Jack Bryan is a football writer and life long Derby County supporter.
11:30 am. Two hours prior to kick off. Ten thousand Rams fans marched from the assembly rooms to Pride Park, where Derby would host Birmingham City in front of a capacity crowd. With no Premier League matches taking place over the weekend, and live coverage of the game on Sky Sports, it was an opportunity for fans to make their voices heard, and show why this great club must survive.
The atmosphere at kick off was that of a cup final. The Derby fans amongst the biggest crowd at any Championship game all season, buoyed by the news that Wayne Rooney is sticking by the club; the 36 year-old having rejected the opportunity to be interviewed for the manager’s job at Everton, the club he grew up supporting. There was also relief that this wouldn’t be the club’s last game, after the administrators were given an extra month by the EFL to prove we have the necessary funds to see out the season. But in a game that ended in a way nobody could have predicted, the atmosphere was soon dampened slightly by something which felt inevitable prior to kick off. Lyle Taylor, who last week joined Birmingham on loan from Nottingham Forest, opening the scoring after seven minutes.
The Blues looked threatening going forward in the first half, Taylor having another chance saved by Ryan Allsop, to end one of many Birmingham attacks. In contrast, Derby were lacking up front. That being said, the introduction of Festy Ebosele, replacing the injured Kamil Jozwiak four minutes before half time, gave The Rams a much needed spark.
Scott Hogan looked to have won the game for Birmingham when he made it 2-0 in the 56th minute, but after this Derby improved. Colin Kazim-Richards came on immediately after the goal, and offered a physical presence in attack, but even more important was Krystian Bielik. The Polish midfielder came on to the pitch with twenty minutes to play, a year to the day since he suffered his second Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury since arriving at Pride Park in August 2019.
Bielik was integral to Derby’s survival last season, despite only being fit for a couple of months, and on Sunday he played with the same class, and was the architect of many of his team’s best moves. The former Arsenal man set up Tom Lawrence’s shot that only went over the bar after former Rams’ loanee Teden Mengi handballed it. Although this was missed by the referee, who didn’t award Derby a penalty for the defender’s foul.
Three minutes from the end of normal time, young striker Luke Plange pulled a goal back with an exquisite finish into the bottom corner to set up a scintillating end to the game. And the game ended in a way even the most optimistic fans couldn’t have dreamt of, Krystian Bielik finding the top right corner with a bicycle kick in the sixth minute of stoppage time. This caused the ground to erupt, but the celebrations from the goal scorer were subdued, as he went down holding his shoulder. Initially there were fears that Bielik had dislocated it, but the injury is less serious than first feared, with him ‘50/50’ to be involved against Huddersfield on Wednesday according to Rooney.
Sunday 30th January 2022, will be a day Derby fans look back on for a while, especially if we manage to stay up. That doesn’t look beyond the realm of possibility either, as we are only seven points from safety. For weeks, fans have chanted ‘we’ll fight till the end’ and on Sunday we did just that!
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