Why is it that whenever the big guns of the Premier League come up with an innovative new idea, proper football fans smell a rat? Pete Sixsmith is our would-be Pied Piper
The news that the Premier League is considering exporting its teams for an extra game does not seem to have filled footie fans with much enthusiasm. It just goes to show what a miserable bunch of self centred people we are.
George Orwell’s road to the pier. Rugby League. Soul music. All that, yes. But football (real football) is not something we readily associate with Wigan. Paul Farrington*, the editor of wiganer.net, puts us right on that – and predicts heartache for SAFC fans when we clash at the SoL on Saturday
From television coverage in Abu Dhabi, I – along with the commentary team and Dubai-based studio panel – felt Sunderland …
Drinks after badminton found me in the company of two or three Liverpool fans in Abu Dhabi last night. They …
Did she fail me as a daughter? Did I fail as a father? Take your pick. Either way, Nathalie Randall did not grow up to be quite the sort of football fan her dad had hoped for. A fixation with John Barnes turned her young head towards Anfield, Sunderland’s next port of call after the encouring dismissal of Brum. Let Nathalie take up the story of her disloyalty – and let her “first team” disappoint her on Saturday……
So how did I become a Liverpool fan?
Born in Bristol and brought up in London by an obsessive Sunderland-supporting father, I still went on to support what he says is the wrong team.
How did this happen? Accusations of “glory hunter” have never been far off although in fairness, if I had wanted to be a glory hunter the question begs: why Liverpool?
Perhaps safest to say nothing to Roy Keane’s face, but could it be that our esteemed leader is among the growing band of devoted readers of Pete Sixsmith’s Soapbox? Or was it just great minds thinking alike?
Well, I got the team selection right. And more important, so did Roy. He said that we have to make the Stadium of Light a “Snarling Place” and he picked a side that was able to do this.
We got into Birmingham’s face right from the start, and we stayed there. They were never allowed to settle and the two centre halves were roughed by Kenwyne in the first half and then by Kenwyne and our latest Swedish recruit in the second. Prica replaced Yorke, allowing Whitehead to move into the middle and Deano and Miller dominated the centre of midfield.
Birmingham were poor but we made them look poor. It wasn’t entertaining football but it is much better than losing 3-0 and going three games without a goal. Billy Smart would not have stood for results like these.
The only thing in the world that truly matters tonight is that Sunderland duly got the three points needed from the game against Birmingham. Two nil, might have been three.
But that wonderfully vast world of SAFC support ought to be aware that among the fans who witnessed this crucial victory was one Charlotte Ord. All of eight years old, she was making her first visit to the Stadium of Light. I hope she will never forget that she saw her team win.
I needed to be thousands of miles away to know of Charlotte’s SoL debut. My day had started with a slightly despairing search for somewhere in Abu Dhabi where the match would be screened. The late kickoff had me worried.
Pete Sixsmith set his sights admirably high in demanding nine points from the three home games starting with Portsmouth. Then he accepted that a tally of seven might be more realistic. But with Pompey out of the way, we now face a pair of relegation rivals at the SoL and our uselessness on the road forces him back to his original view
A few weeks ago I wrote that the home games against Portsmouth, Birmingham and Wigan were absolutely vital.
As we approach the middle one of the trio we have three points under our belts. But such is our miserable away form that we cannot afford to drop anything at the Stadium of Light against opponents in our section of the four-part FA Barclays Premier League.
Let’s not just hear it for the lads, and lasses, of the Billingham branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association. Let’s dig into our pockets to support their charity walk: a 32-mile overnight trek to the Stadium of Light for a forthcoming home match* (and if God is watching, He’ll make sure to give us three points in honour of the gesture).
It happens every year – the sponsored walk, not necessarily the points – as the pictures suggest. This year three charities, instead of the usual two, will benefit.
The proceeds from sponsorship will be split equally between Zoe’s Place, apparently one of only two Baby Hospices in the whole of the country, and Daisy Chain.
Infants from birth to five years with life limiting or terminal illnesses, and special and complex needs, are cared for by Zoe’s Place. All the services are free to the families that use them and there is no fixed catchment area.
And the Daisy Chain Project, based at Calf Fallow Farm, Norton, aims is to build an overnight respite and family care centre for children with autism and special needs.
John Baker lives in Idaho, writes like an American and thinks we’re Geordies. But he’s a Birmingham City fan through and through, has this website to prove it and responded in a blue flash to an invitation to write for Salut! Sunderland. So what does John make of SAFC? He quite likes us but thinks that with thinner, horizontal stripes – ideally, from his viewpoint, not until after Tuesday’s game at the Stadium of Light – we’d start playing better
Sunderland to me is one of those likeable clubs – likeable as long as you don’t get beaten by them all the time. By that I mean that us “normal” footy fans get tired of getting beaten by the Man Us, Chelseas, and Arsenals, but Sunderland, like Birmingham, well hey, there are points there for the taking ain’t there?
Of course, in Sunderland’s case it depends whether you hit them on a black or white season. I mean, all this yo-yo stuff between divisions makes my head spin!
OK, so this may be a “black” season, but after Tuesday’s game, I really hope you folk up t’cold north can turn things around and get to know the Premiership a bit. That goes for our blue boys too.
By the way, with regard to your “white” time last season, just count yourself lucky that we didn’t have a proper tactician at the helm, otherwise you’d have been runners up! This doesn’t mean that I’m prejudiced against you Geordie lot*, but the one we just got rid of would look the part leaning against the bar in the Rovers Return. No way is he a proper football manager! OK, OK, so his Newcastle affiliation makes him the enemy to you lot too. Good. Now we can move on to more serious things.
I mean, listen, what the hell are you folk doing in vertical stripes for Jimminy’s sake? Everyone knows that you can run faster in horizontal stripes, so at least have some kit designer design some “thin” stripes to lighten the load. No wonder you’re as unsuccessful as us Brummies! This is 2008 y’know, and it’s time streamline.