Category: Feature Story

With six days to go until the Championship season starts, things go from bad to worse at Derby with a threadbare squad and a transfer embargo hanging over the club. Wayne Rooney kept them up last season – by the skin of their teeth – but can the ex-England captain somehow do the same again?

A final-day point against Sheffield Wednesday, while Rotherham lost at Cardiff, was enough for Derby …

Given Charlie Austin’s reputation and pedigree, he could have probably had his pick of the Championship this summer when his West Brom contract expired.

The natural-born finisher, who barely a decade ago was still working full-time as a bricklayer, does not have much to prove to anyone, least of all himself. He has already ended one campaign as the second-highest English Premier League scorer behind Harry Kane. Across his 12 …

Two weeks ago, there was an unexpected visitor on the Rotherham team bus.

Just before the Millers embarked on their trip west to Deepdale to face Preston, a robin somehow made its way on alongside the players and had to be gently ushered back into the fresh air before they could begin their journey.

For Matt Crooks, it was a welcome sign.

Image: Crooks joined Rotherham from Northampton in January

As Duncan Watmore discusses his Sky Bet Championship Player of the Month award for December, in an interview delayed after the 26-year-old recently contracted coronavirus, one word crops up more than any other.

Enjoyment. It’s easy to understand why.

Last June, he was released by Sunderland after seven years on Wearside. The raw talent that attracted the Black Cats to pluck him from National League North outfit Altrincham in 2013 …

With Ashley Cole and Frank Lampard having walked through the doors at Pride Park in recent years, Derby fans were growing accustomed to watching England legends in action on a weekly basis.

Nonetheless, few could have expected what would follow in the summer of 2019.

On August 6, five-time Premier League winner Wayne Rooney – England and Manchester United’s record goalscorer, no less – was revealed as the club’s latest …

Even in the Championship, David Brooks is just delighted to be playing regularly again.

The Welsh midfielder was one of the breakout young players of the 2018/19 season in the Premier League after signing for Bournemouth from Sheffield United – who were then in the Championship – but missed most of the last campaign after suffering a lengthy ankle injury.

He returned post-lockdown to try and help the Cherries secure …

It does not take long in the company of Vladimir Ivic to realise the Watford boss is very much his own man.

“In this job it’s not a good idea to copy someone,” he tells Sky Sports after winning the Sky Bet Championship Manager of the Month for November.

“You can follow a lot of coaches, especially in England, as some of the top coaches in the world are here …

When Gerhard Struber took over at Barnsley last November, he transformed the fortunes of a side ailing at the wrong end of the Sky Bet Championship.

Under his predecessor, Daniel Stendel, the Tykes had won just one of their opening 16 games but the Austrian’s arrival brought a focus on hard work, defensive stoutness and the ability to hold firm in games decided by fine margins.

The dreadful start they …

When Brentford lost to Fulham in last season’s play-off final, it was not only a west London derby defeat in front of the eyes of the world but the ninth time the Bees had tried and failed in the end-of-season lottery.

To compound their misery at a hauntingly empty Wembley Stadium, missing out on promotion in the richest game in football meant it was just a matter of time before …

Neil Warnock must have thought that after a lifetime in football and four decades in management he had seen and done it all.

But in football, as in life, you never stop learning and never stop being faced by new challenges. In late September, just shy of his 1,500th game in management, Warnock was forced to miss two Championship games in charge of Middlesbrough after testing positive for coronavirus.…