Old One-Eye's View: Poor Fayre But A Win’s A Win!
Monday, 12th Dec 2011 11:54 by Old One-Eye

Derby’s November had been one they would wish to forget – a sequence of hapless performances interrupted by the occasional false dawn which generally lasted until the opposition realised they were losing and rolled their sleeves up.

Bristol City, on the other hand, were well and truly in their ‘new manager bounce’ honeymoon period, and only a last-minute strike by high-flying but oh-so-tedious Middlesbrough in the previous week’s televised game on the equally tedious Sky had prevented them from sauntering into Pride Park unbeaten in seven.

Everything pointed to an away victory, and Old One-Eye’s money was firmly on a 0-1 scoreline with City’s goal a penalty, because the whistle-blower was none other than Robert Madley, a man who points to the spot more often than a Labrador retriever indicates the position of a downed pheasant.

Rams boss Nigel Clough enjoyed the ‘luxury’ of being able to name an unchanged side for the third match in succession, something which can be interpreted in a number of ways – he is pleased with the performances, he hasn’t fallen out with anyone else recently or the injury crisis isn’t getting any worse – you pay your money, you take your choice.

Some of those who had been paying their money regularly in the past seem to have made their choice – the crowd is pretty sparse, relatively speaking, at Pride Park nowadays. Those heady days of 30,000 plus in attendance only seem to happen when there’s a decent Groupon offer or it’s time to renew the old mobile phone contract.

But I digress - on to the match.

The first half was a turgid affair, at least as far as the home side were concerned. For several minutes both sides took it in turns to foul each other before, for a few brief moments, a bit of football broke out. City’s Martyn Woolford stung Frank Fielding’s palms, while at the other end Derby’s Jeff Hendrick did something similar to a gentleman in Row Q.

After a quarter of an hour, the match descended back into the Slough of Despond, a place only marginally better than the Slough of Berkshire, from which it had momentarily crawled - little Progress was made by The Pilgrim or anyone else for that matter.

The creativity and imagination of John Bunyan would have been welcomed on the field of play – instead, we had ‘Snake’ Priskin having one of those games when it would have taken him three attempts to trap a dead Kurt Russell.

As half time beckoned, a thumping Nicky Maynard drive brought the best out of Fielding before Mr Madley put everyone out of their misery following a mercifully short one minute of feigning injury time.

Priskin escaped from Pride Park at half time to be replaced by Callum Ball, and the difference was instantaneous – there was suddenly a fifty-fifty chance that panicky clearances from jittery defenders would finally stick, at least momentarily. City made a change themselves soon after the break, and former Rams favourite Lewin Nyatanga was welcomed back to generous applause.

Against the run of play, for want of a better phrase, The Robins took the lead after 56 minutes. Derby gave the ball away deep in the opposition half, Marvin Elliott found Albert Adomah, which is more than any Derby midfielder did, and his marauding run ended with a clever ball to Woolford who gave Fielding no chance.

Derby, to their credit, finally kicked themselves into gear. Shaun Barker bravely threw himself in the way of a brace of goal-bound drives, and the rest of the side seemed to take inspiration from the club captain.

Jamie Ward ran City ragged, burst past two challenges and rolled a perfect pass into the path of Craig Bryson who did his best to miss from a yard but failed miserably, in the process dragging The Rams level with 62 minutes gone.

Two of the more anonymous contributors of the day, Kalifa Cisse for City and Ben Davies for The Rams, gave way to Brett Pitman and Mason Bennett respectively but it was the Derby substitute who impressed, the schoolboy having the exuberance of youth and a pair of vertigo-inducing bright orange football boots on his side.

As the home side pressed, Ball came more and more into the game as he refused to be knocked off the... er.... round thing. He had a fair slice of fortune with what proved to be the winner though, getting in the way of a tame Bryson drive. The spherical object fell kindly and with only David James to beat, Ball’s foot met football and the net result was a result in the net.

The final throw of the dice for the visitors was the introduction of Jamal Campbell-Ryce for Neil Kilkenny, which Clough countered by bolstering the defence with Mark O’Brien as City finally resorted to ‘Route One’. They should have shared the points too, which their overall play possibly deserved, when Pitman fluffed a routine header from six yards out.

Five minutes later the referee, who must have had a decent game because this correspondent hardly noticed him, drew proceedings to a close with the requisite three blasts on the whistle. The Rams had done the unthinkable by turning defeat into victory instead of the other way around, something that had become a rather annoying habit of late.

Old One-Eye's Man of the Match:

Jamie Ward – non-stop effort.

Old One-Eye's Rams Player Ratings:

Fielding(6) Green(5), Barker(6), Shackell(6), Roberts(6), Bailey(7), Davies (4) (Bennett 7), Bryson(6), Hendrick(6), Ward(8), Priskin(4) (Ball 7)

Attendance:

23906 (747 Boeing home empty-handed)