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Bristol City Guess the Score – and are we harsh on Ellis Short?

February 6, 2018 by Colin Randall

Have a go. It costs nowt (rather like most of our recruits)

Monsieur Salut writes: this is really the new instalment of Guess the Score. Enter below the scoreline you expect, hope or fear at Ashton Gate on Saturday. If you are first with the correct result, you will win a prize though you must have a UK delivery address to receive it. Ha’way the Lads and all that but forgive me if there seems very little else worth saying about a game most of us probably have uneasy feelings about while hoping for the best …

Yes, I got angry at the weekend and directed some of my anger at our absent, reluctant owner. Yes, he has plenty to answer for.

One crass comment in his tame, underarm bowling sort of interview with the official club site in November particularly annoyed me. He complained that anything that appeared in the media about him was based on speculation or invention because “I don’t talk to the press”.

Sixer’s Ipswich Soapbox: a waste of time and money

February 4, 2018February 4, 2018 by Colin Randall

John McCormick writes: I started Pete Sixsmith‘s report on yesterday’s game at 11.01 on Sunday. It took me about 20 minutes. I can’t tell you how long Pete spent writing it but given its usual high standard you can be sure he put some effort into it.

If you felt so inclined you could calculate how much Jack Rodwell earned in that time*. Or estimate how much effort was made yesterday. Alternatively, you could ask yourself – why bother?

Sixer’s Sevens: Ipswich double tells us a hard truth

February 4, 2018February 3, 2018 by Colin Randall

John McCormick writes: It’s half time and we’re 2-0 down in our first game after the closure of the transfer window. I blame Ellis Short. I’ve previously supported him as a good thing; now I think he’s tearing the heart from the club.

Pete Sixsmith’s seven word text, sent immediately as the game ended – without another goal – can be taken as corroboration. It describes exactly what happens when a decent manager in a great club is starved of funds.

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The First Time Ever I Saw Your Team: Ipswich Town

February 2, 2018February 2, 2018 by Colin Randall

John McCormick writes: I’m quite sure I was at the Stoke match Pete mentions in this report; Ed, his brother and I certainly did go to the Victoria Ground at the start of one season in the late sixties, but yet again we have a home game which eludes my memory. Surely I was there.

No matter, Pete Sixsmith was definitely there, and 50 years later, more or less, he does us proud by recalling the game:

Sunderland’s transfer window: bring on Coleman’s cavalry charge or fear the worst

February 1, 2018 by Colin Randall

Pete Sixsmith then (not so long ago) … paper rounds and worry mean he’s a lot trimmer now

Monsieur Salut writes: I asked Pete Sixsmith to cast a critical eye over the ins and outs now that the transfer window has slammed shut – shattered? – on us. I did not expect to find him absent from duty running in sheer joy up and down Busty Bank (which takes the envious souls of South Church up to Shildon). I didn’t fear we’d need to drag him from celebration drinks at whatever they call the Surtees or Red Lion these days, shouting all the while in praise of our saviours Ellis Short and Martin Bain. I sort of expected the cool, measured, underwhelmed appraisal that follows …

Ipswich Town Who are You?: ‘my Mackem brother-in-law said SAFC would go up’

February 1, 2018February 1, 2018 by Colin Randall

Monsieur Salut writes: on Twitter, where we found him, he goes by the name of ITFC COYB. Darren Elmy* is a Glasgow-based Ipswich Town fan who would normally have been at Saturday’s game as he loves visiting Sunderland and has Mackem family connections. Unfortunately he cannot make it but we do have his thoughts on both clubs and the match.

Darren’s a professional gambler; we hope he loses any stake he places on his predicted scoreline – 1-1 – but hammers the bookies if he hedges his bets with money on an emphatic home win …

The Lars word: Sunderland’s a Yo-yo team

February 2, 2018February 1, 2018 by Colin Randall

John McCormick writes: the transfer window has closed. Did Coleman get what he wanted? A keeper and an experienced forward – yes, although maybe not the ones originally on his radar. A defender and a midfielder up for the fight – yes, and the Scousers I’ve spoken to rate Ejaria. So will we stay up?

There’s a poll running so you can give us your opinion and to help you decide we have Pete Sixsmith later and Lars Knutsen right now:

SAFC vs Ipswich Town prize Guess the Score: no more slips please

February 1, 2018February 1, 2018 by Colin Randall

Come back later today for the Ipswich Town ‘Who are You?‘

This edition of Guess the Score will involve a level of effort equivalent to that shown by Sunderland AFC at Birmingham the other night.

There will accordingly be nothing until we reach about the two-thirds stage of the article. Instead, readers are invited to imagine an expanse of blank space between the last word of this sentence and the first word of the next since it’s beyond Monsieur Salut’s technological skills to achieve the look for himself.

The Chapman Report from Birmingham: where’s a Johnny Giles when he’s needed?

February 1, 2018February 1, 2018 by Colin Randall

Monsieur Salut writes: what was the transfer window like for you, Chris? Did you recruit an inspiring mix of flair and solid experience, the sort needed to get Sunderland out of the present mess? Or a bunch of journeymen hardly better than what we already have and available at the bottom end of the market because they cannot get a game anywhere else? Time will tell – and we can count on Pete Sixsmith to cast a clinical eye on the ins and outs at the Stadium of Light.

But first some unfinished business. Sixer was absent from St Andrew’s, his place on the old post-match Soapbox taken as usual by Robert Chapman, who approved at the ground apprehensive and left a seriously worried man, having seen one more wretched Sunderland collapse …

Won’t cure post-Birmingham blues but test your knowledge of football anthems

January 31, 2018 by Colin Randall

M Salut with our commentary heroes on a happier day (ie when SAFC actually won a game, vs Fulham)

Monsieur Salut writes: here’s a quiz on football anthems. I managed only eight out of 10; it seemed a doddle until the questions about songs by the England squad I have spent years trying to forget. ..