Charlton next

[GUNTERYY36]

Truthfully - no. I am genuinely not bothered about playing in the premiership, despite the obvious life changing aspects of a huge dollop of income. Maybe I am tarnished by 2007-08 when a team hopelessly inadequately set up to play in the top flight left me with no joy for an entire season and then took 4 or 5 years to recover from the experience. I'd sooner we were competitive in the championship than flounder along at the higher level with the only ambition being to finish 17th. I'd sooner we managed a 1-0 away win at Sheffield Wednesday than get tonked 5-0 at home to Liverpool with no shots on goal and one corner. Going to football is about a grim November evening away in rainswept Barnsley fighting out a goalless draw; its not about Manchester City and a pantheon full of global superstars - you can watch that on Sky and remain a £100 better of for it.

So, whilst recognising that a couple of seasons up would allow us to buy the ground back off Mel and stabilise the club finances, from an aesthetic and footballing perspective, promotion holds no attraction.

I think you might have misunderstood my question, GP, or maybe I didn't I express myself properly. You wouldn't want Derby to reach the PL by cheating, due to the reasons you gave, and that's fair enough. But would you be happy to ignore underhand behaviour in any league by cheating in any division. For instance, cheating your way out of football's fourrth tier to reach the third tier. There's much less difference between those two divisions than there is between the CCC and the PL. So I mean cheating per se

I believe attitudes towards cheating in footballl are slightly more complex than some people might think. During the course of a game, we condemn opposing players for diving, time wasting, kicking the ball away (and my own favourite, a goalie clinging on to the ball when a goal is scored so as to prevent the game resuming). Yet we ignore our own players doing these things, we look the other way. So in these situations, we are hypocrites even if we claim not to condone unfair tactics.

In football generally we usually take the moral high ground and try to be more fair and objective, often for some of the reasons you gave, GP. Maybe I'm wrong but I think approving and disapproving in football is more complex than we think.

Oh, and this rainy night in Barnsley nonsense. I hate being caught in rain wherever and whenever the time and place!