Craig said:
Like playing in the EPL?
Still I guess you hope for Ambramovich type take over?
Hardly - on both counts.
We had a chairman who was quite happy to pump a chunk of his own money in and to sanction a number of deals the club could not afford.
As far as playing in the EPL is concerned - meh!
I'm talking about the time when Derby were the number 1 team in England, a spell in the early to mid 1970's when they ALWAYS finished above Man U, usually above Liverpool and Leeds and won the championship twice. Although we didn't manage to win the European Cup (at that time, only Man U and Celtic had won it from the UK), we enjoyed reasonable success, were robbed in the European Cup semi-final against Juventus (there was suspicion of bribery at the time, Helmut Haller in the ref's dressing room at half time, dubious penalties, inexplicable disallowing of a couple of Derby goals etc etc), beat the likes of AC Milan, Inter, Real Madrid, Benfica and so on.
Derby had Roy McFarland and Colin Todd as centre-backs, Francis Lee, Gerry Daly, Bruce Rioch, Charlie George, Kevin Hector, David Nish, Archie Gemmill etc etc etc. All were considered stars on the world stage. Successive chairmen on ego trips made it impossible for Brian Clough to work so he quit, then sacked his successor Dave Mackay just a few matches into the season (we had just finished third). That was the beginning of the end.
A revival in the 1990's after Robert Maxwell took over the club was a blip. Maxwell got into financial trouble, sold the best players (Dean Saunders and Oooo Mark Wright), pocketed the cash and scarpered.
This is a small town club, remember.