Pete Sixsmith offers his measured assessment of a game that Sunderland might have won, but will feel satisfied not to have lost – and also remembers a true Stadium of Light character, one year on from his untimely death …
The 18th century American polymath Ben Franklin is widely accepted as being the man who said that there are “only two things certain in life and that’s death and taxes”. Were Mr Franklin still on this mortal coil, he could add: “And Tim Cahill will score against Sunderland.”
When he headed home in the sixth minute of this frenetic but not particularly skillful game, I feared the worst. Fortunately, Everton had an attack that was even more toothless than Old Mother Riley after a visit to the dentist, with Louis Saha doing a very passable impersonation of Jonathan Stead.
Even before his two-goal exploits against Everton last night – and how frustrating that he couldn’t quite make it three and secure the win – Danny Welbeck was transforming himself from underperforming, out-of-position passenger into exciting, goalhungry potential matchwinner.
Scott the Red, our pal at the Republik of Mancunia site*, had asked a few days before the game how we thought Welbeck, on loan from Scott’s beloved Manchester United, was getting on with us. Rather better, was the gist of Pete Sixsmith‘s reply, given without knowing Danny would grab another two goals last night, than some of us were willing to give him credit for. What a tragedy, then, that his exceptional recent displays, at Spurs and Chelsea and against Everton, may make it all the less likely that Sir Alex will let him come permanently – or that he may even demand Welbeck’s recall to Old Trafford.
Or will the player, as has already been suggested here, become part of the haggling if/when SAF comes calling for Jordan Henderson? This was Pete’s view, as expressed pre-Everton, to the United fan site. …
Today, we draw attention to an intriguing new project with the clear target of having something to show for its efforts before noon on Jan 16, when Sunderland AFC must address the small matter of avenging the 5-1 defeat at St James’ Park ….
Still we can’t beat Everton. A good game, in which we had an excellent spell after their opening goal but could hardly complain about the final result. Pete Sixsmith’s considered view will doubtless appear before too long.
But to what extent can the fervour of the crowd spur on a team to greater things? The correct answer, probably, is not always but sometimes.
Pre-match build-ups, with entertainment on the pitch and distraction to be had in the pub or concourse, have certainly produced a more subdued atmosphere in the half-hour before kickoff at the Stadium of Light than I recall from Roker Park.
Last night, our crowd seemed from TV coverage to be in good heart and voice. It’s a two-way process. The players were doing pretty well, challenging seriously good opponents and showing themselves capable of winning; the fans responded as you’d hope.
But anything that lifts the levels of passion and enthusiasm even further – and has the potential to give the players that extra psychological boost that makes the difference between 2-2 and 3-2 – is to be welcomed, and that is why Salut! Sunderland is giving a bit of plug to the Haway the Flags project.
Danny Welbeck might have had three and sent Sunderland third. Beckford had a last-ditch chance to break our hearts. It ended a fair 2-2. …
The first half was a story of several great crosses and two great goals.
The excellence of the crossing continued after the break, one from Kieran Richardson producing what might have been Sunderland’s winner and confirming Danny Welbeck’s emergence as a strong, dangerous striker.
This half-time report has been superseded – click here…
Two great moves, two great goals. Sadly the first was Everton’s, Leighton Baines’s fabulous cross from the left being met by a header that was just too powerful for Craig Gordon.
The head, inevitably, belonged to Cahill. Bloody Tim Cahill as the first text put it, f***ing Tim Cahill as far as the second texter was concerned. Steve Bruce will want to know where the Ferdinand/Turner centre back pairing were at the time, but let us not pretend it was other than a splendid goal.
Rachel Flannery* is an Evertonian with special reason to be invited to answer our “Who are You?” questionnaire ahead of tonight’s SAFC v Everton game. She lives and works in the North East, and chairs the regional supporters’ club branch. Trust a woman to get straight to the point: Wear/Tyne matches are not derbies, she says, since they are not between clubs of the same city. And Newcastle United? “Win a couple of games and they’re the best in Europe”. She said it, not us …
Salut! Sunderland: Despite a poor start, you seem to be showing signs of having a decent season. What are your minimum and maximum expectations?
Maximum expectation – would be an FA cup run and finishing about 6th. Minimum expectation would be finishing above 10th. Ever the optimist!!!
Eight days have passed since the glorious victory at Chelsea.
It came just two weeks after the humiliating defeat at St James’ Park. Some would cheerfully have reversed those 1-5, 3-0 results.
I am not one of them: however embarrassing the derby trouncing was, it was a game that mattered little to the bigger world of football beyond our tribal divide. Hammering mighty Chelsea, in a way that simply never happens to them, was a momentous event noticed everywhere and appreciated by virtually all non-Chelsea supporters.
Yes, you guessed. Any excuse to show a clip of Carlos Edwards’s promotion-securing winner against Burnley, and hear that priceless Simon Crabtree commentary again …
There should be no real surprise that on a quiet, match-free weekend people should find odd ways of keeping themselves amused.
In certain quarters where Sunderland fans gather, I have been reading some impertinent speculation about the true reason for Ray Wilkins’s departure from Chelsea. There has also been much merriment at the misfortune of a team that shall remain anonymous at the hands of mighty, free-scoring Bolton.
And two Salut! Sunderland readers have chimed in with amazingly belated responses to an item that appeared on these pages as far back as 2008. One, Mackem Mick, wrote to say how much he’d enjoyed the read; the other, Birflatt Boy, denounced it as puerile tosh.
They were talking about a two-part item on my young friend Fatima al Shamsi, a football-mad Emirati with whom I worked when she was an intern during my spell at The National in Abu Dhabi.
The interest to Sunderland supporters was that Fatima, though a big fan of Arsenal (and also a collector of other teams and countries that catch her attention), had also started showing a fondness for SAFC. This was an attachment fostered with a degree of indoctrination on my part, but it has sustained to the extent that she looks out quite keenly for our results – though sometimes with a little self-interest, as her most recent e-mail to me showed. “Congratulation on the Chelsea win,” she wrote. “Many many thanks from Arsenal supporters trying to prevent the evil Blues from getting any points.”
So what was the fuss about? When I looked back in the Salut! Sunderland archives, I realised photos and some text had been lost in the switch from individual Typepad blogging format to join footballunited.com’s cluster of sites at WordPress. The first part of the two-part series was missing.
So here, on a dull Sunday, is a reminder of both. It’s now a historical item, but may entertain – or appal – the many who missed it first time around or have since tried to follow dead links to read either part. Please note that my crystal ball gazing about Abu Dhabi and the Premier came half-true: I just got the wrong name for the club that would be bought …
The Sunderland Echo, as I have argued before, has to walk a precarious tightrope. It must please the fans while not displeasing, too much, Sunderland AFC, and no one should underestimate how easy it would be to fall from either side of the rope.
