OVER the years I have been involved in a number of local derbies.

My first club was West Bromwich Albion and their local derbies were against Aston Villa, Birmingham City and Wolves.

The players had their own ideas and opinions about which was the most important one and the supporters, too, but each, in their way, was significant.

The Wolverhampton game was called the Black Country derby and, traditionally, was the one which was talked about the most. But, in terms of geography, Aston Villa would be the closest to West Bromwich with Birmingham not far away either.

A lot of other games were also relatively close - Coventry, Leicester, Derby County, Nottingham Forest and Stoke.

At Hereford, it is slightly different because there are not that many 'local' games.

Shrewsbury, although about an hour or 50 miles away, is really our big derby match.

Cheltenham is another big game and Kidderminster was a derby match back in our Conference days.

Nowadays, derbies are probably more important to the fans than they are to the players, especially at the top level where there are players coming in not just from different parts of Europe but different parts of the world.

Previously, players had more of an 'investment' in the club. When I was at West Brom, the vast majority of the players had been there for between five and 10 years.

Tony Brown, for example, stayed at the Hawthorns for his whole career except for a short spell at Torquay right at the end - John Wile, Alistair Robertson, Willie Johnston, Len Cantello, Ally Brown all had testimonials as well as people like Bryan Robson, Derek Statham and me who were there for eight or nine years.

It really meant something to us because we were an integral part of the fabric of the club.

Players are now much more likely to move from club to club and I don't think it means as much to them, no matter how much they might pretend it does.

When I was at Newcastle, we had the Sunderland derby which was a massive game - and there was also the Middlesbrough game which, even though a big derby match, was never viewed with the same importance by the fans.

At Oxford, it was similar to Hereford - their big derby was against Swindon but they were not in the same division at the time.

The emphasis of the local derby can often depend on which of your rivals is doing best at the time.

When I was at West Brom, Villa were doing the best and they eventually won the league and European Cup so, although Birmingham were doing quite well and Wolves were doing OK, that was the biggest one.

A local derby can certainly generate a different atmosphere to other games, there is no question about that.

It is impossible for players and managers to detach themselves from the supporters at their club because everyone is working towards the same aim and wants the same thing - to win and be successful.

When it means so much to supporters to get a result, it inevitably feeds across into the dressing room and the expectation level can be huge.

There is an extra edge because you know that, for the next week, supporters want the bragging rights and there is always a bit of banter flying about.

It can go on for years. For instance, there is one statistic that I am still part of as I was the last West Brom player to score the winning goal at Villa Park and that is a long time ago, in May 1979.

It shows the significance of local games when people can still remember that sort of fact.

We still have the bragging rights against Shrewsbury because we beat them at Edgar Street.

I know they consider themselves to be a bigger club than us but in recent years we have achieved more through promotion to League 1.

I'm sure they look at us and wonder why, if Hereford have done it, why haven't they, with their new stadium and the facilities surrounding it as well as the history and support base they have.

So there is probably more significance in the fixture because we have recently achieved more than they have.

And we won the last match so they will be looking to overturn that.