You can disown your family, divorce your spouse, leave your town and country and even change your religion - but you can't change or disavow your football team - at least I used to believe.

The late sixties and early seventies were a great time to be a Ram and indeed a football fan - and that's when I came to football. The game was full of characters like Charlton, Best, George, Lee, Hunter, Mackay, Keegan, Clough, Revie, Shankly - and many of those characters were based at the Baseball Ground.

Two League titles, European nights and a serious chance of the FA Cup in 1976 - Even watching Star Soccer on a Sunday afternoon it was possible to pick up on the atmosphere and the games themselves were something else though given the nature of the Baseball Ground terracing it was sometimes difficult to know what was going on.

Even after the disappointment of the 76 FA Cup Semi-final and the subsequent slide of the Rams once I started work I became a regular on the Popside and then started travelling away whenever I could. Even relegation didn't dampen the spirit however you could see that Football was losing it as it entered the 80's. Attendances were slipping, violence was rife (though not as rife as some would have you believe) and times were hard.

I went away to University but got back during holidays to see as many matches as I could. Some of the players from that era used to be regulars on the all time worse Derby elevens but though they were poor, it was hard to criticize the lack of effort they put in and anyway the sense of humour among Derby fans was second to none. We could laugh at how bad we were.

Then along came Arthur Cox and things slowly turned around. At the same time, the 1986 World Cup was attracting the attention of a lot of people who had never been interested in football before. Women and middle class people become much more interested in what had before been a predominantly male working class game. Families became the target audience of some far seeing clubs - football had never been more popular.

The clubs took the money coming in but never improved the infrastructure. It took the disaster at Hillsborough to make the football authorities sort out the way we watched the game. The old terracing was swept away almost overnight as the stadium became all seater.

This was a real problem for many of the older stadiums - the Baseball Ground included - and either extensive modification or a new ground was required. Derby went of for the new ground. Most of the new grounds atmospheres suffer by comparison with the old stadiums - including Pride Park - a common beef among the older supporters.

Hot on the heels of the new stadiums came Sky TV with their multi-million pound TV contract. Football all but disappeared from the regular channels and reappeared as a pay channel. The amount of money being paid to football by Sky was obscene and the biggest and richest clubs wanted more of this money for themselves.

Enter the Premier League.

Now the clubs with the money could pay the best players more and more money in the hope of honours and more importantly entry into the lucrative so called Champions league. Smaller clubs got themselves into ridiculous amounts of debt trying to compete - or even just stay on the shirttails.

From being a league where several clubs had a realistic chance of competing for the title, the league became a two horse race between whichever teams had the most money - usually Manchester United and another (currently Chelsea). Other teams hoped to maybe make the EUFA places for a season playing the European also rans.

To achieve this, the teams have to charge ridiculous amounts of money for entry into the ground. Some tickets at Chelsea cost over £85 now. Going every week isn't an option for a lot of fans of the bigger clubs. Even smaller clubs like the Rams are expensive. Two tickets, a pie and pint plus travel costs will set you back over £70.

Merchandising is now important and a new shirt for home and away games is almost de rigueur every season. That will set you back £50 each for a £10 shirt.

Even with all of this money, most teams struggle to make ends meet and many end up in administration. This struggle is often compounded by relegation and it's not unusual for a team to plunge a couple of leagues as they struggle to get back on an even keel.

The owners of the clubs are changing. It's no longer the local boy made good running the club as a hobby. It's conglomerations of businessmen looking for a return on investments or the mega wealthy looking for a plaything. Or it's out and out crooks looking to make a fast buck.

Another effect of all this TV is to move the fixtures away from the traditional Saturday at 3pm time to whatever time sorts the vagaries of TV.

So the lot of the average football fan is to be seen as a source of income for the club who turns up whenever the match takes place who accepts that the best the club can hope for is a cup run and promotion the a Premier League where mid table mediocrity is regarded as success.

The football he watches will be mediocre at best but he will be expected to provide the atmosphere - even though he can't stand up, get emotional, or want to be treated like a human being.

Despite all of this - fans keep going.

Loyalty is everything in football.

Despite mediocrity being apparently beyond our grasp, the Rams have season on season managed to sell an enormous amount of season tickets. Why is this? Are Rams fans ore stupid than other fans?

The answer is no - more patient perhaps and slower to anger - but certainly not more stupid.

Now the board are holding up their hands and saying "Believe in us and renew and we will pump in the funds required to make the team successful - and we will give you your money back if you don't agree we have improved the team".

That's pretty brave from the board but I'd expect no less. I'm not anti the board and can see what they are trying to do. A club paying within its means and not prone to boom and bust and capable of staying in the Premier League is a noble ambition and in my opinion our board are going about providing it in an honest manner.

The problem of course is that it isn't a level playing field and we're competing against owners that have seemingly bottomless pockets, against owners who don't mind racking up ridiculous debt with no intention of paying them and with out and out crooks - nice guys often finish last in such races.

What is equally depressing is that though the fan movement has come on a long way in a few years it's a long way from being able to run a club like the Rams and even if it was competing against the less scrupulous owners in an honest fashion would probably be a recipe for disaster.

So what to do? Lots of people I have spoken to at the game are not renewing this season - or say they aren't. In previous years I've heard people say they wouldn't renew and then seen them sheepishly sitting in their seat for one more season. It seems different this time and certainly the economic climate is also another consideration.

I have decided not to renew and I seriously doubt I will bother with any games next year. The fact is I've missed more than a few games this season. And do you know what? There is life outside of football and I don't miss being there anymore.

In simple terms, going to football is not fun anymore. I know we've been rubbish in the past before but hey it was a cheap day out with your mates.

Now it isn't cheap and it isn't fun. A lot of your mates have drifted away and you have the impression that the owners see you as a customer rather than an integral part of the team. That the club is a business rather than a community asset.

I don't think I am the only one who feels like this and I think the club will find the number of season ticket renewals will fall sharply. The fact that we haven't had an article in the Telegraph talking about how loyal fans are buying tickets in droves speaks volumes.

Maybe a lot are waiting. I wouldn't count on it though.

So am I still a Derby fan? I think so but it's a fact that the Derby I supported is a thing of the past. I will probably watch games on the TV and check results but I won’t consider myself a fan in the true sense of a fan that goes to games.

I may go back if we get good again. I know that sounds mercenary but when you consider the club as a business it makes perfect sense. You wouldn't keep going to Sainsbury out of loyalty if they treated you badly and sold crap - why should a football club be different?

Of course if we sign loads of cracking players in the summer and sweep all before us in pre-season I might have a change of heart. If we are top of the league and scoring goals for fun at Christmas I might be tempted ... and even if we don't or aren't I might still be tempted.

Once a Ram always a Ram.....  but for now it's goodbye.

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Photo: Action Images

Elaine added 14:23 - May 11 Good article Mick - even if you do refer to the fan as 'he' :-) I feel exactly the same and have given up my seat (only as far as my husband but still....) The owners seem far removed from the 'average fan' here in Derby and they see it as running a business rather than a passion. I'm sure it can be run as both. There's too much concern about selling us merchandise. Why on earth would I want to buy a shirt with the names of one of these journeymen on it? People buy shirts with the names of players they idolise on....and the only one I ever had and probably ever will have was a 6 Stimac shirt. Frankly the performances over the last few seasons have been abject rubbish and I am not prepared to waste money on it anymore. There are other things to do on Saturdays and whilst I listen if I can it's no longer a very major part of my life. I'll always be a Derby fan - but I won't be a gullible one podding out for watching 3rd rate players.

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