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 What I.Saw - 'A Match Worthy Of A Derby'Thu 15th Mar 2012 13:38 by I.Saw Pride Park - coming from Nottingham, slow traffic, take your time, calm your nerves, what is the worst thing that can happen? No not that thing! Missing the first few minutes I mean: not “that thing”. Parked, packed, and perched on the edge of the seat. Our manager has dropped Carroll, spirits lift. Game underway, Tyson targeted. Where’s the passion though. Possession we max. Corners we control. We never look like having a shot on target let alone scoring. Forest are a poor side, we match them perfectly. Half time comes and goes, both team scrap and fight; it’s hardly a classic, a dreary derby drably drawn, and the dread of losing apparent. On sixty five no longer retiring, the melee kicks off; we expect a red or two to walk. Ref Andy D’Urso consults and Dexter Blackstock’s caution is the only action. Pace picks up though and finally we have a match worthy of a derby. With passions now flying Shaun Barker tumbles as Frank Fielding flounders, it’s a serious injury and all credit to Marcus Tudgay for trying to assist our suffering skipper. We have possession we don’t kick it out, we scream at our players, unsure they carry on till the ref finally blows. Stretcher on, Barker on oxygen, fans on abuse, Cohen, Doughty, it goes on. It’s wrong. But of all the chanting I’ve heard following the Rams home and away by far the worse was the Red Dogs comments to Kris Commons after his girlfriend had lost her baby. I didn’t hear a public apology that day. And that’s not point scoring. All teams have those who think they are being clever. We are all tarred by the same brush. Jake Buxton replaces Barker and we throw caution to the wind and ball after ball into the Forest box. Marcus Tudgay gives his all, a little too late and he departs with a second yellow, no fuss he’s unlucky the desire to win there for all to see. Guy Moussi, on the line, the ball strikes his hand, no penalty given, another lucky escape for a player who can count himself lucky to still be on the pitch after his part in the earlier melee. As the eight minutes of injury time run down, Ben Davies floats in a free kick, Buxton has the last touch and Lee Camp stands helpless as the ball trickles into the corner of the net. Pride Park rocks, on our feet, punching air, we go mental! Even the awarding of a free kick to the visitors way on the edge of the box when the Forest attacker blatantly jumped on the back of Gareth Roberts (a lot like Ted McMinn used to do for Derby) couldn’t help even the score and the Rams celebrated their first double since 1971/2 season.
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