Nottingham Forest and Derby County are notorious rivals, so when Robert Earnshaw decided to directly cross that divide in 2008, he was simply making a rod for him own back at the City Ground. Fortunately, he managed to turn things around quickly.
Having become Derby's record signing when joining them for £3.5m from Norwich in the summer of 2007, Earnshaw arrived at Pride Park hoping to keep the Rams in the Premier League. He managed to score just once in the top flight, though, with a controversial £2.65m transfer to Nottingham Forest going through after just one season.
The former Ram had his work cut out to try and turn things around in Nottingham, with 17 goals in 36 games in all competitions endearing himself to Forest fans in that first campaign.
Nottingham Forest quickly welcome in Robert Earnshaw
"I had to prove myself to the Forest fans, but that didn’t take too long," Earnshaw explains to FourFourTwo. "They were behind me within a handful of games. I showed I was there to score goals and represent the club wholeheartedly.
"There were a bunch of highlights – thrashing Leicester 5-1, winning 3-0 at the Etihad against Manchester City and reaching the play-offs twice in three years – and some of the football we played was so good.
"The matches against Derby were even more intense because Billy Davies, Lee Camp and I had previously been there. I scored the winner when Forest did the double over them. Some things are just written. It had to be me, right?"
That winner came at Pride Park in the 2010/11 season, in a 1-0 win. Just a month earlier Nottingham Forest had beaten Derby 5-2 at home, with Earnshaw netting twice, before facing the return Championship fixture. The Welshman struck again to sink his former employers.
Earnshaw reveals why Derby County failed in the Premier League
While reflecting on his time at Derby, Earnshaw explains why it ended so disastrously in 2007/08, resulting in the lowest points tally ever recorded by a Premier League team.
"Disorganisation," Earnshaw says. "Loads of problems with the ownership group disrupted things.
"The manager was sacked and we had so many players coming and going. The team wasn’t set up right for the Premier League and that’s why we went down. Derby weren’t run correctly to be able to sustain it. It was a real shame, because they’re a big club that did well to reach the play-offs and win promotion. Sadly, there were plenty of other factors. The football never had a chance."
That 2007/08 season ultimately proved the final chance Earnshaw received in the Premier League, despite still only being 27 at the time. He had scored double figures for West Brom in the top flight in 2004/05, but failed to kick on in the next campaign and managed just one goal.
But while he doesn't believe he got a fair crack to prove himself in the Premier League, after scoring with such regularity in the Championship, Earnshaw seems content with his career overall.
"I would love to have played way longer in the Premier League, but there can be a lot of politics behind the scenes which is probably one reason why I didn’t," Earnshaw adds. "And sometimes I simply enjoyed playing for teams like Nottingham Forest, where we reached the play-offs twice.
"I was never going to move because I was at a great club and we were very close to winning promotion. I wanted to go up with them. It would have been so special to do that."
