Sixer’s Soapbox: two points dropped against Fulham and the ‘R’ word looms

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Another poor show at The SoL, as we stumble to a draw against opposition we should beat. We have now won 2 out of the last 15 home games. Pete Sixsmith had high hopes of a wonderful weekend but the first of the three events he attended was the only disappointment

You occasionally get weekends which are full of things to do, things that you are looking forward to, things that you really, really want to enjoy.

I knew that two out of the three things I had planned this weekend would be fine. The one I was worried about was the Fulham game. My worries were not unfounded.

Let’s deal briefly with the two successes. Après le match, Martin Simpson was his usual excellent self at the Davy Lamp Folk Club in Washington, while Sunday evening was enlivened by the wonderful Lumière Festival in Durham City.

But I suspect that those who are able to read this couldn’t give the proverbial monkey’s about either. The sole thing that interests them is the loss of two more points to a club who are in a similar position to us – viz. beginning to contemplate a serious relegation battle.

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Bruce’s Banter: ‘my Fulham might have beens’

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Not sure what Steve Bruce‘s matchday experience was. Mine involved sitting in front of a screen in a Bali hotel watching safc.com’s slow-changing, allegedly minute-by-minute text coverage. The BBC’s was hardly any better; much worse, it seems, would have been finding a bar actually showing the grim truth of a 0-0 draw. Steve? His e-mail reached me in Indonesia and boils down to: “if only we’d managed to raise the bar” …

Dear Colin,

The save their goalkeeper made at the end summed up our luck in the game.

It was a great save and to be fair Mark Schwarzer has done that for years.

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Sixer’s Soapbox: Beating the Mags, a rare but pleasurable occurrence

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OK, it was only a reserve game, but it’s always nice to rub their noses in the dirt, and it’s even better when a Sun’lan’ lad rattles in an eight minute hat trick. Our man at the Stadium of Light was Pete Sixsmith, taking in his second reserve game of the day. He was wearing his new anorak.

A cold night at the unsponsored, unsullied Stadium of Light, but the cockles of the heart were warmed by Ryan Noble’s hat trick to see off a previously unbeaten Mags second string. Premier Reserve League it may be, but after our recent dismal run against the representatives of The Great Satan, it’s good to put them in their place.

He scored them in eight minutes as well. The first one was a strong shot which Jak Alnwick, brother of wannabe porn star Ben, should have saved. For the second, he picked up a rebound from the keeper who had failed to hold a strong Jordan Cook shot, but the third was an absolute cracker.

The impressive James McClean played in Michael Liddle with a very clever back heel and his through ball set Noble loose in the box and he crashed it past Alnwick to earn a standing ovation.

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Fulham ‘Who are You?’: Sweden to Craven Cottage via Pompey

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Nick Bylund, left in picture

Football’s back; we play Fulham on Saturday and urgently need a win. They need one, too. And where would you go to find the co-founder of the fan site that claims to be Fulham’s biggest? You guessed it: an island in the Baltic Sea. Nick Bylund* helped to create www.hammyend.com. He is also chairman of the Swedish branch of the Fulham supporters’ association. And he turns out to have deep knowledge of his adopted club, qualified admiration for al Fayed, tainted affection for Steeeeeeeeed and, well, lots more to say for himself … he predicts another draw

Salut! Sunderland: Fulham and Sunderland find themselves at the wrong end of the table. Is it too early for either club to worry or is this an indication of a tough second half of the season to come?

I personally think it is way too early to worry, at least for Fulham. My insight and knowledge about the Mackems this season is too limited to really pass any judgment. As for Fulham we have a quite small, but very vocal group that I like to refer to as the “anti-Jol-brigade”, but most of us see improvements under Jol and are willing to give him quite a lot of time still.

We’ve played well in many games, were we have deserved a lot more than we got from them. The second half’s versus Everton, Man C and Spurs were all fantastic and we played them off the pitch. Still, we only got one point from those three games so it is quite worrying that we can play so well, create so many chances but still fail to score.

In conclusion, I think we’ll turn this around sooner rather than later.

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Malaga to Caithness: return of the Mackem Diaspora

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Gerry McGregor's shrine


Salut! Sunderland always takes pleasure in drawing readers’ attention to other corners of the web where the passion for matters Sunderland can be fuelled.

Some will recall the fascinating Mackem Diaspora series – click here if you missed it – in which Sunderland supporters scattered around the world, from all part of the British Isles to far-off places, gave their potted life stories.

One of those who contributed was Gerry McGregor, who lives as far north as it is possible to go on the UK mainland without falling into the sea.

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A Soapbox sermon to Newcastle supporters: what’s in a name?

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War clouds may not yet be gathering in Europe, but the financial system nears meltdown. Crisis is everywhere. Recession bites deeper. Tom Watson calls Murdoch junior a mafia godfather. People starve in Africa. And which of these is the hot news in the North East? Pete Sixsmith is up on his Soapbox to fulminate …

Well, I woke up this morning and I found that the world had not come to an end.

Outside the gates of Sixsmith Towers, people made their way to work, Arriva buses ran late and the cat demanded to be fed every 40 minutes.

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SAFC, Burnley & Hungarian class acts: Jimmy Adamson, Florian Albert

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Pete Sixsmith uses Sixer’s Soapbox to deliver warm eulogies to two great characters of the game who have died in the past week or so …

The death of Jimmy Adamson at the ripe old age of 82, makes me think, with some fondness, of the days when managers were not subject to the intense scrutiny that the likes of myself, Birflatt Boy, M Salut and many others put them under. How many current managers would have survived Adamson’s first months at the club?

For those too young to know or too forgetful to recall, he was appointed in December 1976, with the club in 21st position in the old First Division.

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Birflatt Boy: stairways to hell and the cauldron of negativity

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Originally used here to deplore the anti-Steve Bruce sentiments expressed at Salut! Sunderland, while overlooking the strong voices raised in his defence, cauldron of negativity is a phrase that has stuck. The shadier and shadier Birflatt Boy, a fully paid-up member of the “Negativos”, invokes the debuts of Led Zeppelin and long-forgotten German urban terrorists in support of an assault on the loose band of “Positivos” and fencesitters, M Salut among them, holding out with varying degrees of conviction against dismissal …

Over the past four decades it would be hard to find a time when Sunderland’s support has been so sharply divided into two distinct camps.

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