HERE'S a game for all the family to play as we prepare to embark on another long football season.

It involves spotting the first premature mention of a "promotion race" or a "relegation battle".

Usually, the first mention will be along the lines of some team "boosting their play-off credentials" or "slipping into the relegation places" but, for the purposes of this competition, that counts.

A winner is often to be found before the end of August, so be sure to look sharp, and for a reliable source of such waffle, you might like to tune in to the Sky Sports News channel, where the Oxford Book of Cliches and Stock Intros is generally well thumbed.

There is, of course, a proper time for such talk and this cricket season is approaching that time.

With two months and seven LV County Championship fixtures to go, there is still so much that can change but Derbyshire have earned their place in the mix.

After last week's draw at home to Middlesex, they are second in Division Two with a healthy 14 points advantage over Gloucestershire in third place.

It is a useful gap but still a fragile one, with only eight points between third and Northants, who have a game in hand, in sixth.

Derbyshire can hardly claim to have set the division alight after winning only two of their nine matches so far but their strength is that they have been hard to beat.

They are the only side in the section that has not lost a Championship game and their consistent record of picking up first innings batting and bowling points plus regular points for the draw has given the position of relative strength they now have.

It is a question now of whether they can carry on doing in the second half of the season what they have done successfully in the first.

Head of cricket John Morris said after the Middlesex game that if Derbyshire can stay unbeaten through the rest of the season and pick up another couple of wins, they won't be far away from the top two and promotion.

The couple of wins should not be out of the question; the staying unbeaten part of the equation could be more difficult to achieve.

In fact, if Derbyshire remain unbeaten through these next three weeks, they will have done very well indeed.

The fixture list is often a source of bemusement but this season's gives an even stronger impression that matches have been pasted on to a grid by a small child in the ECB creche.

Derbyshire have 13 days of cricket in 15 days coming up and all of them are away. No matter how you look at it, that makes no sense.

The trip starts with a first Championship meeting of the season against Kent, who were generally reckoned before the start of the season to be the strongest side in the division and are still giving that impression.

Derbyshire will also face Kent at home at the beginning of September and those two matches will be so important. At the risk of sounding unambitious, avoiding defeat in those two games would be very acceptable.

So where do they pick up the couple of extra wins?

Derbyshire go to Whitgift School to take on Surrey when they leave Canterbury and Surrey have consolidated pretty well since they were beaten at the County Ground in April. That is still their only defeat, though they have won only once.

After Whitgift, it is on to Grace Road and Leicestershire are certainly no great shakes. Derbyshire's chances of success there may depend on how well Morris is able to keep his bowlers fresh though this burst of activity.

Morris does have a fair reserve of seamers to draw on, with on-loan Steffan Jones joining Ian Hunter, Nantie Hayward, Tim Groenewald, Tom Lungley and Jon Clare, but the key to thoughts of rotation will be Graham Wagg.

Does Wagg play in all three of these coming matches?

Because he is also so useful for his left-arm spin option, it would be a brave decision not to.

Derbyshire also have Northants and Essex to play at home and both are decent outfits, while their remaining away will be against Middlesex, who showed at Derby last week that they are in as poor a state as the club has been in for many years.

In short, the Kent fixtures promise to be tricky but Derbyshire have proved they are at least the equal of the rest and have no reason to greatly fear any of them.

That makes Derbyshire positive contenders for promotion. Many a twist and a turn lie ahead but that is a happy position to be in right now.