Derby, 17 January, 2009

Off then to Derby for Nigel Clough's managerial debut. I like going to Derby, although not for their food, which like the team, has sunk immeasurably since their Premiership days. Oh no, it's the sort of place where a nice woman comes up and asks if you'd like a cup of tea (this has never happened before, ever; not even at Derby) and where they'll do photocopying for you if you ask nicely.
The story is really about Clough's arrival, but the defeat to an impressive QPR rather spoils everyone's day, not least the hacks', who wanted a very different result.
Derby were short of spirit and quality and there's so much work to do, they may yet go down. If Clough didn't know it pre-match, he knows it now. After 10 years at Burton Albion, I'd always thought of him as too lily-livered to take on a league club, but according to the programme he stayed there, a) because he liked it there and b) so he could take an active part in bringing up his kids. There's some truth in there somewhere and it's inconceivable there were no offers from outside the East Midlands. That he's gone to dad's Derby - and Forest did sniff around, although not this time when Billy Davies was patently the better option - is more of a surprise, although perhaps he feels he can emulate pa's feats in a way he never could at Forest.
After all those unforgivable The Son Also Rises headlines, he's wisely not doing one-to-one interviews, but his first post-match press conference is fascinating. He's not like his brash dad at all, but he is the acme of a confident young 21st Century manager. Unsullied by the need to protect anyone, he names names, notably the poor (in both senses) Andy Todd and Rob Hulse and he not so much dampens expectations as demolishes them. I ask him how surprised he was by how awful they were. "I'd seen glimpses of it in training," he admitted, "but nothing prepared me for this".
Derby County might be too big a task - after all it's shot Paul Jewell's reputation for the foreseeable future - for such a relative rookie and whatever the question is, bringing almost his entire coaching staff over from Burton surely isn't the answer, but I love his honesty and his business-like nature. Let's hope he truly is his father's son.