Colin Randall

Gary Clark, author of the above book and of the fine preview of Hull v SAFC in December, has returned. As if to shame the hard-of-thinking fellow Tigers at the City Independent site who promised to preview the most important game of each club’s season, but may have been joking (without realising the joke was unfunny), he has again come up trumps on Sunderland v Hull. But he is also determined to do it in stages. Can we stand the sequence? You judge…

Phil Brown has divided this season up into little mini league segments, like a Chocolate Orange, we stuffed our faces at the start of it, now we are scrambling around for the bits, and feeling a bit sick.

With six games to go Hull City need perhaps six points to guarantee safety, a point a game, sounds easy doesnt it? It perhaps would be if three of those games were not against Liverpool and Manchester United at home and Aston Villa away. We also have Bolton away and of course yourselves. I have seen Hull win at Aston Villa in a league games, only just a tad over 40 years ago but I have never seen us win at Bolton. Our other remaining home game is against Stoke City, so you do not have to be Albert Einstein to work out the games Brown will have targeted for those extra points. Er, it’s you – Sunderland – and Stoke!

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A result that was expected – but, in the end, disappointing because of all we’d contributed to the game. Even Man United fans know they got out of jail. Pete Sixsmith – here, as at The Observer – looks at the silver lining…

After three anodyne performances where the prospects of visits to Preston, Blackpool etc grew stronger by the minute, we needed a visit from the self styled “greatest club in the world” like Gordon Brown needed a suspect blogger.

Rooney, Ronaldo, Scholes, Tevez and the new Italian wonder kid all pitching up against a defence who can’t mark at corners, a midfield that runs around in circles and a couple of forwards who have as much in common as Perry Como has with Eminem. Disaster beckoned.

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In prolific form (and on holiday, which explains it), Pete Sixsmith slots in an afternoon visit to the cinema to see the new film about one of our heroes…

One of the best ways to spend an afternoon when on holiday from work is to go to the pictures. There is a wonderfully decadent feel about slinking into a cinema on an afternoon when the rest of the world is out there making a living and I’m just making up time for my pension.

Last half term, I went to see The Reader, which I didn’t much care for. In fact, if I never saw Kate Winslet’s breast ever again, I would be a happy man, having had an eye full of then in this movie. I sneaked into a Silver Session for over 60s for this one and it was rather disconcerting to hear the male part of the audience rustling in their trouser pockets for a spare Wurther’s every time the well endowed Ms Winslet disrobed.

This time, I visited an out of town complex to see The Damned United. I read the book when it first came out and thoroughly enjoyed it and I was interested to see how an American director would deal with a quintessentially English story of two working class men (Clough and Revie) in the same job but with such different views on how it should be done.

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Desperate for an antidote to the blues inflicted by our wretched performance at Upton Park, Pete Sixsmith joined Quakers fans at Darlington v Wycombe Wanderers. He saw the sort of writing on the wall that threatens not only Darlo but Southampton and Charlton, and raises nervous questions about the fate of Sunderland, if relegated…

Forgive me for using this again, but there is a classic line in Fawlty Towers where O’Reilly, the useless Irish builder, tells Basil: “Cheer up, there’s always someone worse off than you.” To which Fawlty replies: “Is there? Well, I’d like to meet him, I could do with a good laugh.”

Life is grim for us Sunderland fans at the moment. The pronouncements coming from the Stadium and Ricky Sbragia’s office in particular, are as optimistic and upbeat as a missive from Eeyore the Donkey on how to be more miserable than ever before. But if it’s bad for us, it’s even worse for Darlington fans.

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As the season enters its final phase a depressed Pete Sixsmith witnesses not so much a horror show as a no show at Upton Park. Be warned: this is not for the faint hearted …

West Ham was my fourth visit to London this season. The first three journeys back up the A1/M1 were more than satisfactory and the talk on the coach was of moving up the league and even looking for a place in Europe. It was a different conversation this time.

The average age of the people who sit in our bit of the bus is 50+. They have been Sunderland fans all of their lives. If there is one thing we know, it is the stench of a team sliding towards the relegation trapdoor. The stench filled our nostrils as we travelled north and is still there this morning as we look at the league tables and the fixture lists.

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With scrupulous even-handedness, Pete Sixsmith assesses events up the road…

A famous North Eastern club is in difficulties. They face dropping a division and possibly oblivion. Fans are up in arms. They see the only way out as appointing a figure steeped in the history of the club who may inspire them to avoid the plunge into the Great Grimpen Mire of a lower league.

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This was going to be a double header, an introductory piece by one West Ham previewing Saturday’s return to nailbiting football and a set of Q&As featuring another. But we should do each contributor justice and run them separately. Here’s the first, supplied by Ciaran Byrne*, who quite likes Mackems, thinks Mags petent plus haut que ses cul (look it up) and brings a first to the Who Are They? series: an invitation to a post-match gig featuring his punk/oi! band the London Diehards…

Have you been pleasantly surprised by the Hammers’ performance this season, or is it much as you expected?

Yeah, very surprised. I think a lot of people think Zola is the man behind it all but Steve Clarke is the unsung hero. I can’t remember a defence as good as this
one for around 20 years at West Ham. We’ve actually been able to hold on to some leads now which was always a major failing with West Ham over the years.

Should you have been in the Premier at all? Sheffield United might have a view on that, but what is your take on the Tevez affair?

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With only international football available at senior level, Pete Sixsmith followed personal tradition and went in search of a decent Saturday game. He went in vain (I sensibly waited until Sunday and saw my daughter Nathalie score a brilliant goal for Acton Ladies during a (wo)man-of-the-match performance, as voted by teammates, that helped secure a 2-1 win over a club glorying in the name of London United). But back to Pete and his journey into the footballing void …

When you reach the age I am now at, (58 a couple of weeks ago), you know that the good friends you have will remain so until that great referee in the sky calls you to the dressing room. Hopefully, He of the omnipotent ways is not as clueless as the likes of Rob Styles and Steve Tanner – but that’s another story.

I have a few really good friends who I could count on in a crisis. They are the ones who would mortgage their houses to bail you when the internet poker sites will no longer take your credit cards or when the bank refuses you any more money to spend at will in Threshers.

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