HELLO again. How nice to be back.

The last time I clocked on for my first shift on this

newspaper, D.H. Lawrence's mucky book "Lady Chatterley's Lover"

had just been cleared of obscenity charges, the Beatles were

playing in a strip club in Hamburg, J.F. Kennedy was days away

from winning the American presidency, Cassius Clay was the

newly-crowned Olympic heavyweight champion and I was sulking

because my mum had made me start work in my faded Herbert

Strutt Grammar School blazer with a clean patch where the badge

had been removed.

The "Swinging Sixties," or in my case the "Swaying

Unsteadily Sixties," had yet to change the social landscape. A

new species of human being, the teenager, had yet to invent

sex.

And most astonishing to those who have followed Derby

County's progress from triumph to failure and back and from one

financial crisis and takeover to the next, Rams coverage in the

Telegraph in those days was limited to Wilf Shaw's match

reports plus brief stories about groin strains and the fact

that manager Harry Storer was contemplating team changes.

The identity of the club's directors was a mystery to most

fans, the finances got a mention only when annual accounts

decidedly thin on detail were published and if the club had

politics, power struggles or personality clashes, they were

kept well clear of public view. Both media and public regarded

them as none of their business.

How different things have become. Every football club's

affairs are examined in minute detail these days and though I

confess to a fogeyish yearning for much in the past, a return

to those days when public accountability was considered

necessary by neither the Rams board nor the local media would

clearly be absurd and a neglect of responsibility.

Supporters now feel they have a right to know absolutely

everything that happens within the club they follow with such

passion and since they, ultimately, pay for everything in

football, it strikes me as entirely proper that their curiosity

should be met with complete candour.

They buy the tickets and the replica shirts. It is their

custom that provides the money pumped into the game by

television. They reward sponsors and advertisers by patronising

their businesses, using their services and purchasing their

products.

All too often in the past, alas, they have been repaid for

their loyalty and generosity with nothing more substantial than

empty platitudes and dollops of flattery instead of factual

detail and the club has more than once careered towards

oblivion to an accompaniment of cheery assurances from the

boardroom.

Robert Maxwell promised the earth before bleeding the place

white.

Lionel Pickering was still saying "What crisis?" only weeks

before he was ousted with debts running at around £32m.

Jeremy Keith was still telling supporters that everything

was in perfect running order right up to the moment the Three

Amigos were turfed out with debts zooming towards £56m.

Now, as a new season approaches, questions about the

financial governance of the club have surfaced once more,

following the removal of Peter Gadsby from his non-executive

directorship after 20 years of service that involved

supervising the construction of Pride Park Stadium, removing

the Amigos and much of their debt mountain, leading the club to

promotion and providing Billy Davies with £25m of transfer

cash.

These questions were not, as some attempted to suggest, of

exclusive concern to him. I had, indeed, heard the same points

made elsewhere only a few days before an article in one of the

national papers sparked off the latest bout of internecine

strife.

Nagging doubts had also been surfacing among supporters for

weeks before the former chairman locked horns with the club's

new owners but, yet again, the response from the boardroom to

legitimate concerns amounts to not much more than "Trust us,

we're good guys, everything's fine." For as long as that

remains the case, promises of "complete transparency" from the

boardroom will strike many as persiflage.

It is only months, remember, since supporters were being

told that the arrival of new American owners would change the

financial landscape at Pride Park, with around £50m to buy up

the shares, remove all debt and provide spending money for the

manager.

Football chairman Adam Pearson, indeed, soared higher than

that in one press briefing just after the takeover.

"You guys have been bandying figures circa a hundred and

twenty million, a hundred million dollars, which you wouldn't

be far away on. It's a big figure in this financial climate,"

he said.

Little wonder, then, that some supporters have been

perplexed to see the manager trading mainly in free transfers

and lower division players untried at Championship level this

summer, despite raking in around £6.5m from the sale of several

of the club's highest earners.

With no sign yet of that transfer pot from the board, the

inevitable impression is that manager Paul Jewell has been

subsidising the club with his transfer activity rather than the

other way around and, with the big kick-off two days away,

concerns remain.

Have the current owners put in new money since podding up

around £14m in part payment for the former directors' shares in

January and, if so, when and how much?

What is the current level of debt, if any? When will Jewell

get that transfer jackpot?

Come on. You can trust us. We're nice guys too.