I didn’t start following a team until my 20s and now I’m stuck with them
◆ I support Derby County – for better or more often worse – from afar
What team do you support? There are those who pick their local team and that’s it, they are fans, through good or bad, for life. For others it’s a family tradition.
Growing up in Kettering in Northamptonshire, it was hard to get too excited about the exploits of the Poppies, battling away in what was then the Southern League. The club did, though, give Ron Atkinson his first taste in management in the early 70s and I went to a few games at Rockingham Road when former Wolves legend Derek Dougan was manager, where you stood behind the goal Kettering was attacking and then walked round at half time to stand behind the opposite goal.
No one else in the family was interested in football so it was hard to find a team to get excited about. The nearest professional team was Northampton Town, usually bouncing between the Third and Fourth Division. They were never going to get on Match of the Day. So it wasn't until I got a job in Derby in my 20s that I lived somewhere that had a big team. They were in the
Championship at that point, near the upper reaches, memorably losing the play-off final to Leicester in 1994.
Not long after I moved to Edinburgh and though I have been in Scotland ever since, have never felt a connection to the football scene here.
So I continue to support Derby, an armchair fan, as the team got promoted to the Premier League, enjoying a few wonderful years under shrewd manager Jim Smith before relegation and years in the Championship. They got promoted again to the Premier League in 2007, but only stayed one season as they won the fewest ever points in a season (11).
Now, after a previous owner bet the club on getting promotion and failing, we languish in League One (the old Third Division). There was no shortage of drama before the ignominy of administration and a huge points deduction, not least the hiring of Frank Lampard as manager or the luring of Wayne Rooney back from the US first a player and then manager. It was exciting, until the club went bust.
Now the club is rebuilding in League One with a responsible owner and hopes of promotion. Ironically, later this month, The Rams will be playing a local team I never supported, Northampton.