It seems that these days every man and his dog has a football blog. There are thousands of them. Some cover their club, some cover entire leagues while others are just brain-to-keyboard streams of whatever is going through the author’s head.
Derby County Blog is not one of the latter. Since being set up by Ollie Wright in June 2010, the site has gained a large following on social media and this increased profile has led to Ollie being contributing to several podcasts and “Monday Night Moan-In” on BBC Radio Derby.
I spoke to Ollie just before Christmas about football blogging and Derby County, in an interview that probably went on a bit too long. He was too polite to tell me to go away and that at a certain point I was just wasting his time!
The decision to set up the blog was, Ollie says, motivated by the idea that Nigel Clough wasn’t being given a fair shake by fans and trying to get his view across by the (fairly recent) tradition of using message boards was never his cup of tea.
“I can’t stand message boards really. I used to read them and it wasn’t good for my health. At the time there was very little quality content on them; someone would say something that would make you think ‘this guy has a point’, but the thread would quickly just descend into people make jokes and puns.”
If you haven’t read Derby County Blog it’s well worth a look. His prodigious use of statistics, well thought out arguments and his love of Chris Martin (the last point can be a deal-breaker for some people) all make for interesting reading.
“Back when I started it seemed like it was all about doing essays. I saw what other blogs were doing and wanted to do something a bit different. What’s the point of offering the same thing everybody else does?”
One post in particular stays in the memory. Derby were due to play Cardiff City away and hours before the match Nigel Pearson was suspended by Mel Morris. Ollie had just published a lengthy post about why Derby were struggling up front and decided to do something novel.
“You aren’t supposed to be relieved when a manager is suspended but counterintuitively I was. I was so happy to find Pearson was gone and everyone else seemed to feel like that too, so I did a ‘live blog’ of the match using Radio Derby’s commentary.”
It was a funny look at what a pretty mundane match played in bizarre circumstances. There are moments in there where you can see his sanity on the verge of collapse, but it makes for a captivating read.
Ollie, however is more proud of a post made days before. His match report after Derby’s 2-1 loss to Blackburn in what would turn out to be Pearson’s last game in charge.
“In the games before hand you could see positive signs. Reasons to be hopeful, but that Blackburn match was dreadful. It was awful, I felt sick writing the article on it. But in the end, it felt like an important moment.”
Pearson’s suspension led to a lot of speculation around the club and Ollie, who is an accredited journalist, is grateful of his position as a blogger and not a sports reporter.
“When you’re a journalist you have to walk the line between asking questions the fans want asked and cozying up to the club. Bloggers don’t have to do that. The club doesn’t talk to us. We can criticise the club if it’s warranted because we don’t have that working relationship with them.”
As I alluded to earlier, Ollie is a big fan of Chris Martin. The big Scottish striker is (at the time of publication) on loan at Fulham and demanding a return to Derby. Our interviewee was not impressed with the decision to send him on loan in the first place.
“I thought the Martin decision was stupid. An appalling decision. Pearson deserved the sack for that alone. His goal record is outstanding; the only players to have scored more than him in the past three seasons were Ross McCormack and Jordan Rhodes.”
However, it hasn’t all been doom and gloom this season in his eyes. The reappointment of Steve McClaren and the good form of Bradley Johnson have both been reasons to be positive for the future.
“When Pearson was sacked I thought ‘Who would I want to manage to club? Someone like Steve McClaren,’ but I was really surprised he actually came back. I wasn’t sure him and Mel would kiss and make up. To be fair to him, he has been very humble and professional since his return; he has realised he burnt a lot of bridges last time.”
“Johnson has been my surprise of the season even though he does my head in sometimes; every game he will give the ball away in a crazy position. He has added some steel and done a good job at a time when we were seemingly out of options in that holding midfield role.”
To Ollie, it feels like the club is back and moving in the right direction. However, there are still lots of areas where we the team can improve.
“I don’t know what will happen in January; we could do with more quality up front. It would help a lot if we had George Thorne and Martin back.”
With no return date in the works for Thorne, McClaren has decided to bring in Julien De Sart on loan from Middlesbrough. The young Belgian midfielder has an eye for a pass and is similar in stature to Thorne so might be an adequate replacement.
The Chris Martin saga on the other hand looks like it rumble on for another couple of weeks as Fulham dig their heels in over his return. Still, given the fact Martin is currently on strike and refusing to play, his return to the club is definitely on the cards. Ollie might yet get his wish.
- Check out Ollie’s site at http://www.derbycountyblog.com/
DCFC Weekly 