John McCormick writes: I won’t be going to the North East before June, so I won’t be seeing any home games this season. Just as well, I suppose, as the text friend Paul sent from the North stand yesterday suggested the team froze more than the weather.
Pete Sixsmith’s report, a little more detailed but no more positive, would tend to agree …
On Friday I waxed lyrical about the team and the performance I saw when we played North End in 1964. That team had players like Martin Harvey, a cultured but physical wing half, Jimmy McNab, a forceful wing half who could also play a bit, Johnny Crossan, an impish inside forward who could score goals at the drop of a hat, Georges Herd and Mulhall, committed and skilful Scots who loved playing for Sunderland plus two of the greatest players in our illustrious history in Monty and the King. On that day, almost 54 years ago, we won 4-0, virtually sealing our promotion back to the Promised Land of the top division.
Fast forward to March 2018, taking in umpteen promotions and relegations, an FA Cup win, a few visits to Wembley and a season in the third tier and we have a team that also includes none of the above. There are no skilful Scots (we gave up on them years ago and prefer to sign third rate Argentinians and Everton and Manchester United cast offs), we would have to drop the entire content of the Stockport Hat Museum to even get a shot on target (laundering the opposition keepers kit must be the easiest job in football) and as for legends – well, we have a couple who will go down as possibly the worst players ever to “grace” a red and white Adidas designed shirt.
Step forward Jake Clarke-Salter, a young man who has spent his footballing life in the cloistered surrounds of Chelsea’s training ground at Cobham and their Under 23 venue at Aldershot. He is a member of the successful England Under 20 squad and has been selected for the Under 21s for games next week. He will be on a good contract at Chelsea and will be hopeful of a successful career in the professional game. He had a dozen games with Bristol Rovers last term and must have seemed a good option for Chris Coleman when he was putting together a list of players he could borrow; a young pair of legs to help the creaking ones of John O’Shea and the unreliable ones of Billy Jones/Lamine Kone/Marc Wilson.
That hasn’t worked out. His loan spell has been a disaster for him and for the team. Two red cards in successive matches is not great. He will be suspended after the international break and I would suggest we terminate the loan deal and send him back to Chelsea, a place where I am sure he desperately longs to return to after his nightmare in the North East. He will shudder every time he hears the words “Sunderland”, “Chris Coleman” and “Stadium of Light” as he makes his way through a career in the Championship and maybe the lower reaches of the Premier League.
This sending off was a farce. The first booking was a tad harsh – for raising his foot – but the second one almost suggested that he wanted to get off the field and away from the club. Many of us can understand the latter feeling. However, had he waited a few seconds before making two attempts to haul down Alan Browne (there’s a name to conjour with) he would have been replaced anyway as he clearly had an injury and we needed to get someone on who might at least look like grabbing an equaliser.
Instead, he pulled Browne back twice, yards away from the referee and out came the yellow swiftly followed by a red. The young man looked at Darren Bond in (mock) disbelief and I imagined him saying something along the lines of
Thanks ref, you’ve done me a favour here. I can’t wait to get off and get away. This should seal it.
Maybe a bit harsh but that is a distinct possibility. He has looked neither happy nor comfortable when he has played and many of the dwindling band of supporters would be quite content to see his loan terminated by mutual consent.
The same would probably apply to the hapless Ashley Fletcher who appeared in the 64th minute as a replacement for Josh Maja and left us wondering what on earth had possessed Middlesbrough to pay big money for him. Equally, it helped us to understand why Steve Gibson had parted company with Gary Monk after a few months. He looks desperately short of confidence and the basic ability to trap, control and direct a ball and nothing like a footballer. He may as well go back to Teesside for all the help he is going to do us and his own career. The crowd don’t like him.
The third loanee, Ovie Ejaria looks a decent player and actually wants to play. He was strong in the first half and, despite running out of steam in the second, he was our best midfield player. Not difficult when you are in the same midfield three as Lee Cattermole (surely time for him to retire) and George Honeyman (who had an absolute stinker after being praised to the rafters by the manager). He will go back to Melwood a better player and person for this chastening experience and I look forward to watching his progress from the telescope that is League One.
Any hope of survival was crushed here as a competent, well organised Preston (you could insert Ipswich, Brentford, Cardiff, Forest, Bristol City) went home with three easy points courtesy of the usual atrocious defending. Both goals came from crosses from Paul Gallagher and were converted by Maguire and Robinson with some aplomb. PNE defended well, kept the ball in midfield and would have thoroughly enjoyed their afternoon and their journey home. They are on the edge of the playoffs and have done well, having replaced one solid manager in Simon Grayson with another in Alex Neil.
But they didn’t have much to beat. Apart from Joel Asoro we offered nothing up front and had no ideas other than slinging the ball into the middle. Of the players who started, I can see only Matthews, Honeyman and Maja being here next season – add Robson and Stryjek from the bench and you can see the rebuild that will be needed to at least halt the decline and prevent us from crashing through the third tier of English football.
It was not a good day for the club. It looks as if Darron Gibson is in trouble after his audition for Top Gear, the arrival of season ticket letters was not greeted with rampant enthusiasm by any of those around me and the win for Birmingham bangs a few more nails in the coffin lid. The manager sounds more beleaguered than did King Priam in the siege of Troy and the future looks bleak. Come August, we could be two leagues away from Newcastle and Middlesbrough, in the same one as Accrington Stanley and one away from either Spennymoor Town or Blyth Spartans.
There’s a classic line in Fawlty Towers where Mr O’Reilly, the useless Irish builder says to Fawlty
Cheer up now Mr Fawlty, there’s always someone worse off than yourself
to which Basil replies
Is there? I’d like to meet him. I could do with a good laugh.
I think all of the Sunderland persuasion would heartily echo that sentiment.
Pete
An excellent, but sad read ( and I’m the Preston fan!).
I wasn’t at the game but from everything I have seen on TV and heard from people who were there, we are all a bit shocked at how you have declined since we last met.
Coleman’s interview after the game was – well – hopeless ie he appeared to have lost hope.
All the best Sunderland. I will be keeping in touch with you through this great site.
Norm PNE.
The situation we find ourselves in is truly heart breaking. It resembles the ancient death by a thousand cuts, as each week brings us nearer and nearer humiliation or worse.
It is pointless analysing how we got here. We all know that. The ludicrous truth is, it seems that the only people who have failed to understand our increasingly perilous state are the people responsible for it.
I have been a Sunderland fan for more than 70 years and I have honestly never felt so deeply depressed about things. There just does not seem to be a light at the end of this particular tunnel, and like others have said, I am really concerned now about our long term survival.
IT is a pity that the club could not be taken over by some form of local consortium, but I imagine that the massive debt makes this a remote possibility?
I think the only way forward now is for the club to rid itself of the expensive failures that have helped to drag it down, and to regroup using, mostly young local players, and to build a side capable of competing in what inevitably will be Division One.
I have no idea whether a new owner can be found, or if Ellis Short is willing to commit his support to what will probably be a long, tough battle to bring our historic old club back to where it belongs?
A Brian Clough type figurehead would help!
Would going into administration be beneficial in the long run? Carrying on with the present ownership situation is reaching the point where there is doubt as to whether there is a long run. At least Portsmouth, for instance, still have a football club.
I heard if we go into admin we’d lose the last £30 million parachute payment . Apparently Short is funding ( at the minute) club loses of £3 million a month . If he loses this we may lose the club , for good . For all concerned ,he needs to find a new owner by the end of next season.
How much of that is paying the wages of people who are no longer with us?
A fair percentage I’d guess . If you ever need a blueprint on how to run a club into the ground , study Safc.
Good point but the debt is horrendous
for what will soon be a third tier team. Who would buy the club, even for one pound, with so much debt?
We are bearing witness to the incompetence, greed and outright mismanagement and stupidity that has dogged the Club for the last 10 years. This is the face of modern football where all regional association, save the fans, has left, players who are mercenary, un-loyal, naval gazing and avaricious narcissists.
I can’t remember the Club ever being this removed from the support, maybe its the foreign ownership. We are undoubtedly going to be relegated in a manner that is disgraceful in the so called ‘Professional Game’.
The two goals conceded yesterday deserved to be on a Sunday Morning league game (after the night before). Don’t even mention Gibson the embodiment of ‘professionalism’ in his GBP 75,000 car.
It’s not all the playing staff at the Club but we have far too many journey men and those over the hill, but all this has been said before many times, too many times.
Where does this leave us, relegated that for sure, but it should leave the way open to really this time get rid of all the dead wood the reduction in wages should see to that, not many will stand up to be counted. God knows what we do about Rodwell though, the biggest obstacle to being able to start again and rebuild and Short.
Make him play, week in, week out. The fans’ reaction would sort him
Now that is a genius idea, surely his contract can be torn up if he refuses to play, I could be wrong, but I don’t think he has the guts to come out in front of the fans at the Stadium of Light. He has a lot of money of course to fight unfair dismissal in the courts but in my oplnion it would be worth the risk.
Very Poignant.
How sad to see veteran season ticket holders beaten into submission unable to raise a protest.
6x league champions, 2x FA Cup winners, Bank of England club, their plight not worthy of a comment on Channel 5’s Championship.
Where are the campaigning headlines in the Echo/Gazette, comments from the council/MPs, EFL?
It feels like an intricate Shakespearian play, where the hero saves the club only to give council to the foe who brings the club to its death. Wish we could get off this magic carpet ride.
Spot on , I hate to be parochial about this, but imagine the national outcry if it was Nufc and not Safc in this position.I get the feeling that the media thinks the club and the fans had this coming . The ridiculous managerial merrygo round, appointing Di Canio , the endless relegation battles, the Johnson disgrace and now this idiot Gibson . They think we deserve it .
The fans are brilliant but the club is certainly reaping what it has sown. I think there is much sympathy for the supporters but not for the club, deservedly so. We are not the first to be in this situation and we will not be the last. Unless a new owner can be found, the club is heading towards administration.
Great words as usual Pete . We’ve gone from the proverbial sleeping giant to the dying giant . I’m genuinely looking forward to the Safc museum opening, but I fear that history is beckoning for this once grand old club .Unless,someone, somehow who loves the club gains ownership of it, all we’ll be is a memory .Alongside everything else that Wearside was once famous for ,we’ll be adding the name of Safc unless something changes very soon .
My thoughts exactly Drummer.