The whole world was cheering for them, now their hopes are over! Derby County footballers relegated to League Three

Tens of thousands of fans watched their journey to salvation, which finally ended in failure on 18 April. Derby County footballers are effectively relegated to League One after a twenty-one point deduction, decided by Monday’s loss to QPR.

Derby County entered the season with a sixteen-point deficit for insolvency, later the point deduction moved even to twenty-one points. Wayne Rooney and his charges faced a tough challenge.

But Derby fought bravely and as late as January it looked like they might avoid relegation to League Three. But then began a black streak that the traditional side failed to break. It has a definite certainty of relegation as of Monday.

Derby needed to get more points than Reading did in the concurrent game with Swansea. Reading equalised against Swansea in the 95th minute (4: 4), while Derby scored in the 88th minute and lost 0: 1.

Nevertheless, the whole Derby team deserve one big smile as they bravely fought the reading. Players such as Tom Lawrence (11+5) and young Luke Plange (4+2) made a great advertisement for themselves as thousands of fans around the world watched Derby’s journey.

And how would Derby have fared with three rounds to go without the countback? With fifty-two points it would have been languishing in a quiet seventeenth place, with a comfortable eleven point lead on the relegation zone.

Source: EFL Championship