Good news for Pam Stokoe, whose name has special resonance around these parts. Her mug, won with a correct if disloyal 0-1 forecast for the SAFC v Arsenal game, has finally been ordered.
Good news for Eric, who posts regularly to the Comments section and invariably offers a prediction. I will take his 3-0, which appears at the end of the Fulham “Who are You?” – about which he was less than enthusiastic – as a valid entry. I also hope it comes true.
Philip Mison likes to strike a controversial note in his ESPN blogging about Fulham. Mr Tony Pulis’s boys are dismissed as Stoke Rugby Club, Bramble and O’Shea are identified as Sunderland weak links Fulham can exploit and Martin O’Neill is seen as “looking less than secure in his job”.
I know. I’m just dreaming. But each time my own trade, the one Lord Justice Leveson looked at and found wanting, is trashed, I think of another one that I think may be even more deserving of opprobrium.
It is human nature when facing sustained attack, rational and irrational, to look for someone else who is even worse. Voila! Football agents.
Con Kondonis* is an Aussie, resident in the UK for 10 years or so, and an adopted but keen supporter of Fulham, our opponents at the Stadium of Light on Saturday. He has little time for cricket, loved Fulham’s European adventures, urges players to stop behaving like a bunch of softies, misses Danny Murphy, couldn’t give a hoot about Fayed’s Michael Jackson statue at Craven Cottage and would like to see sushi and wine replace meat pies and sausage rolls in football catering …
I read with some amusement all the patronising tweets that flew in the direction of the Bradford fans and players in the aftermath of the mauling they received from Swansea in the Capital whatsitsname Cup final on Sunday, says Stephen Goldsmith.
I didn’t feel sorry for them, they earned their place there and deserved to be treated as equals on the day. The same rule applies for the keeper being shown the red card, why shouldn’t he have been? The question on our collective lips was obvious, however, and Salut! Sunderland’s Gareth Barker speaks for us all when he asks…
WHY NEVER US?
We missed out on Reading and Notts County for the simple reason that the idea didn’t dawn until the 40th anniversaries of those games from the 1973 FA Cup run had passed. So we began this series at Maine Road and will continue it until May 5, the date of the Stokoe-Porterfield-Montgomery (and everyone else) glory in the final.
Pete Sixsmith was at both games against Man City. He was a student in those days and has had thousands of students of his own (ok, pupils) to contend with since.
We’ve already had a Sixer’s Sevens and a Sixer’s Soapbox from the first game, which ended 2-2. Malcolm Allison was still convinced after City’s lucky escape that his side would romp through to the 6th round. Many older Sunderland fans regard what actually happened – an emphatic SAFC win – as the best they’ve seen in all their years of unconditional (-ish) love.
And this Soapbox from the replay is written as seen through the young man’s eyes …
This is where Pete Sixsmith records his instant verdict, in seven words, on each Sunderland game. That, in this 40th anniversary year, includes the latter stages of the FA Cup run that ended woith triumph over Leeds United at Wembley. Pete can do so from the privileged position of being
oldmature enough to have attended every game in the run with the exception of the away replay at Reading. Look out later today – Update: in fact look now at this link https://safc.blog/2013/02/sixers-soapbox-roker-erupts-as-hughes-and-halom-rip-manchester-city-apart/ – for his Soapbox report of the game, which really was a cracker …
Twenty+ years after a pertinent observation – by a Sunderland supporter – was quoted in a book on football, 30+ after the quoted words were uttered, John McCormick is moved to ask: “Coincidence and cops: 30 years on, what’s new?” …
Pete Sixsmith has a big night ahead. He’ll be at Roker Park tomorrow for the FA Cup fifth round replay against Manchester City. That, at any rate, is the dream, one that goes back to 1973. Come back to see his report of one of the best games seen at the old ground. For now, he reports on a promising debut by Kader Mangane in a game that was nearly good enough to allow the crowd to forget the glacial conditions …
Three hundred and sixty hardy souls can now lay claim to the fact the we have seen Kader Mangane play. He turned out for the development squad in what turned into an entertaining clash with Everton at Eppleton last night. As usual, we came unstuck against the Toffees, losing a two goal lead to end up with a point.
A booming burst of Hey Jude, the familiar broad Essex smile and a clever flicked pass to helped Ménez set up the second Paris Saint-Germain goal, off the knee of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, otherwise poor to the extent of being whistled at by his own fans, are on French lips today.
But David Beckham’s debut for PSG, big an event as it deemed to be on both sides of the Channel, was not for me the most memorable feature of the Ligue 1 weekend.
Image: addick-tedKevin