Derby County, clearly, have no intention of giving up. As they go into yet another week where their hopes of surviving as a club are up in the air, Wayne Rooney’s team gave their fans every reason to chant: “We’re Derby County, we fight till the end” on a day when the local support for the club was proved to be beyond doubt.
In the sixth minute of stoppage time of a game that had been slated as potentially Derby’s last ever, substitute Krystian Bielik, on his first appearance for a year after an anterior cruciate ligament injury, took off into the air with his back to goal and scored the equaliser with a brilliant scissor-kick. That the Polish midfielder damaged his shoulder as he hit the ground did not dampen the manic celebrations that ensued.
Tom Lawrence’s free-kick had been headed back by Richard Stearman, the 34-year-old centre-half who had abdicated his defensive duties to go and join an all-out attack as Derby, not for the first time in this spirited winter, came from two goals behind to salvage a draw.
Now Rooney, having declined the invitation to be interviewed for the Everton manager’s job, just needs the club to be saved. The season’s biggest Championship crowd, of 32,211, gave a sense of just how important this club is to its community.
It would have to be a Nottingham Forest player who had started this match by rubbing salt into their wounds. Lyle Taylor, seven minutes into his Birmingham City debut on loan from Derby’s fiercest rivals, scored the first goal to dilute the fervour of the crowd before Scott Hogan made it 2-0.
“Lyle Taylor, he’s sending you down,” sang the triumphal visiting fans as Derby’s big protest match got off to the worst start. Birmingham have been able to make five signings this month and when Onel Hernández prodded the ball wide, Taylor, who also scored against Derby for Forest last season, finished in style by sending the ball back where it had come from into the far side-netting.
Birmingham have taken five points out of nine over the past nine days to alleviate their own relegation fears but it is more than the prospect of a mere demotion which made this such an emotional occasion for Derby.
They turned up in their thousands to proclaim their support for this famous old club. It was less a protest march and more a communal cry for help as around 2,000 Derby fans walked from the town centre to Pride Park before kick-off.
Club poet Jamie Thrasivoulou gave a stirring pre-match address to the sellout crowd, Derby’s biggest in the league for nearly three years, who were so wound up as the match started it felt as if the club’s whole future depended on the result of this one game.
Thankfully the prospect of this being Derby’s last game before liquidation was allayed after Quantuma, the administrators, and the EFL had jointly announced a month’s stay of execution on Thursday. Three prospective buyers will be particularly interested this week to hear how an independent arbitration deals with the compensation claims of Middlesbrough and Wycombe, as clearing that part of the financial burden would be significant.
Back on the pitch, Hogan volleyed in 11 minutes into the second half after Ryan Woods crossed from the right but Derby improved after Bielik came on and a sense of momentum gathered.
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It was a chaotic match, exacerbated by Luke Plange’s goal in the 87th minute that gave Derby hope of salvaging a late point. At one point Stearman was the only defender back against three Birmingham attackers as Rooney let even Curtis Davies off the leash.
Sure enough, six minutes into added time, when a free-kick into the penalty area bounced up, Bielik took off into mid-air to perform a remarkably acrobatic finish to extend the sense that, hope against hope, Derby know how to pull off the most unlikely of comebacks.