September 17 – Derby’s Day
IT’S always bad news when your season peaks in the middle of September, and that’s exactly what happened to Derby County today in 2007. When the final whistle blew at the end of their match with Newcastle United, little did the Rams know that this would be their only three-point haul of the season.
Manager Billy Davies took the club to the promised land of the Premier League four months earlier when they beat West Brom in the play-off final, a game dubbed the most expensive in all of sport, as a £60m Premiership windfall awaited the winners.
Unfortunately, as our mother’s once told us, money doesn’t buy you happiness. After securing their place at the top table of English football Derby fans had endure a car-crash of a season, as their team’s incompetence saw them break record after record at the wrong end of the table.
Their solitary win over Newcastle came thanks to a Kenny Miller goal and accounted for more than a quarter of their final point tally as they set a record for the lowest number of points ever and equalled Loughborough’s 108-year football league record of going through an entire season with one win.
Billy Davies, no doubt wishing he was still in the calmer water of the Championship, was ditched in November to be replaced by Paul Jewell. An influx of new faces came about in January, but funnily enough the likes of Robbie Savage and Laurent ‘team player’ Robert did nothing to slow down Derby’s freefall.
On no less than nine occasions Derby conceded four or more goals and their fate was sealed at the end of March when they were relegated following a draw with fellow strugglers Fulham. Bookmakers Paddy Power had seen it coming and paid out on their relegation after only five games.
Despite a summer of change, Derby’s start to the new season has been almost as bad. Last weekend they picked up their first win as they narrowly avoided going a full 365 days without a league win.
We’ll leave you with footage of the Rams defeating Preston in the 2007 play-off final so you can see how happy the poor fools were at getting promoted. If only they knew what was around the corner. Check out with other minnows were punching above their weight here and we’ll be here same time, same place for another daily dose of footballing history tomorrow.
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September 17 - The Buddies Hit Europe and Derby’s Day | On This Football Day on September 17th, 2009
[...] 2007 – Derby’s Day IT’S always bad news when your season peaks in the middle of September, and that’s exactly what happened to Derby County today in 2007. When the final whistle blew at the end of their match with Newcastle United, little did the Rams know that this would be their only three-point haul of the season. Read the whole sorry story here. [...]