The generosity of Rams fans will never be questioned by me after a great response to my shirt auction on eBay to raise money for the Australian Bushfire appeal.

After recent heroics by the team on the field, Derby County fans are pretty much walking on air. Despite a slip up at Doncaster, Nigel is giving fans everything they could hope for. There is nothing like winning but when you win and score lots of goals and with all this going on many still had time to think of those without much to smile about.

A couple of  weeks ago I outlined the devastation of the Victorian bushfires that devastated thousands of homes and left families homeless along with a horrific death toll expected to pass 300 when all those missing are accounted for.

I secured a numbered Giles Barnes away strip as well as donated a signed picture from my personal collection and put it up on eBay with proceeds going to these most in need at this terrible time.

The shirt and autograph went for a very generous 51 pounds and then even more generously the winner kindly donated the items back to me to again auction and raise even more for the cause. Thankyou Ian, a great gesture if there ever was one.

This type of act typifies the response I have encountered after writing my column about the tragedy. I received emails of support for the idea and even more astonishing, donations from various Rams fans around the world asking for me to add it to the amount raised for the shirt (thanks Steve!).

The only disappointing thing is the emails I have sent to DCFC itself have still to be answered. I asked if the club would be kind enough to donate anything I could auction for the cause, in particular something signed by the two well known Australian internationals in the Rams team.

Sadly at the time of writing I have received no reply so perhaps I will take Mr Glick up on his statement that any of us ordinary fans can contact him on all club matters. I have heard he is a very reliable respondent so I will let you all know if that is the case. Perhaps if anyone from the club is reading this they could drop me a line through RamZone.

In the mean time if you are interested in bidding on the re-listed Barnes auction you can find the items here.

Thanks again to all of those who contacted me and bid on the item. It may only be a small thing but to someone who has their life devastated by fire it will be a massive thing.

Photo: Action Images

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