A very tired bunch of Rams players ended a very satisfying week on a positive note with a well deserved, if somewhat, nervy win against a determined but all but doomed Belper Town team. It will be a great shame to see this well organised, welcoming and well appointed club return to Division One after just one season.
It took 108 days and 11 league encounters but the Rams finally secured an Evo-Stik Premier Division success with a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Stourbridge down in the Black Country on Tuesday evening.
The realistic assessment of this game, harsh but fair, is that the result flattered an insipid Rams performance, A touch more precision from the home team would have seen them at least double their goal tally and the Rams goal, special as it was, literally came from nowhere. All that was needed to turn a poor show into a horror show would have been the appearance from the subs bench of Vincent Price and Peter Cushing!
After 27 days without action, the Rams finally managed to get out on the pitch, in what is looking like a fortunate hole in the bad weather, to start the second half of their season. The repercussions of the enforced lay-off, in terms of chronic fixture congestion are still to be felt but it has provided a clear and decisive break with the past, and may well be a foundation stone for the future.
The Rams somehow managed to grab a draw from the jaws of victory on Thursday by conceding two goals in the last two minutes of a see-saw game.
It would take a level of optimism last exhibited by King Canute when trying to turn back the waves to detect any sign of an upturn in fortunes for the Rams after another dispiriting defeat.
What is to be made of this confounding and, to no little extent, concerning result?
The Rams came into this New Years Day fixture with half their league fixtures still to play and knowing that it they are able to double their points total to date, they will be close to the play-off positions. Unfortunately, the form that has presented them with such a promising start to the Premier Division is proving elusive at the moment and the hope that the turn of the year would present a change to December's misfortunes was misplaced.
If there were any doubts that the managements and team see themselves in other than a vicious fight to retain their Evo-Stik Northern Premier League status, never mind the games in hand, the approach to this game should consign them to the rubbish bin.
Compared with the previous three games, even in continuing defeat, this was an improved performance from the Rams and one which offered at least a shard of optimism of awakening from the nightmare.
Two moments of individual brilliance in the last 20 minutes saved the Rams from a defeat in a dark, dour, ill-tempered match. The psychological boost of avoiding defeat will be greater than the point, important as that is.
The army of volunteers who worked throughout the morning to ensure the frost-bound pitch at the Harry Williams Riverside Stadium was passed fit, watched on as visitors Skelmersdale United strengthened their position at the top of the league courtesy of a 3-0 win.
The Rams will be bitterly disappointed to have lost this game having beaten the visitors in the Black Country only four days earlier.
If Saturday's performance had the nervous, and possibly the managers, peering apprehensively from behind the couch, this was full on 'When Frankenstein met Dracula'.
Apart from the result and some much needed game time, the most significant outcome from a cold and gloomy night could well be the emergence of new signing Donal McDermott, who only joined the club on the afternoon of the match.
The time of goodwill to all men apparently hasn't reached East Anglia, for the Rams' furthest visit ever turned out to be a battle of attrition, with events off the pitch transposing themselves on to it.
Saturday 23rd September 2017 KO 15:00
Tuesday 19th September 2017
