What a pleasure to read John McCormick’s eloquent account of his day out at Deepdale and a refreshing change to have some positivity about Sunderland.
With any luck, that can continue after the international break, always assuming that Queens Park Rangers are willing sacrificial victims at the Stadium of Light.
Lime Street closed for three weeks on the day we played Preston and I suspect some of the direct trains that might have departed from there were surreptitiously removed from schedules in the months preceding. How else would I have found easy passage from Liverpool to Preston when mooching around in the relegation-threatened PDC days, and even when this season’s fixtures were announced, but nothing when trying to get there this weekend?
Monsieur Salut writes: before the game, I was wondering – controversially, I know – whether there was more chance of identifying a believable character or storyline twist in Line of Duty (sorry, I’m catching up late on this well-acted, gripping hokum) than of finding reason for belief in Simon Grayson and the Lads. Then we led at Deepdale, came back after going behind and secured a valuable, morale-boosting away point.
Pete Sixsmith decided to give Deepdale a miss, less in protest at the incompetence he has witnessed week after week than because Shildon had an FA Cup tie at Banbury (and saw our adopted home town win 3-2). He handed the baton to our associate editor John McCormick, whose seven-word verdict appears below. John had a much better outing than his last one, to Goodison, and enjoyed his afternoon. BBC’s Radio Newcastle pundit Gary Bennett expressed disbelief after the match that the referee had given nothing when the PNE keeper beat a returning Duncan Watmore to the ball but outside the box and with his arm – but yet again we couldn’t hold on to a lead and keep a clean sheet. Benno made John O’Shea his star SAFC man and said something along these lines: ‘I know it’s only a point but that was 100 per cent better than what we’ve been seeing’ …
Now we’re getting into it, or at least Pete Sixsmith is. True, proper history. His journey through the football grounds of England brings us to memories of the era when Blackburn Rovers were admitted to the Football League instead of cup-winning-toff-defeating, working-class Blackburn Olympic, who subsequently folded, the first penalty kick was yet to be taken, and one of the founder members of the Football League and twice recent Champions were about to be upset by some upstarts from even further north. Pete wasn’t there, of course. That took another 80 years. Let’s read on and find out how his visit went:
Another chance to win a prize – and at last the mugs of previous winners are about to hit the road
What is left to say? Another game, another sense of trepidation or, if Pete Sixsmith was right in his clinical assessment of our plight after his bleak evening at Portman Road, another reason to be “largely past caring”.
Preston North End vs Sunderland. Fifth top vs second bottom. It seems beyond belief, whatever the level of pessimism that our deputy editor Malcolm Dawson and others experienced in the summer.
Mark Collard: ‘a friend took this from Sky coverage of the Colchester game I mention in my answers. I am the baldy man with glasses and the moment captured is when Colchester were about to take a penalty but it sums up the day’
And now, Simon Grayson and Sunderland’s search for a point or three, as opposed to a search for a point even lower than reached so far, goes on Saturday to Deepdale, the famous old ground of the equally famous Preston North End with its Bill Shankly, Sir Tom Finney and Alan Kelly stands.
Mark Collard*, our PNE ‘Who are You?’ volunteer, was found at Twitter via Monsieur Salut’s electronic acquaintanceship with the singer and writer Maggie Holland. Mark, whose Twitter profile reads ‘archaeologist. director at Rubicon Heritage Services. PNEFC fan’, welcomes the newly positive Preston style under Alex Neill ‘after the tedium of a lot of the games under Grayson’. He sees our misery continuing with another defeat for the former PNE boss …
John McCormick writes: there are cries from some of our readers for our manager to go, there are others saying he should have more time, and there are those saying it’s not his fault and there’s nothing he can do. I must confess I’m expecting any day to hear he’s been sacked or walked as it seems to be the SAFC way of dealing with things but I’m not sure if it would solve anything. Pete Sixsmith, who has been to far more matches and lives much nearer to the action, was at last night’s debacle. What does he think? He’s past caring. Perhaps that tells us all we need to know …
Jake: ‘let’s start thinking of reasons to be cheerful’
Jason Steele may feel it was the curse of Salut! Sunderland. No sooner did we run a largely pro-Robbin Ruiter outsider’s piece on the battle for the No 1 jersey than Newton Aycliffe-born Steele is recalled to side only to concede five times.
But in yet another painfully dismal display by Sunderland, producing a crushing 5-2 defeat at Ipswich, Steele was nowhere near being Simon Grayson’s weakest link.
Long before the end of the latest home defeat, to Cardiff City on Saturday, Pete Sixsmith had reached the conclusion that he was watching the worst Sunderland team since he first started going to Roker Park in the 1960s. That was for his seven-word instant verdict; his considered appraisal of the game was more measured, but not much kinder. It didn’t stop him going to Ipswich.
When not moping about the wretched start to the season, and wondering what planet Simon Grayson was on when he lauded the chief exceutive Martin Bain’s brilliance in the transfer market, Sunderland fans are trying to get used to a lot of unfamiliar faces. The departure of Jordan Pickford, followed by that of Vito Mannone, had some looking around to see who in earth would play in goal. The choice has boiled down to two: the Dutchman Robbin Ruiter and the Newton Aycliffe lad Jason Steele. Here is a pro-Ruiter view, one that identifies the work he still has to do but also the potentially key part he could play in overcoming the malaise afflicting the team as a whole …
An abysmal first nine games of the seasons has been characterised by problems for Sunderland all over the pitch, and those troubles begin with the first name on the team sheet.
Having failed to keep a single clean sheet in the Championship so far, Simon Grayson needs a goalkeeper that can be relied upon to provide the foundations needed to start a recovery. But should it be Justin Steele or Robbin Ruiter between the sticks?
Colin Randall 
