You are at a dinner party on a Tuesday night, and suddenly you notice the time is 9pm.

You drift into a reverie: is Derby winning?  And you visualise a slick passing movement – Savage to Croft, down the wing, back to Livermore who nudges it sideways to Teale who pokes it into the penalty area and Hulse scrambles it home – YES!!!! 

Or maybe you are feeling somewhat gloomy, and they’ve scored two and we’re just hoofing it into the penalty box with no reward.

“Are you alright?” your hostess asks, and you snap out of the reverie: “Yes, yes, yes, I’m fine – just a couple of problems at work you don’t want to know”.  Your hostess then starts to tell her favourite story of how you were working so hard once that you took a major report into the bogs and fell asleep only to find yourself blah blah….

But on the way home on the train, your beloved looks at you with suspicion and demands to know what is going on as she knows nothing is wrong at work. 

If you are lucky, you can say: “I was thinking of Derby County” and she’ll twinkle at you and say something like: “When we get home, I’ll get you thinking of something else”.  In my experience though, more than likely you know she’s going to be in a bad mood because she’ll say something like: “Derby County!” with all the scorn and disgust she can muster and you’re feeling guilty thinking – at least she’ll storm off to bed and I can put on the teletext and find out how we got on…

Or how about this?  You’re somewhere abroad, drinking a very nice cool drink in a stunning location overlooking a beautiful bay with the sun shining and you catch a glimpse of your watch and work out the time difference and you know the game is just about over and you start thinking how you can find out. 

Is there an internet café locally?  Can you text one of your mates without incurring too much annoyance on the part of your better half?  There’s this shop that sells English newspapers a day late so that’s two days away – no, can’t wait that long….

Or how about this, you’re working on a Saturday at home – trying to finish off this report and you think, I’ll just have a quick peep at the Match Centre – just for five minutes, and then you tell yourself sternly - you will finish this report by six as you’re taking your nearest and dearest out for the evening…  Of course, what happens is, you keep looking and eventually give up the report as a bad job and play card games as you wait for the next update….

Of course, we are so lucky compared to ten years ago – there was no internet, no mobile phones (unless you were lucky enough to have one of those brick-like things where you pull out the aerial), and no teletext (not that this changes anything if you are somewhere out of reach of English television).

But even with the access, you still get this kind of scenario where you look at the fixture list and you think: “Great! we’re away in six weeks time and I can drive over and watch them” and then your closest rushes over excitedly and tells you that so-and-so is getting married on the same day.  She’s put out by your less than enthusiastic response and goes off grumbling, and you call the bridegroom to ask why he’s picked that day – but he tells you that he’s playing in his local rugby final the week after… 

I can’t be there – for whatever reason, but more often than not, I’m wondering how we’ve got on, wondering if we’ve played some great stuff, savouring the little morsels of information that you can glean from websites – don’t bother with newspapers these days as it’s often something like: “Derby overcame Bristol City’s resistance with a goal from Teale in the 87th minute”.

And so it is with some incredulity that I read about people booing our – MY – team. 

I’ll be honest – I have booed once.  At Jim Smith – when we lost 5 – 0 at home to Sunderland.  I disliked him – always have thought him a mediocre manager, nice bloke and all that, but basically unfit to manage our – MY – team.

But otherwise I do not boo.  At the opposition – yes, not at our lads, never!

And I don’t subscribe to this – ‘I pay my money and I can boo if I like’.  It doesn’t hold up – would you go to the cinema and boo Daniel Craig when he’s rubbish in the latest James Bond?  Would you go to the theatre and boo the actress who can’t act and is only there for eye candy purposes? No.  So why boo our players?  Does it help them play better – I doubt it. 

So – I’ll end with this plea on my behalf (although I think many of us ex-pats would feel the same) – please urge our lads on and support them, as wherever I am, I want them to win.

Photo: Action Images

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