The Devil’s Advocate: the unbridled joy that lies ahead for Sunderland fans

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Rob as seen by Jake
Rob as seen by Jake

Rob Hutchison – find him at Twitter on https://twitter.com/RobHSafc – is best known around here for his one-word ratings, always welcome and always arriving just as Monsieur Salut is about to go out, obliging little white lies to Mme Salut to cover the delay. He now launches an occasional new column, the idea for which appeared as a light bulb above his head as he returned from the opening game at City. He aims it to be weekly – I think occasional is more likely! – and also to devote it to the counter view to the norm on all things Mackem. Over to Jake to come up with a magical image …

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Sunderland v Middlesbrough ‘Guess the Score’: a time for winning

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Jake welcomes our near neighbours
Jake welcomes our near neighbours


It has been an eventful week.

Much better than expected display at the Etihad, ruined by an unfortunate own goal, egg on Monsieur Salut’s face after he fell for an online reference to Graham Gooch being Lynden’s dad, insolent follow-up comment from Sixer and Malcolm Dawson and now speculation that Watford want and may land Younes Kaboul. Not to mention our former web guru Sam’s belated success in getting rid of that awful error message that had polluted Salut! Sunderland‘s landing pages for a long, long time.

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Pete Sixsmith’s alternative “Who’s who”

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Pete Sixsmith. Delivers more than just the papers
Pete Sixsmith. Delivers more than just the papers

John McCormick writes. Our Web wizard has scheduled some site maintenance and you may find the site is down for a short while some time today, so please bear with us.

And while we’re on the subject of bearing we need to move beyond  the Lynden and Graham Gooch situation. Luckily, we have Pete Sixsmith to help us. Pete doesn’t just appear on TV (who else saw him on MOTD?) He doesn’t just deliver erudite summaries to the papers (and nor does he just deliver the papers). He’s also a bit of a historian, as he demonstrates in this wander through the genealogical archives of the North East:

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Un peu d’oeuf sur le visage as U23s drop point v Chelsea

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Malcolm Dawson writes….the pre-match talk yesterday as Pete Sixsmith and I made our way to the Eppleton Colliery Welfare Ground was just who was Lynden Gooch’s dad? As we listened to TMS and bemoaned the fact that England was sliding inexorably to defeat, we decided that it couldn’t have been the moustachioed former Essex and England batsman. “Never mind what it says on Wikipedia we would have heard about it” we agreed.

We also agreed that following on from a decent Premier League debut Gooch would not figure for the Under 23s in the revamped competition that raises the upper age limit from that of previous seasons. Would there be run outs for Gomez, Bridcutt and Mavrias in an attempt to up their fitness levels while the club tries to off load them? Well no as it turned out and unless they are moved on soon the club could easily find itself with a Valentin Roberge situation times three, on its hands.

It was a decent enough game with two soft goals which left both defences with a little egg on their respective faces. Too much perhaps because as the French would say “one egg is un oeuf.” I’ll get me coat and leave Pete to bring you up to speed.

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Moyes on the Boys at Manchester City: ‘we have a game plan (honest)’

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Jake flags our new columnist
Jake flags our new columnist

John McCormick writes: What with the Olympics and a defunct dishwasher, not to mention our Hazel calling round (her dad was at Wigan v Blackburn) I forgot to look out for an e-mail from our new(est) manager. But having watched the match more or less live I’m glad Ed, Pete and the others I tried couldn’t get me a ticket. I’d have hated to have been there at the end.

Were there good things to take from a galling defeat? The aforementioned newest manager appears to think so, as you may glean from the e-mail he sent to M Sault immediately after the match, and please forgive his grammar:

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