It has nearly been two months to the day since I took over as editor of RamZone and I found myself asking why I would add another tango to my already full dance card. With kick off only a day away I remember why. I love Derby County Football Club!

Like me I am sure every Rams fan whether negative, positive or undecided will be happy to see their team back in action. It seems football season allows us a distraction from everyday life and acts as an escape from all that is happening around us. At times it can prove to be as stressful as the things we are trying to forget but for at least two hours a week football reigns supreme.

In the time between me taking the wheel of this site and today, I have got engaged, managed to catch swine flu and in turn given it to my pregnant fiancée (doh!). There have been work dramas, family issues, weddings, birthdays and more of those things that life throws up into our everyday existence.

On top of that all of us in the RamZone team have managed to find time to write articles and prepare the site for the new season. It has been important to us all that we make every attempt to ensure we try and deliver the best website we can.

Our fellow fans of all ages deserve no less and we hope that it comes across in every article, paragraph and misplaced, comma.

Starting on Saturday fans from Derby, England and the world will find time to attend home and away league fixtures, cup games, club promotions just to be as big a part of the 09/10 season as possible.

In turn the club will be peddling a regular football hit which has not always been up to scratch but now promise to be a better grade of product. The legion of addicted followers will demand only top quality and have never been pleased with anything less.

Barnes is out till Christmas, Porter for at least a month, how close to playing is Hulse and Leacock and are they hiding Zadkovich in a box somewhere in the club shop?

Opinions will be spoken, yelled and written; questions will be considered, answered and avoided. Fans will be frustrated, elated and gutted while players will be loved, despised and applauded. All of these things can mean only one thing; DCFC are back for another season!

To all those predicting doomsday, negativity and cataclysmic disaster for the Rams this season, you are entitled to your opinion but don't spoil it for the rest of us. Be a doubting Thomas or Trixie but please let's not be beaten before a ball has been kicked.

Try and muster a smile, some hope and give us, the blind faith brigade, till at least game 3 before you rain on our parade. Hopefully by then it will be all sunshine with no sign of dark clouds!!

We all have differing opinions on where the Rams will finish this season, if Nigel has signed enough quality players or whether injuries will derail the season. But when that first whistle blows I garauntee for that moment, as the crowd cheers for the beginning of another season, no fan will care.

Football has returned to our lives, sure you may need to find an extra ninety minutes here and there but doesn’t it make everything else seem that little bit better!?

In Clough we trust!!

C’mon Ewe Rams!!!!

Photo: Action Images via Reuters