John McCormick writes: So you think it’s bad, do you?
In this post Wrinkly Pete opens with a reminder of a time when the mortgage interest rate was just about dropping into single figures after peaking at 15%+, Sunderland were struggling in the bottom half of the second division and averaging gates of under 20,000, and down here in Liverpool the militant tendency were about to send my redundancy notice out via taxi.
Then he jumps forward almost thirty years to bring a simple message to all our readers.
Peter Gabriel sang in 1986 “no one wants you when you lose” and Kate Bush replied “don’t give up, you’re not beaten yet”.
I suggest this applies to our team today, however bleak our present situation looks. My reason for optimism is in our recent past, specifically our 2013/4 season. For some now forgotten reason but I fancy it was pride, I happen to have kept two league tables from that season, shown below.
The first, dated 14thApril, 2014 (left) shows us cut adrift at the bottom of the league with only six games left, against Man City, Chelsea, Cardiff, Man Utd, West Brom and Swansea.
At that point in time no one would have given us a chance of survival, even if it could have been guaranteed that we got nine points from the three games against the other “strugglers”, Cardiff, West Brom and Swansea.
Of course, now, we all know what happened, which takes us neatly to the second table, (right) which shows us safe, with a game in hand (!) on 8thMay, 2014, having got 13 points from a possible 15.
And here is the league table dated 17th April, 2017 which shows us cut adrift at the bottom of the league, with six games left. At this point no one gives us a chance of survival, even if we get nine points from the three games against the other “strugglers”, Swansea, Hull and Middlesborough. The thing is though, we just don’t know what those other “strugglers” will do in their games against other opponents. They may get no more points at all in which case, if we had won those three games, we would need one more point from our remaining games against Bournemouth, Arsenal and Chelsea to survive.
I know this is pure conjecture and that it is extremely unlikely but so it was on 14thApril 2014!
“Please don’t give up” – Give The Lads your support, it might just make the difference.
Wrinkly Pete.