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I am an academic researcher at Loughborough University, working alongside those at UMass (a world-leading sports management university), and I’m gathering data about League 1 rivalries, we don’t just focus on the ‘big teams’! If you haven’t already, I would urge and love everyone to take part in our international study and put your views about The Rams' rivals on the world stage.
Link to study: https://umassamherst.co1.qualtrics.c...=10&grpID=1423
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Hi Geoff,
I understand that you may think this is spam. However, I am conducting research on behalf of Loughborough University (#1 rated university in the world for sport related courses) and we are only trying to help the fans of Derby and get their views on our survey.
If you would like to find out more about the study please contact Dr. Peter Dickenson (https://www.lboro.ac.uk/schools/spor...ter-dickenson/) or have look on the Know Rivalry website (https://knowrivalry.com/). I hope you'd take the time to read into this and consider doing it and sharing it.
Cheers
As we've been in L1 for a whole 5 weeks for the first time since the mid 80s do we really have any "rivals" in L1?
Some we've never played before, others we haven't played in years. Burton is the nearest side followed by Port Vale. I don't consider either to be a rival.
We came down with Posh and Barnsley last season. They're not rivals either.
With whom do we have more of a connection? Clubs we've played against regularly over the past 5 or 6 decades. Wednesday, Ipswich and Bolton. Rivals? Not really.
I filled it in a while ago...thought it was a perfectly reasonable questionnaire that someone seemed to have taken the trouble to put some effort into.
For me it was obvious...Wednesday, for both geographic and historical reasons and, in terms of geography, Burton and Port Vale.
There is clear (local) rivalry between ourselves and Burton imo, but it is, untypically, largely friendly. The Port Vale factor seems more contrived and rivalry is a weird thing anyway...Forest, Leicester and Leeds are, again imo, our main and most antagonistic rivals but not ones we are likely to play in the near future and why has such dislike never really spread to Notts County or even Stoke?
Notts County - our enemy's enemy is our friend perhaps?
Stokies do NOT like Derby, AT ALL. As, IMO, with Burton, it's a one way street. They see us as a rival, we don't reciprocate.
As I say...it’s complex. I’ve always found any Derby v Burton rivalry to be relatively friendly, probably because our ultimate aspirations are vastly different. You may be right about Stoke fans but, although we have much in common with Stoke...similar sized clubs...similar sized cities...similar(ish) levels of achievement...shared catchment areas all separated by just 33 miles...no one ever seems to speak about the Derby v Stoke ‘derby’. Indeed most Stoke fans would probably consider Wolves and WBA to be much bigger rivals than us.
Anecdotally...I’ve seen first hand the damage caused by Forest ‘fans’ at Pride Park and the trouble shared between home grown trouble makers and ‘supporters’ of Wednesday and Leicester around the BBG in the past. Don’t recall similar incidents with Stoke fans or, for that matter, Sheffield United supporters.
You may very well be right, GP.