FOR thousands of Derby County fans the convictions of ex-club bosses Murdo Mackay, Andrew Mackenzie and Jeremy Keith came as no surprise.

But few could have felt as vindicated as Jim Wheeler and his fellow members of supporters' group the Rams Trust.

In October 2003, when the club was taken over by a new consortium on the back of a mysterious £15m loan, Mr Wheeler was suspicious that the new bosses did not have Derby County's best interests at heart.

And his fears were proven right when, last month, Mackenzie, finance director for that regime, and Mackay, its director of football, were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the Rams of £125,000 plus VAT each.

Keith, chief-executive at the time, was found guilty of false accounting as he had helped hide this money and another £125,000 plus VAT paid to him.

The Rams Trust was formed in 2002 with the goal of creating a fans' group that would keep a watchful eye on the way the club was being run.

In October 2003, Mr Wheeler was the group's concerned treasurer.

He spoke to the Telegraph after Mackenzie, Mackay and Keith were sentenced at Northampton Crown Court yesterday.

Mr Wheeler told how, following the takeover, the Rams Trust began investigating the new board with the help of the media.

The Trust was eventually able to create a 228-page dossier which it shared with the Derby Telegraph, national newspapers and businessman Peter Gadsby.

Mr Gadsby would eventually become part of a consortium which rescued the club in April 2006.

Mr Wheeler said: "I was suspicious from the first press conference because it wasn't clear who actually owned the club.

"If someone came in to take over your kids' school you would want to know who they were and the same applies to your football club."

Mr Wheeler said the board would meet the Rams Trust but that he and his fellow members rarely got any answers.

He said: "For example, they wouldn't tell us who owned ABC Corporation – the firm that provided the £15m loan.

"Whenever we were left in the dark we would go to the media and get them to ask the questions, be it newspapers, TV or radio."

Membership of the Rams Trust hit 1,000 for the first time in August 2005 when Derby County sold Polish international Grzegorz Rasiak to Tottenham for about £3m.

Mr Wheeler said: "It became clear that some of the people running the club were just opportunists trying to make money from Derby County.

"When they started selling our best players like Rasiak – that was the time when fans started to think we had a point."

He said supporters also had a problem with the way the board treated George Burley, manager from 2003 to 2005.

Mr Wheeler said: "He was a very well-respected man in football but he resigned because the board wouldn't work with him."

He said the convictions of Mackenzie, Mackay and Keith were not a surprise.

He said: "It's very difficult to convince people of someone's guilt if the case is as complex as this but the prosecution seems to have done its job well."

He wanted yesterday's sentences to dissuade others from treating clubs in the same way as the trio treated Derby County.

He said: "I was expecting Andrew Mackenzie and Murdo Mackay to get prison terms but Jeremy Keith was a surprise.

"It proves that football supporters shouldn't just take the words of directors at face value.

"I hope that part of the judge's thinking was to send out a message that this should never happen again."