Year: 2007

Wanted: performances like this
Picture: db1874

How many of us uttered the words of the headline at the weekend. And how many blamed Craig Gordon? Pete Sixsmith springs to his defence

Let’s deal with the Milner equaliser first. One of the students at the school where I teach at summed it up perfectly.

“We could have stopped that goal”, he said, “but I’m not sure that we should have”. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings……

I thought Gordon was unlucky in that he was expecting a challenge or an interception, and I think that he had put his weight on the other foot in order to block either a deflection or a shot from the far post.

This, I know, sounds as if I’m scratching around for an excuse.

Some fans are having doubts about Craig Gordon. But he’s a good keeper. Stick with him – he’ll save us points.

Read more

Courage or folly?
Picture: dgolfrabbit

The story ends at St James’ Park, at the second of those 2-1 wins. Or rather afterwards in Fenwick’s.

But it begins on a Club Med holiday in Corfu, where Big Jim and I first met when. Standing in a queue for something or other, we discovered that we shared a surname. With this flimsy excuse for friendship, we met up a few times for drinks or tennis – Jim being as wide as he’s tall and therefore useful at the net.

Big Jim is American, a teacher at one of the USAF bases, Lakenheath or Mildenhall. He and his lady friend, Virginia, are devotees of the arts and had resolved before coming to the UK to wring every last drop of culture from their stay.

They became Friends of the Tate, Friends of Wigmore Hall, friends of anything that would bring them preferential or cut price tickets for classical concerts and exhibitions on visits to London. They’d often invite us, once or twice picking up the meal bill for good measure.

How to pay back their kindnesses? “What would you say,” I asked Jim, more than a little apprehensive about his likely reaction to the lowbrow treat I had in mind, “if I could get tickets for the Sunderland end at Newcastle?”

“You bet,” came the reply like a shot.

Read more

Early Irish support for the Lads?
Picture: Free Stater

Malignant fate. That, I seem to recall, is how one Sunderland supporter explained his lifelong support. What he meant was that he had no choice in the small matter of where he was born.

Not all Sunderland fans were born on Wearside. County Durham, the Tyne Valley, even Tyneside are all part of the vast immediate catchment area and even then the story is barely half told.

There are the sons and daughters of Sunderland and other North Eastern folk who’ve moved away and the people who were born elsewhere and later drifted towards the region. And what about the Sunderland through-and-through lass who gives birth at Newcastle Royal Infirmary? Or the legion of Irish supporters attracted by one or both of the Keano/Quinn magnets?

In truth, I am a Durham lad only in the sense that Eamon de Valera was Irish. Most people probably assumed he was a native Irishman whereas he was born in New York and had a Spanish father. I took my first breath in Sussex and my parents were Londoners. But there was plenty of Mackem & Mag blood in the family, and territorial links from Ryhope to Byker, Tynemouth to Wallsend. And I was brought to Shildon a few months into my life.

It doesn’t make me any less a Sunderland supporter that I didn’t emerge from the womb in Southwick or Seaham. My own 45-year allegiance had simple, traditional origins; my dad took me to see them play, Brian Clough scoring our winner at Boro, and I was hooked for life. It was great experience, even if I had to struggle to see what was going on from my place in a crowded Ayresome Park, and it is perhaps no wonder that I couldn’t wait for more.

In the case of Andy Nichol, author of the post-Man City analysis headlined Man for man marking after another wasted opportunity, the wonder is that his first experience of SAFC didn’t make him give up any idea of being a football fan at all.

Read more

Last night seemed a watershed of sorts, and it was difficult to pass it and remain in upbeat mood. Pete Sixsmith adds his own thoughts to Andy Nichol’s excellent analysis

Thank you, Setanta.

At the end of this feast of football, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not at the result, because that left me feeling deflated, but because I had avoided spending in excess of £50 to watch what can best be described as a load of old rubbish.

Read more

Daryl Murphy: “annoying”
All pictures: Peadar O’Sullivan

The Blackcats forum achieves a consistently high standard of debate on the ups and – more commonly – downs of supporting Sunderland. After yet another disappointing failure to turn possession and long periods of ascendancy into results, ANDY NICHOL* offered this candid man-to-man assessment…….the marks out of 10 are Salut! Sunderland’s

So, so frustrating to watch. We took the pace out of the game very effectively and stopped Citeh from playing.

……but when we had the chance to inject pace of our own we were embarrasingly lacking. We had several golden opportunites to play killer balls/put players in on goal but Stokes, Etuhu and Jones (that I can remember) were all guilty of a worrying lack of vision/speed of thought.

And they’re not alone – while we seem comfortable knocking the ball around in slow motion, it’ll take much much more if we’re to have any chance of climbing this league.

Read more

A Mike Ashley model?
Picture: dgolfrabbit

Doesn’t the dress code in football directors’ boxes err on the side of restraint? Pete Sixmsith offers evenly balanced thoughts on a threatened breach of etiquette at this weekend’s Wear-Tyne derby

On the grapevine, I heard that Niall Quinn had written to the Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley asking him not to wear his legendary black and white shirt in the directors’ box when we play the Mags on Saturday.

Ashley, who has made a fortune with his sportswear, refused and said he intended to wear it to show solidarity with the fans.

Questioning the fact that to do that he would have to turn up with bare torso, covered in Toon Tattoos while waving his shoes around his head, I thought that once again it shows that whatever the Mags have got, it ain’t class.

Read more

Ruthless self-assessment or not, Martin Emmerson, a BBC presenter and sports commentator as well as Sunderland fan, invites Salut! Sunderland to widen the audience for this damning photograph.

It was taken during a visit to Orkney, where he drew on all his reserves of professionalism to commentate on a local football match on the very day that SAFC were recording half their wins so far this season.

It was the opening game of the season when Martin, BBC Radio Newc**tle duties permitting, would normally have been in his seat in the West stand.

Instead of watching Michael Chopra’s last-gasp winner against Spurs, except on a pub television, he was reporting on the mighty Parish Cup Final between St Andrews and Sandwick at the “Pickie” centre in Kirkwall.

If you read on, you’ll see how the Sunderland Echo covered this bizarre diversion in its eminent local resident’s work. Guess who wrote it……and if you follow this link, you’ll see Martin’s essentially gloomy view – pre Fulham – of our prospects for the season.

Read more

After Saturday’s dismal display against Fulham, opinion among the fans is divided, but only on the question of how dire a situation we have landed ourselves in. Pete Sixsmith is in the glum camp

As I sat in the East Stand watching the late afternoon sun sink over Southwick I thought I saw four ghostly figures hovering over the stadium.

I looked from face to face and they metamorphosed into Steve Caldwell, Kelvin Davies, Christian Bassila and Andy Gray. One of the spectres caught my eye and I am sure he mouthed the words: “You know, they’re no better than we were.”

Nodding in agreement, I watched them fade away into the ether, shaking their heads in disbelief at another error by the back four..

Jimmy Oakley: a look that suggests the kind of grit we need now
Picture: ylind ypind*

Read more

Sunderland mosaic
Picture: Jon Hall*

What was it I said? A draw would not be enough? And that’s all we got. Does the fact that we did it with 10 men, with defeat staring us in the face, make it reasonable to reach a softer conclusion?

No, sadly, it does not.

Overlook the spirited finish, once Greg Halford had seen red for the second time in a season that been a personal catastrophe, and the reality is that this was an abysmal performance against a not very good team of the sort we have to beat if we are to stay up, let alone attain mid-table comfort.

Read more

The joy of giving. That seems as good a theme as any at a time when supporters of Sunderland AFC, deprived of much of substance to cheer about in recent weeks, are in dire need of presents from the team.

Click on the picture and you’ll see what the poor woman in my faded old birthday card had to settle for. We don’t ask for much more; points on the board will do nicely.

Which brings us to Fulham at home. You don’t need a brain the size of a planet to see that we could hardly have a better opportunity to put an end to the worrying run of losing games. So if any of the Lads happen to be eavesdropping, the none too subtle hint is: deliver on Saturday.

A draw will not, I am afraid, be enough. Anything less than three points and even my heroic attempts to respond optimistically to the West Ham defeat, praising a second half performance that should have brought a first away win, will begin to look nonsensical.

I still think our squad, though in urgent need of strengthening, is much better than what we had during the last three relegation seasons. We are in better managerial hands (which does not make me a Peter Reid detractor; I just recognise that his value to SAFC evaporated after our second seventh top Premiership finish).

But as other fans have pointed out, this is beginning to resemble the Sunderland of Old, the relegation seasons where, match after match, we were losing despite playing reasonably well.

Read more