Welcome to this special episode of Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. You'll have noticed in the last few

episodes I have spoken about Derby County. I'm pretty much every professional and personal

conversation that I have at the moment start with the other person asking, can you please explain

what is going on with Derby County? I have been pretty much tweeting about it nonstop,

and so this episode is an attempt to explain what is quite a complex matter into a short summary

so people can understand. But essentially a club that has been around since 1884,

that's longer than the Statue of Liberty, or the Eiffel Tower, is very close to not existing

anymore. Becoming a football fan is a weird social contract that you sign at the age of 6 or 7,

with no idea what it's going to entail. But for the rest of your life, you will be forever

distracted at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, as you try and find out the scores, no matter

where you are in the world. I remember vividly being on the Bolivian salt flats and trying to

climb a cactus to get signal to see if we were beating Donkaster Rovers. Spoiler, we weren't,

we were losing 3-0. I am aware that this is very much a business podcast, so I'll try and keep

it focused on the business side of things, and not spend too long describing festies,

exploding runs, or Christian Bellix bicycle kicks. The modern history of Derby County begins

in 2014. They had narrowly lost out on the player final, to earn 93rd minute Bobby Zimorra

goal for Queen's Park Rangers. There were many fans who thought, oh well it'll be fine,

next season we'll walk the league. That didn't happen, and eight years later we're on the

verge of extinction, which is a useful reminder, whether it's politics, sport, life more generally,

when your chance comes, you have to take it. Soon after that fateful day in 2014,

Mel Morris, a boy who had Derby fan, bought Derby County. He had made half a billion,

initially through property development, and had then been an investor in Candy Crush.

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