Tell me mam to put the champagne on ice. We've beaten Derby twice!

What a sweet, delicious feeling it was walking away from Pride Park yesterday afternoon, having completed the double over our hated rivals for the first time in twenty years. Life just doesn't get much better than this – not in my opinion anyway.

I've been to Pride Park twice before, and on both occasions endured a miserable time, so it was a great joy to finally at the third attempt see Forest win, and I will make sure I savour it, because I really did fear that a defeat would tarnish the memory of thrashing them at our place just three weeks ago.

But really I shouldn't have anything to be scared about because all the pressure was on Nigel Clough and Derby, as they were enduring a wretched run of form with seven defeats in their last nine games, whereas in virtually a complete reversal, Forest had won six of their last seven and looking like strong challengers for the play-offs, if not automatic promotion. The form guides pointed to a Forest win, but still haunted from my last experience almost a year ago at Pride Park, I would have been more than happy with a point, so to take all three was absolutely fantastic.

There are so many memories to take away from it from the jeering of 'non-League Nigel' to the wild cheering when Robbie Savage was substituted early in the second half, which as I later saw on the highlights on the BBC was followed by one mighty strop in the dugout. You couldn't put a price on that! And Fat Boy Commons got a similar reception when he too was pulled out of the action, towards the end. Forest were by then leading 1-0, thanks to Robbie Earnshaw, who had earlier come on as a replacement for Marcus Tudgay. The 4,000-strong away following was sent into raptures in the 78th minute when some good counter-attack football resulted in Earnshaw striking the ball past Stephen Bywater from the edge of the D to net his third goal against the Rams this season, a hat-trick of sorts some might say.

Although for most of the game Forest had looked comfortable, Derby had gone close before Earnshaw's goal, when their new signing from Notts County Ben Davies produced a diving save out of Lee Camp. And Camp was again a hero when he stopped Chris Porter's powerful header from giving Derby a late equaliser.

When the referee somehow managed to find five minutes of injury time, it gave the Rams real hope, but when they had Dean Moxley shown the red card for a second bookable offence in the closing stages, it knocked what stuffing they had left out of them, and Forest clung on to claim their first ever victory at Pride Park, much to the sheer delight of everyone of a red and white persuasion. 'You're getting sacked in the morning', the Forest fans chanted towards Clough, who twenty years ago was a Trent End darling, but thanks to his petulant behaviour in recent encounters between the two sides is now quite a hate figure. To think I was really upset when he got the job at Derby two years ago, thinking he and Stuart Pearce had always been destined to be a formidable managerial duo at the City Ground. Non-League Nigel is showing that he is well and truly out of his depth in the Championship, and I for one am loving watching him squirm!