Abigail writes: ‘at last I’ve seen Sunderland win at home’

Abigail, en route to her first home win

Abigail Emmerson is a special girl. How many other nine-year-olds – OK, only a few days to go before she hits 10 – willingly turn up to watch SAFC home and often enough away, make videos about it and write for Salut! Sunderland? You met her here after the Burton away win, she was mentioned again in Monsieur Salut’s account of his winning trip to the SoL and now she offers her own thoughts on that breakthrough …

I can’t believe I have eventually seen my first home win. I thought it would never happen. But then again I picked the worst time to start watching them last season. We had been doing OK before I turned up, but then to go a year without a win? Wow.

I am told no other team has done this before. Have they not been training very hard? How can a team go that long without winning at home?

Saturday’s game was similar to the others. We got the bus “to Doomsville” from the Harbour View, but this time we got on it with a special guest. As you may have seen on the video Colin was with us. They say he is called Monsieur Salut but he sounds like he is from Durham to me, although my dad says they do have a funny accent in Shildon.

Colin thinks he was the lucky omen and that is why we won. But I have seen them win at Burton and he wasn’t there that day. He could be the secret key to winning at home though. The only problem is he does not show up very often.

As you may know we won one nil and the goal was scored by Josh Maja who is a friend of our family. This is because he stayed with our friends for a while and we used to have tea with him every now and then.

He was a nice lad but very quiet. Maybe he didn’t like the noise all of us kids were making in the house?

When I realised he was coming on I was very proud. It was his first match and I thought he had achieved a lot. And then he scored the goal and I was so pleased for him. He has done so well to achieve this.

He doesn’t live with our friends now. He moved to another house nearby so we don’t see him for tea any more but I look forward to meeting him again one day.

The win was great and I am glad we got the three points. They are now out of the bottom three. I don’t think we would have scored if Chris Coleman hadn’t brought the players on late in the game. I certainly think Chris Coleman is doing a lot of good for the club, but as he said on TV afterwards, one goal is good but we could get a lot better.

Hopefully we won’t go into the bottom three again. And I don’t think we will have to wait another 364 days for a home win. I think we must have a good chance of winning the next match against Birmingham now and I can’t wait for it. But you never know with Sunderland!

It will also be the day before my 10th birthday so if we win that will be a nice present because my dad says he hasn’t got me anything else. Ha ha.

PS … the pub was a much more fun place to be after the game than it has been for the last year. We finished the day with a trip to the Customs House in South Shields for our second pantomime of the afternoon. It was nice to see the cast wearing red and white as well.

And if you didn’t know, it’s The Lambton Worm. So try to see it if you can,

* Go back to to Salut! Sunderland home page by clicking on the image below ….

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