Today, New Derby County CEO Sam Rush meets the fans in the “Your 90 Minutes” forum at Pride Park Stadium. Sam introduced himself to Derby via media interviews last week and here’s a summary of his initial messages to Rams fans.

Mr Rush’s appointment is an interesting one, as he has emerged from his long involvement in a leading football agency, the Wasserman Group.

Sam worked among those folks that get very handsomely rewarded for representing players in the transfer market, as well as having involvement in club sponsorship, stadium naming rights and TV deals. He now finds himself in charge of a substantial and stable football club with large potential.

Sam has the benefit of taking over the reins of a club not beset by crisis and disarray, or financial meltdown, or relegation worries - which is unusual in football generally and uncharacteristic of the recent history when Derby County leadership changes have occurred.

The past decade saw the demise of Lionel Pickering’s adventure, the deception and disgrace of the regime chaired by Mr Sleightholme and then the dissipation of the ‘White Knight’ optimism headed by the emergence of Peter Gadsby’s local consortium.

Since GSE took over Derby County 5 years ago and Adam Pearson spearheaded that transition, local (and English) influence within the current regime has all but evaporated. The original GSE representative, Rams’ CEO Tom Glick, and his GSE colleague Tim Hinchey have moved on to corporate roles at other football clubs in England and America.

My own message to Sam? Please - “Don’t Play It Again, Sam” with a periodic rolling out of the same old five-year plan; let’s now see real football progress. Build a football team that does the talking for Derby County and a full stadium can enjoy Premier League football - without setting negative records when management, team and owners implode and capitulate. It sure is a sizeable ‘ask!’

After jettisoning the irascible Billy Davies and hapless Paul Jewell, their backroom regimes and playing staff, the GSE group and current manager Nigel Clough (now commencing his 5th year at the club) had to perform drastic economic and squad surgery to stabilise the club on and off the field.

We’re finally making upward on-field Championship progress, whilst showing the fruits from a progressive youth Academy policy, so Mr Rush has a clean launch-pad for the next phase of club development. How does he see his challenges at Derby County?

Sam has current UK football industry experience of course and is ‘excited about the opportunity’. He says he is here to ‘set a strategy, to advise and add values, and to understand the community within which it (DCFC) is operating’.

He declared that he represents the fans to the ownership group and the ownership group back to the community. He has discussed club ambitions and plans fully with GSE and will hold regular fans’ forums to assume his self-declared role as a ‘guardian and advocate’ for them.

He has already linked up with experienced former DCFC and DCCC chief executive Keith Loring as his consultant, to see what they can ‘drum up both on the hospitality and the attendance side’.

Unsurprisingly, he acknowledges he has to address falling Pride Park attendances and wants to fill the stadium again. “We have a wonderful stadium here... (Derby) is a club that can fill its stadium...if there is a whiff of success I am certain fans will be coming here in huge numbers”.

Certainly, there are economic factors affecting ‘stay-away’ fans, a season-ticket price last summer rise did not assist retention either, and after 5 years in the Championship without a glimpse of a Top-Six finish, there is scepticism about GSE’s ambitions and their capacity to restore top-flight football at Derby.

Allowing away fans to dominate one end of the stadium was also a disappointing development and fans will expect Mr Rush to address that issue promptly and scrutinise how both season-ticket holders and returnees and new fans can be attracted and incentivised.

Dynamic Pricing is only ‘exciting’ if it increases attendances and revenue - so experimentation, tinkering and pioneering some overseas ideas from other sports on ticketing cannot be an objective in itself.

“I am keen for Derby to be innovative and a ground-breaking club. We need to look at ways in which we can fill the stadium and generate revenue so we can continue to have a leading football club,” says Sam, though my view is that it will always be the football product - success on the field - that re-establishes high attendances and re-ignites the passion and enthusiasm that Derby fans have traditionally held for their team.

It is encouraging however that Sam appears to be interested in taking forward the ‘Safe Standing’ initiative and will fully involve fans in the decisions, and the club will look to continue putting on non-football attractions. What a shame we couldn’t ‘get in there’ and nab the Bruce Springsteen summertime gig that is due to be staged at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena!

Rush is reluctant to comment on team and squad matters but feels the squad is ‘really exciting, I think we have got a fantastic team’. As ever with GSE, there wasn’t an effusive reaction to questions about January ‘transfer window’ squad investment so it is unclear if there is any intention to capitalise on a solid if unspectacular first-half of the season, to now push on and actually head up into the top 6 of the table.

The ‘sustainability’ argument is routinely employed, and long-term development shall remain watchwords. The “P” word - promotion, still seems to inhibit discussions about Derby’s future!

The GSE group have reportedly put in some £50m to own and sustain the club thus far but one wonders how they will get a return without benefiting from on-field success and enjoying a share of the Premier League cake.

The list of formerly ‘lesser’ clubs that have rebuilt and risen to the top flight to stride way beyond Derby County in football’s pecking order gets longer by the year; attainment and retention of top-flight status becomes more difficult and seemingly remains unreachable, without a higher level of investment in players.

How Sam portrays and represents the owners’ aims and ambitions regarding Derby County as first and foremost a successful football club will be critical to his credibility among the fanbase and the group’s ultimate credibility.

Fans aren’t dummies who demand a Pompey-style brief flash, crash and burn period - but signs of disaffection have surfaced before and I doubt whether crowds will return until the club is a force once again.

Rush wants to use his player-market expertise to benefit the club and ensure it is not a ‘soft-touch’ in the transfer market. He rubbishes media reports that the club must raise £1.8m by player sales and thinks that Derby can ‘thrive’ under the forthcoming conditions of Financial Fair Play, which will restrict every club’s expenditure in relation to turnover.

Hopefully then, the ‘vultures’ won’t swoop for such as Will Hughes, Hendrick and Brayford any time soon!

Being a cynic, I’m sure however that the ‘big boys’ have already worked out their FFP evasion strategies so that they can still spend £200m per season in pursuit of Premier and Champions League silverware, so that owners can bathe in the reflected glory from their English ‘train-sets.’

Sam marks the Rams’ stadium, training facilities and Academy as significant attractions to experienced players and youth development prospects alike. Fans will hope that the manager, after several years in relative transfer purgatory, will be resourced well enough to build on the lean and efficient current squad that he has developed to take the team several stages further.

Mr Rush sees the Championship split into 4 sections: “You have got a number of clubs frankly grateful to be in the Championship. They will be in the division one year, they will have a stab at it and be back in League One and knock about between the two.

The next section are “clubs who have come down from the Premier League with parachute money.” He says that none of the current three relegated clubs - Bolton, Blackburn & Wolves - are thriving because of “a state of panic, disorganisation, and disharmony” that can follow relegation, “and that is not where Derby is now.” Sam notes that some rich clubs have gone into free-fall and promotion is never guaranteed by ‘parachute’ money.

Sam’s ‘third section’ is made up of clubs gambling for “short-term goals” which, if the club fails to gain promotion, can lead to renewed troubles.

Derby are in Sam’s ‘fourth section of clubs’: these are “made up of well-run, serious, sizeable clubs that have a serious chance of getting into the Premier League but are run in a way whereby should they make that leap they will stay in the Premier League and will develop as a club”.

In the eyes of this fan, Sam, you just named your Number One objective! Promotion, please - without the disgraceful submission and humiliation that we had to witness the last time around. For me, top-flight consolidation and progress back to respectability has to be our footballing priority...easy to say, hard to achieve.

Sam is acutely aware that GSE’s ‘five-year plan’ hit the buffers and that fans expect more success; he acknowledges that he needs to take the club “into as high a level of football as is possible”.

A new year brings a new chapter in Derby County's history and RamZone wishes Sam Rush the very best for a successful time at the club.

A report on the “Your 90 minutes” forum will follow soon and we look forward to a fulsome debate from RamZoners on all matters Derby County in 2013.

Happy New Year to Rams fans everywhere!

Photo: Action Images

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