Jimmy Armfield*. Placed together in that order, they are two of my favourite words in the English language. There have been better footballers and managers, though he wasn’t bad himself, acclaimed during the 1962 World Cup in Chile as “the best right-back in the world” and later doing good work in charge of Bolton and Leeds. There have been better sports commentators. But he has a depth of knowledge and utterly dependable expressive qualities that most of them must envy. We desperately hope the result from the Stadium of Light tomorrow comes as a bitter disappointment to him – a robust comeback after the also-ran display at Old Trafford is a must – but we salute Jimmy Armfield all the same and offer our warmest best wishes to a wonderful voice of the game who played his entire Football League career for one club: tomorrow’s opponents Blackpool …
Salut! Sunderland: What a fabulous time for Blackpool!
Well, the fabulous time really was Wembley. We thought last season was case of trying to stay in the Championship and then suddenly we had this run at the end of the season and ended up in the playoffs and thought “Blimey! they’ve got there. How did we manage that?” And then won it: how did we ever do that that?
Then we thought “OK it will probably turn round” and we all prayed about the first game at Wigan – and ended up winning 4-0.