franniesTache

For all those people saying "i prefer the championship" or the ones at games singing about us going down and going on "championship tours" those european aways were like nothing else. That's why you want to be in the top flight, moments like that are incredible. It still blows my mind i had piss ups in holland, went to the Danish equivalent of Eastleigh, 20miles from the gaza strip (and a lot less distance to "strip" in Prague), and one of the most iconic grounds in the world. What I wouldn't give to have those days back again

If you watch that video closely - and know what you're looking for - you can see one of their other myths being shattered that night in it too 👀 They're proper desperate, also them thinking they're some sort of terrifying undefeatable force of nature means when they actually come up against us they get shown up and unstuck. It's the same as them being obsessed with what Millwall think of them, or the books and bullshit they spout everywhere. It just reeks of insecure weirdos which makes it all the more funny to mock them for it.

That away end was one of the best away ends i've been in in 40 odd years of going, a load of the bingo bus lot swerved it and it seemed to be mostly lads. The celebrations for when the goals went in were incredible and the noise was something else. Also one of the only times i'll join in with the scummers stuff, especially coming out of the ground when we were lined up behind the stand and you just had that ominous "Scummers, Scummers" ringing out. It wasn't at a million miles an hour, it was slow and purposeful, fucking great way to mock them. Sadly next season we'll end up with a bunch of out of towners and posh kids grabbing the tickets and singing about players cocks and pantomime songs instead of real vitriol and hatred like it should be.

Think the reason for the lack of bubble was to do with how little time the Hants old bill had to organise it rather than anything else. Personally think they'll have a bubble again this time sadly, which f*cking ruins it. Wonder if we'll get a load of "free" tickets like we did at the league cup game with the saints fans coming in two to a ticket 👀 Also wonder if the skates will pump crowd noise into the away end using their tannoy system again? That league cup game really shattered a lot of their myths to pieces, not that they'd admit to it.

Yeah because being a skate and being spurs are exactly the same 🤣 Obviously I couldn't give a shit if Le Tiss supported spurs in the same way I don't give a shit about who Ron Davies supported. The skates is a different matter, and your straw man is bollocks. Prowse was born in a PO postcode, his family are season ticket holders there, he was a season ticket holder there, he was a mascot for them at a game, he said their FA Cup win was one of his favourite days and he said Andy Awford was his favourite player. For a fanbase that bangs on about hating the skates a lot of people really fucking don't do they?

Why would anyone care if Le Tiss supported Spurs? Fairly sure that the Kane/Arsenal thing was shown not to be true wasn't it?

Nah i'm not having that he's a skate and always will be a skate. Was he decent for us? Yes. Does that stop him being a skate? No.

Yup not sure what relevance that has now, unless you think the side you support changes as you get older?

Nope the skates are, he counted their FA Cup final as one of his favourite days, was a mascot and season ticket holder for them and counted Andy Awford as his favourite player. Just because he worked here doesn't mean he's not still a skate cunt

It's been death by a thousand cuts really, I liked Ralph for large periods but by the end he was completely spent, the mistake with him was not getting rid sooner - especially as he said he was off at the end of that season and became a lame duck. We should've sacked Ralph at the end of the season and spent the summer getting the right man in. We didn't so it went to shit. Then we brought in Jones, some of the stuff he did i actually still don't think was as terrible as people made out, he kicked the players up the arse which needed doing and he called out our more self entitled parts of fanbase which needed doing, but on the pitch he was fundamentally not even close to being good enough. Unfortunately once again we waited far too late to get rid of him, which should've happened after the Forest home game when it was obvious how bad he was. Then we brought in Selles who just felt like SR had basically given up, held their hands up, said "fucked if we know" and put him in. The major mistake there was bringing in a person who'd never managed a club and expecting them to learn their trade at possibly the worst time you could learn your trade, during a catastrophic relegation battle where what we needed was someone who had been there before (but probably wouldn't have been popular with our more hipster elements in our support). So obviously we went down and sacked him, that brought in Martin. I still think Martin was the wrong choice from day one but luckily we had a squad good enough to get us up anyway. I think it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that if Martin continued with his footballing style we'd be torn apart every week, he took a team that conceded a ton of goals and created a small amount in the championship, but managed to win because we had better players, into a league where we'd concede loads of goals, create very few and have significantly worse players. It was a recipe for disaster. In my opinion a good owner would've said thanks for promotion and here's your P45 the day after the play offs, but i could sort of understand the logic that said give him a chance in the premier league. The issue once more came about because we didn't just give him a chance, we hung on way, way too long, put the club in a position that meant we couldn't rescue it, destroyed the players confidence and made us deeply unattractive to any other manager. So when the finally sacked him and brought in Juric they basically had to bring in a "Mark Hughes" style coach. Juric probably wouldn't have been my first choice. We had two choices in reality, give up on the season completely, look at the long term and build going forward. For me that choice would've been spending what was needed and getting Rohl in, and given the way Rohl plays it would take time for that to bed so doing it now wouldn't be the worst thing, because if we do sack Juric and go for him we'll potentially fuck up the start to the championship season. Or option two get in a pragmatist like Juric who will spot fix the worst things - an inability to attack, playing players in the wrong position, the beaver like approach to damn building through slow, ponderous, insane passing and the woefully poor fitness levels of the squad. But know we'd probably still go down and know that we've got ourselves a fairly bog standard, nothing special but competent manager. SR obviously went with option two, the big question now is if it goes wrong will they finally learn to act faster. I very much doubt it, and i'm not that confident about coming straight back up next time round either.

I didn't particularly like Martin in the championship either to be honest, always thought he was arrogant and his style was dubious at best. In my opinion we got promoted despite Martin not because of him, and that dogmatic cultish approach turned into the worst manager we've ever had (and potentially the worst the english top flight has ever seen). Am I happy we got promoted? I was at the time. Am i grateful to Martin? Not really his stubborn arrogance has humiliated us.

Have to say i enjoyed my trip up to Town Saturday, definitely one of my favourite aways in the country, some great pubs (drunk in the dove, the briarbanks and the lord nelson) and the Town fans are a really decent bunch. Plus for once the bus replacement really wasn't that bad, and barely added anything onto the journey. Obviously actually winning a game helps, but if i'm honest i thought we were pretty jammy in winning it, the fair result would've probably been a draw and if anything Ipswich edged it over the course of the game. That said it was nice to see us actually doing the simple things right and attacking the other side, it's really starting to feel like the idiocy of Martin's reign of terror is lifting and the players aren't constantly reverting to passing the ball around pointlessly and trying to play walking football. Clearly all way to little to late, but i'm now at last thinking we might now "break" Derby's record, just wish we'd got shot of Martin much, much sooner as this team/squad could've been competitive still (not out of the relegation spots i'd guess, but still in with a shout). Such a shame the board had to stick with such a cluelessly inept manager for so long really

club should fine the players one months wages for every point they finish below Derby's record at least that way they might stop dicking around and actually try and win games

Yeah i think the whole away end was in total shock when it went in. Cracking away day that day, remember travelling up with absolutely no expectations but it turned out to be a top day out.

I spent most of his run that day screaming at him to pass the fucking ball, not for the first (or last) time i was proven very wrong.