Sheep

It took about a week to sink in that Forest had blown the play-offs before I could start to get over it, and then the FA kindly schedule the actual play-off finals to coincide with my re-appearance from the covers of football hell.

Could it get any worse ?

Well, yes it could and yes it did.

It's alright for the Forest fans living away, say in London or South Wales, but where I live and work, D***y fans have been crawling out of the woodwork for a few years now and god are they suddenly an enlightened lot. Not wanting to discuss football for decades, all of a sudden they want to talk about Premiership issues, huge sums of money and selling out season tickets.

Now, let me get this clear straight away, I am jealous of Derby's current footballing position and would swap their cushy Premiership place with our third division squalor in an instant.

But that's it.

When Derby played in the Premiership before they were rewarded with a big SKY pay-day. This got Derby into big financial trouble when the Premiership status was lost. If you then give the same club a HUGE SKY pay-day, logic dictates that a club financially managed by your typical butchers, bakers & candle-stick makers could get themselves into HUGE financial trouble. There are still going to be three relegated teams next season irrespective of how much money they receive, and players aren't going to go to Pride Park without their agents taking a huge chunk of the reported £60m windfall in wages. Wages that will still need paying when the SKY money runs out. Just ask Leeds how that works.

Couple that with a season of struggle, or at best, mid-table obscurity, then you start to think that maybe the Premiership isn't the promised land it's made out to be. Derby may have beaten West Brom in the play-off finals, but I'm willing to bet that West Brom fans, and Forest fans for that matter, have a more enjoyable time next season than those who follow the rams.