in my time but for all their lack of ability, they were triers. However, it seems there are some players in the today's squad who frankly have no pride in their performance and no conscience as to whether they're cheating the fans and the manager. Paul Jewell had to bring in new faces and had to take the gamble that it would disrupt the team while they were settling in but how can anyone seriously expect someone to settle into a new club when several of the existing squad are barely going through the motions?

PJ has been pretty magnanimous when speaking to the media about some of the performances but it's pretty obvious that his patience has all but evaporated and it's as much as he can do not to name names. Time after time he's faced the media after yet another abject performance when surely he would much rather have just quietly slipped away and gone home. How about those players being big enough to face the media and explain away their performance (or lack of)? With the club making a new beginning with the arrival of GSE those players have one more chance to decide to get stuck in and give everything for the rest of the season. We're waiting.


© Steve Tickle 2008
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