Derby County: Fans protest and team show fight in battle to save club and avoid relegation

You could hear them before they came into view as they headed up Pride Parkway.

«We're Derby County, we'll fight to the end» they sang. Thousands and thousands of them, far more than the organisers had anticipated.

Plenty took their cars to the stadium, then walked back into the city centre to meet at the Assembly Rooms for the 1130am start.

When the march to the stadium was arranged, there was a very real threat Sunday's Championship game against Birmingham could have been Derby's last.

A Football League extension means the club's administrators have another month to demonstrate they have adequate proof of funding to get them through to the end of the season, a home encounter with Cardiff City on Saturday, 7 May.

The expectation is, somehow, they will manage it. But nothing is certain. No end is in sight to the turmoil Derby fans have experienced since owner Mel Morris put the club into administration in September.

He was no longer willing to fund the escalating debts that, even when «compressed» and only a percentage offered, still leaves a potential owner looking at a £70m investment for a club likely to be in League One next season.

Looking at the banners and listening to the songs, Derby fans have many targets for their club being in the state it is.

There is Morris, whose ambition to lead the Rams into the Premier League went unchecked despite numerous footballing financial rule breaches.

There is also the Football League, for deciding the £60m compensation claims by Middlesbrough and Wycombe, if proven, would be regarded as a football debt and need to be paid in full.

And there is Steve Gibson, the owner of Middlesbrough, who feels Derby's accounting practices robbed his club of a play-off place in 2019 and potential