Soapbox: how did Man City v Stoke become just another Saturday fixture?

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Well, we’ve seen commodities we never quite expected today, sensitivity and wit from Millwall supporters horrified at the notion, accurately reported, that some of their number might want to cause trouble at Upton Park come Sunday. But let us not forget our real enemies, those upstanding folk in authority whose determination to kill off the FA Cup knows no bounds. This year’s final, when some of us would have enjoyed devoting a whole day to rooting for underdog versus moneybags, was reduced to a mere morsel of an ordinary Saturday programme. Pete Sixsmith certainly didn’t forget …


I’m paraphrasing the title of a fondly remembered Jack Rosenthal play from the 70s here, but it just about sums up the negative attitude that many fans have about the great and the good who run our national game.

For the first time in my memory, they scheduled the FA Cup Final on the same weekend as Premier League fixtures. Not the odd left over fixture, but a whole programme. They needed to play the Final early so that UEFA could take possession of Wembley for the Champions League Final which takes place on the May 28.

Fair enough, you might say. So, switch any Saturday games to the Sunday and leave Cup Final day free for those who want to watch it and for those who escape to Scotland for the day.

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West Ham v SAFC: where did Millwall come into it?

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We can give them the benefit of the doubt and accept the word of the Millwall fansite House of Fun that raising money to fly the “Avrim Grant: Millwall legend” banner above the ground as Wigan equalised to dump West Ham in the Championship really was “just a bit of friendly banter”. We had own own moments of friendly banter two seasons ago when, as we supposed, a nation rejoiced Toon Doon.

But what are we to make of Millwall supporters planning to head towards Upton Park on Sunday, when we play the Hammers in the last game of the season?

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Oh to be in England, but still 452.6m from Sunderland

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Tash Scott* warmed loads of hearts with her cleverly constructed and moving account of a first trip to the Stadium of Light. She’s a Sunderland supporter with impeccable credentials but a postcode far from SR5 1SU. Here is her thoroughly engaging description of the life of a long-distance supporter, with extracts inserted by her dad, Derek, from the famous old poem by Robert Browning, who died in 1889, just too early to see Sunderland’s Team of All Talents take English football by storm …

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West Ham, Sullivan & Gold: can we have our money back?

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Image: Tony Austin

It comes as no surprise to see from the official SAFC site that tickets for our end at West Ham are still available. They would have sold out long ago but for the greed of the host club in asking £46 for what is not necessarily the best view in the house.

But the original announcement on the WHU website justified the higher price on the grounds that the match could settle the Hammers’ immediate fate and was therefore one that could rightly be re-categorised. Er … cue for a climbdown? Free beer in the away end? Safe passage home?

Meanwhile, reaction among Sunderland supporters to West Ham’s relegation has been mixed. Pete Sixsmith sent a text saying “a nation mourns” and about the only positive a Hammer could take from his words is that when it was Newcastle United, the nation laughed. At the Blackcats list, I found a couple of people in happy frame of mind at them going down, though one SAFC fan, born in the south of Mackem stock, said: “Bit different for me as several family members are West Ham fans and my sister and nephew chose to go that way.”

Me? I resent Gold and Sullivan’s appalling fleecing of travelling supporters this Sunday, but that is not reason enough for gloating. I have several friends who support the club, and only one known enemy, and therefore sympathise with them; at least in the Championship, the friends should see wins and goals, while the enemy will be beaten up by Millwall, Cardiff and Leeds neanderthals.

And I am by no means sure we can muster a team for the final game that would be capable of lifting us higher than the dismal 14th place we now occupy. This, though, is how Pete put it before the equivalent fixture (West Ham away, not the last of the season) of 2009-2010 …

Monsieur Salut

Once upon a time, I considered living and working in London. In the 1970s, the leftward leaning ILEA was offering houses, cars and probably caviar and champagne for any teachers brave enough to face the capital’s schools.

I seriously considered it and decided that if I did take the plunge, I would watch West Ham as my “London” team. They were similar to Sunderland – a working class club, although without the history and tradition that attached itself to Roker Park.

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Soapbox: Wolves howling with delight

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Pete Sixsmith wandered gloomily away from the Stadium of Light after another mugging. He was trying hard to be philosophical. Overhearing two other Sunderland supporters moaning loudly about what they had just witnessed, he mildly suggested there may have been positives. Read on, and deep, for the priceless retort …

Another home defeat after another second half collapse and another opportunity wasted to move up the league and claim the “Best Side In the North East” title. There’s not a whole lot to write about to be honest.

Started well, could have scored three before slack marking gave Jody Craddock the opener. Our midfield players get into good positions and then miss the target on a regular basis.

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Steve Bruce on being devoured by Wolves: and a sharp riposte

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“If the season had gone on a couple of games more . ..” said a sports editor of my acquaintance. We can all fill in the rest. Otherwise, words fail me just now. I didn’t expect to ease to victory but nor did I think we’d put in a second half display worthy of the humbling nature of yet another dire home defeat. Let Steve Bruce do the explaining, and then let one the recipients of these messages respond …I’m going out for the day

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Sixer’s Sevens: SAFC 1 Wolves 3

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pete2

Starting with the last home game of the season, yet another dispiriting defeat, these are the most recent of Pete Sixsmith‘s incisive seven-word verdicts capturing the essence of just about every game. He hummed and harred between verdicts reflecting our sloppy defending and Mike Jones’s denial of an apparently clear penalty at 1-2, and finally decided that Wolves fought for it more. When, rarely, Pete is absent, a supersub does it for him. There will be no immediate post-match report, though Pete’s full analysis will appear within the next couple of days.

The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – encapsulates the matchday experiences, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, of a fan who is usually there …

May 14 2011 SAFC (1) 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers (1) 3 … We ran out of steam; Wolves didn’t

May 7 2011 Bolton Wanderers (0) 1 SAFC (1) 2 Great result, strong performance and safety assured

April 30 2011 SAFC (0) 0 Fulham (1) 3 No forwards, creaky defence, hurry up summer

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SAFC 1 Wolves 3: dismal end, cheers to Jody

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All that needed to be said about our respect for Wolves has been said here – and especially here. This was not the way we wanted our own season, in terms of the home games, to end. Happy for them, sad about our own failure to perform …

If all this week’s goodwill from Salut! Sunderland towards Mick McCarthy and Wolverhampton Wanderers had to lead to such a bitterly disappointing defeat, then we can at least be happy that it was Jody Craddock who set them on the way.

Steve Bruce claimed he had only 12 senior players fit to train this week and that has to be taken into consideration.

But this is a game we should have WALTZED!

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Salut!’s week: relief at Bolton, revenge for Chamakh, respect for Wolves

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Salut! Sunderland looks forward in all senses to the last home game of the season, when we expect no slacking despite our affection for Wolverhampton Wanderers and our desire for them to stay up (though 5-2 again would be rubbing it in; 1-0 will do). And we look back over a week that started well. This is the weekly digest of Salut! Sunderland‘s efforts to inform, amuse and inspire …

For once – well, twice or three times in the past four months – we began the week in happy frame of mind.

The last-gasp winner at Bolton was exactly what the doctor ordered and given Sunderland’s appalling run not only of form but of luck, we need apologise to no one about the merits or otherwise, as described by Owen Coyne, of those three priceless points.

There was plenty to read here about that match. And there was, as usual, more to get stuck into as the week went on. Click on the sub-heading for any item that appeals if you want to read more or read again.

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For David Graves: another reason to want Wolves to stay up

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Tomorrow, nearly nine years after he died an avoidable death, David Graves‘s spirit will be willing his beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers to victory at the Stadium of Light. David was a globetrotting reporter and a great colleague and friend. I imagine him in some far-off, dusty and maybe dangerous spot, fiddling with the internet links he seemed able to find even all those years ago. David would not have expected me to want Wolves to win today, and I do not.

But in his honour, and thinking very much of his wife Diana and their two boys Oliver and Nathan, Wolfies all, I hope very much that other results go for them and that they clinch survival on the final day. The following, reproduction of which has been inspired by the friendship shown by so many Wolves supporters this week and in the past, originally appeared at another of my websites, Salut!, on the fifth anniversary of his death …

Every so often, you still hear that extravagant, rising laugh of his.

You imagine him back in the old Telegraph newsroom. There, he’d be approaching each task with customary professionalism. If things were quiet, he’d be wandering from desk to desk showing quizzical interest in what others were up to.

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