Derby County boss Frank Lampard has described the chant sung about him by Leeds United fans as “good fun”.
Following the Whites’ 1-0 victory in the first leg of the Championship play-off semi-final on Saturday, videos circulated on social media of Whites fans singing ‘Stop crying Frank Lampard’ in an adaptation of the Oasis classic ‘Stop Crying Your Heart Out’.
The chant is in relation to ‘Spygate’ earlier this season, in which a member of the Leeds staff was sent to spy on Derby’s training sessions but, speaking to Sky Sports News, Lampard insisted that the song did not affect him.
“No, of course not, it is good fun,” the manager said. “As a Chelsea player, there was a rivalry always with Leeds. We didn’t play them that much because we were in the Premier League, but that comes with it.
“I will take a song all day long. My worry is what the players do on the pitch.”
OPINION
‘Stop crying Frank Lampard’ is an excellent chant which sums up the step-up in rivalry between Leeds and Derby this year. The increase in the intensity of the rivalry is partly because the Rams have failed to beat the Whites this season- with both sides fighting for promotion – and it is partly down to ‘Spygate’, which rocked not just the Championship but English football in general. It was the first such time that anything like that had ever happened, and it looked like it was going on on an industrial scale, with the process explained thoroughly by Marcelo Bielsa in an astonishing press conference earlier in the season. In fact, the battles between Leeds and Derby have been some of the best this season, but the main battle that will be remembered is the fallout from Spygate. There is one more battle to be had between the two sides this season, however, with one side guaranteed to make the play-off final on Wednesday evening.