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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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Tanner a bag anyone? Pete Sixsmith was not impressed by the refereeing of one Steve Tanner as we slumped to yet another defeat, this time at Man City. Apologies for the delay in posting Pete’s thoughts – the Randall Roadshow (which, incidentally, found McCartney’s tug to be a stupid and unnecessary act) is a bit tied up preparing for departure from the Middle East…

This is how the conversation went at 3.15 on Sunday;

Steve Tanner: “Well, Mo, did he pull his shirt?”

Mo Matader; “Yes, Steve”.

ST: Did he prevent a clear goalscoring opportunity, given the fact that the ball was in the goalkeeper’s hands and Wright-Phillips was yards off it?”

MM: “I’ll have a think about that one Steve”.

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The Man City game was my last before leaving the home of City’s benefactors, Abu Dhabi, to return to Europe. I had hoped for a special performance to mark my final day, while here, of Sunderland football. It came, but not from the Lads…

That feels more like it. No more effete, elitist notions of 11th or 12th top safety. All thoughts of “moving up to the next level” put on hold. Another game + another display of kamikaze defending + another punchless quest for goals = another defeat = another desperate relegation scrap …

There’ll be plenty from Pete Sixsmith on all that. So let’s get in first by congratulating Sunderland Ladies – pictured above, courtesy of Sunderland WFC – on what The Guardian elected to call “the surprise of the season”: reaching the women’s FA Cup final with a 3-0 win over Chelsea at the Stadium of Light.

This line from the official site of the women’s team says it all:
Sun 22 Mar Chelsea H FA Cup Stadium of Light 2.00pm 3-0 Gutteridge; Williams (2)

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This has been an extraordinary six months in the life of Man City.
How do you rationalise all that has happened?

It’s hard to rationalise in some respects. One minute you’re being thrashed 8-1 by Boro with Sven at the helm, the next you’re dubbed the richest club in the world and snapping up Robinho for a record British transfer fee. To say that’s a quantum leap is putting it mildly. But what’s happened has happened and the new club owners, well not so new now, do give City fans some real hope after years in the doldrums and a vision that we can realistically – but not anytime soon – start to compete with the big boys of the Premier league. But the reality is that Abu Dhabi looked to invest in the greatest league in the world and saw that City had a good number of benefits to offer.

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Last time we played Man City, we persuaded Bob Willis, Sunderland-born but a lifelong City fan (his family moved when he was a baby), to preview the game. A fat lot of good that did us. A three-nil home defeat, and – back from the desert for the weekend – we were drenched by torrential rain coming away from the SoL. Oh, and City fans complained that the interview wasn’t interesting enough, which sounded a bit like a Mrs Richards moment from Fawlty Towers.
Taking no chances this time, we decided once again to raid the ranks of the Abu Dhabi Media Company editorial staff for the return game at Eastlands. Nick March* knows how to string a few words together.
We should, of course, be approaching Man City away with the cushion of four or six points from the last two home games. We know what happened to them. Nick, in the first of Salut! Sunderland‘s two previews of Sunday’s game, tells of his fondness for Sunderland, tut-tuts at the deepening gloom among SAFC fans about the remainder of this season and even predicts that we’ll snatch a draw…

I have to admit to a soft spot for Sunderland, as the first cup final I watched on TV was the 1973 final. It was magical. I imagined every Wembley final would be that good. But it’s more than one vintage final that makes me like your club.

There are some more common ties that bind the two sets of fans: you Rokerites know as well as we do what it is to suffer the ignominy of relegation to the third tier of the league, be reborn and then watch your hopes turn once more into dust.

Like City, Sunderland fans are also very familiar with the sensation of not really going anywhere fast or worse still, years of only seeming to go backwards. We’ve both had our share of dreadful managers too; for your Howard Wilkinson, I give you Phil Neal, Frank Clark, John Benson, Alan Ball.

And then there’s the stadium thing. When City moved to Eastlands in 2003 I was certain it was going to transform our fortunes and I’m sure when you summarily dispatched a dreadful City team on opening night at the Stadium of Light you felt the same way too. Only good times were ahead, weren’t they?

And where once you were the “Bank of England Club” we are now the ones bristling with new money, desperate to join the Champions League party. But I’m not holding my breath. Knowing City, our invitation will probably get lost in the post.

Now your questions:

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