John McCormick writes, I arrived back from Spain (where I’d been able to eat outside) around midnight last night, to find a duff thermostat and a colder house than expected. And then we woke up to snow. Not as much as Pete Lynn, who reported 4 inches where he is, but enough when the heating doesn’t work.
Luckily, Colin or Malcolm had drafted a few words from Pete and this morning, while texting our local plumber, I was able to finish the post with a heartwarming postcript that he’d added while snowbound:
Monsieur Salut writes: Bob Chapman, standing in for Pete Sixsmith (absent on Santa duties), has the sort of home-and-away record of attendance at SAFC games that cries out for a gong in the New Year’s honours list. Today, he saw a valiant backs-to-the-wall display by Sunderland that won an unlikely point at the league leaders Wolves. I had only Nick Barnes and, as another stand-in, Marco Gabbiadini to go by but they seemed as impressed by the resistance as they were appalled by the inconsistency of the referee Jeremy Simpson, sending off Catts as much for being Catts as anything else and missing a number of Wolves challenges of at least equal culpability to the two that earned Catts’s yellows. Look at our Who are You? series: so many of this season’s interviewees say refereeing is poor at Championship level
Marco rated the shifts put in by O’Shea and Wilson. Both he and Nick Barnes saluted an overall performance that, taken on its own, offers modest hope … as Bob’s verdict shows …
Click on the photo and enter our prize Guess the Score competition – whoever you support
Malcolm Dawson writes……the last time I went to Wolves, if I remember rightly, Stephen Elliot equalised with about 10 minutes to go and it was the last time I was seriously worried for my personal safety at a football match.
I had arranged to go with a female friend of mine who had been born in the Black Country and claimed to be a Wolves fan, even though she was more into rugby and mixing with the hooray Henry types that sport attracted in rural Leicestershire. I should have known things were going to turn out awry, when I arrived to pick her up at mid-day to find a note (or by then it might have been a text) saying she had nipped out to the shops. The shops being Tesco and her weekly big shop, which of course all had to be unpacked first, then she insisted on a cup of coffee and a sandwich, all the time my fidgity unease becoming a virtual panic. Eventually we set off at around two but by the time we got near the ground, the designated away parking had all gone and I ended up having to leave the car some way away, near the centre of town. We made it just in time for kick off. Wolves led for most of the game then with minutes to go we scored.
As I left the ground in my red and white shirt I was spat at and called a Geordie b*****d! Of course the stock reply is “call me a b*****d but don’t call me a Geordie!” but it was then a more amenable home supporter advised me to remove my Sunderland top before venturing into the underpass that led to the car park. That was the last time I accompanied that particular lady to a game.
Now, in the latest part of his series in which he recalls his own first encounters with the grounds SAFC visit this season, Pete Sixsmith remembers Molineux from a year when The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde, The Mighty Quinn and Cinderella Rockerfeller were all topping the charts and the nation held its collective breath to see if Congratulations would see Cliff come back to the UK with the Eurovision trophy …
Andy Nicholls* , moderator at the Wolves fan site Molineux Mix, is another old friend to this site. Seven years ago, he appeared here for a joint interview with a Sunderland-mad Silksworth lass, then his partner. They are no longer together but still speak.
Andy is naturally as thrilled by the football he is currently seeing as we are dejected by what has befallen SAFC. He lived on Wearside for a time and retains happy memories, which are described below, leaving a mark strong enough to make him look for our score once he knows what has happened to his own team, though he feels we’re in for a pasting on Saturday (as Wolves bounce back from winning only 1-0 away in midweek!)
PS Jody Craddock is aware of – and appreciates – Andy’s kind words …
Jake: ‘As long as you’re prepared for a wait until Monsieur Salut gets his finger out, there will indeed by a prize for the winner’
The way hope was brushed aside as if no more than a slow, low-flying insect hardly inspires great confidence as Sunderland travel to Molineux, where Wolves are top, 10 points ahead of third place and winning games for fun, the last five of them on the trot.
Come back tomorrow and you’ll see why our Wolves “Who are You?” interviewee predicts an emphatic home win despite having a soft spot for Sunderland, having once lived on Wearside and been a Roker Park regular.
Ten years ago this Christmas, Salut! Sunderlandwelcomed into the world little Abigail Emmerson, the daughter of Monsieur Salut’s confrère and consoeur, the BBC’s Martin Emmerson and his wife, Julia from Tyne Tees.
All was going well, two lovely sisters coming along to join the family, until Abigail, bless her soul, started going to see the team supported by successive Emmerson generations. For some weeks, the pain of Sunderland’s decline has been eased a little for some of us by a series of entertaining little Facebook clips showing Abigail and her dad chatting on matchdays. It’s been enough to make Barnes and Benno sharpen up their act.
Memo to Chris Coleman and the team: Abigail is 10 on Christmas Eve. We bet she’ll have a great birthday party anyway but think how much more fun it might if Sunderland had won a couple of games, three even, by then (quick, handy definition of ‘win’ in football terms: score at least one more goal than the other lot).
NB: do not report Martin to the social services department. Abigail’s ordeal is of her own making. Let her take up the story …
Pete Sixsmith has been given leave of absence in order to carry out his duties with the fair elves of County Durham and the pixies of Jesmond. In his stead we have a little helper – at least littler than he was at the start of the season.
Malcolm Dawson, for it is he, will step up soon with a full match report. Here he is with the seven word instant verdict that follows the final toot of the referee’s whistle, and no doubt the boos of the crowd after we shot ourselves in the foot:
Sixer leaves something special before assuming other duties
John McCormick writes: I hitched the 120 miles home on the Friday, saw an average game, then hitched back down to Uni on the Monday (or it could have been the Sunday) as usual. It was as uneventful a weekend as I remember and I picked up no air of anticipation from the crowd, nor any indication that the club was on the verge of something special.
Pete Sixsmith was living a lot nearer to Roker Park than me, however, and was no doubt more tuned in to the events and the atmosphere surrounding the club. He seems to think there was a bit more going on, and maybe he was right…
