Who are you? We’re Man City (2)

Iain

We put the same questions about Man City v Sunderland to a good pal, Iain Burns*, who flies high in commercial aviation but has been conditioned by experience not to allow his expectations for City to rise too far above ground level. But he’s a fan of Sparky, sees Sunderland as the sort of team that simply doesn’t turn up when they play at City and believe the Blues will easily be strong enough to see us off…


This has been an extraordinary six months in the life of Man City.
How do you rationalise all that has happened?

It’s hard to rationalise in some respects. One minute you’re being thrashed 8-1 by Boro with Sven at the helm, the next you’re dubbed the richest club in the world and snapping up Robinho for a record British transfer fee. To say that’s a quantum leap is putting it mildly. But what’s happened has happened and the new club owners, well not so new now, do give City fans some real hope after years in the doldrums and a vision that we can realistically – but not anytime soon – start to compete with the big boys of the Premier league. But the reality is that Abu Dhabi looked to invest in the greatest league in the world and saw that City had a good number of benefits to offer.

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Who are you? We’re Man City (1)

Nick1

Last time we played Man City, we persuaded Bob Willis, Sunderland-born but a lifelong City fan (his family moved when he was a baby), to preview the game. A fat lot of good that did us. A three-nil home defeat, and – back from the desert for the weekend – we were drenched by torrential rain coming away from the SoL. Oh, and City fans complained that the interview wasn’t interesting enough, which sounded a bit like a Mrs Richards moment from Fawlty Towers.
Taking no chances this time, we decided once again to raid the ranks of the Abu Dhabi Media Company editorial staff for the return game at Eastlands. Nick March* knows how to string a few words together.
We should, of course, be approaching Man City away with the cushion of four or six points from the last two home games. We know what happened to them. Nick, in the first of Salut! Sunderland‘s two previews of Sunday’s game, tells of his fondness for Sunderland, tut-tuts at the deepening gloom among SAFC fans about the remainder of this season and even predicts that we’ll snatch a draw…

I have to admit to a soft spot for Sunderland, as the first cup final I watched on TV was the 1973 final. It was magical. I imagined every Wembley final would be that good. But it’s more than one vintage final that makes me like your club.

There are some more common ties that bind the two sets of fans: you Rokerites know as well as we do what it is to suffer the ignominy of relegation to the third tier of the league, be reborn and then watch your hopes turn once more into dust.

Like City, Sunderland fans are also very familiar with the sensation of not really going anywhere fast or worse still, years of only seeming to go backwards. We’ve both had our share of dreadful managers too; for your Howard Wilkinson, I give you Phil Neal, Frank Clark, John Benson, Alan Ball.

And then there’s the stadium thing. When City moved to Eastlands in 2003 I was certain it was going to transform our fortunes and I’m sure when you summarily dispatched a dreadful City team on opening night at the Stadium of Light you felt the same way too. Only good times were ahead, weren’t they?

And where once you were the “Bank of England Club” we are now the ones bristling with new money, desperate to join the Champions League party. But I’m not holding my breath. Knowing City, our invitation will probably get lost in the post.


Now your questions:

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Soapbox: Wigan woes

Soapbox
We were unlikely to remain silent for long on the shambles that was yesterday’s game against Wigan. Did I read somewhere that Dean Whitehead was blaming the fans and the pitch (the pitch presumably being the same one Wigan had to play on)? Pete Sixsmith, in deeply troubled mood, finds other issues to address, but few answers…


So, it wasn’t
just the team who messed up on Saturday, my counting skills were found to be deficient – but not as much as their alleged footballing skills.

I texted my seven-word verdict (or six as it turned out) as I watched the last five minutes of the game run down, feeling that the chances of an equaliser were about as remote as me laughing at a sketch on the BBC’s Comic Relief marathon.

As the whistle went to bring the proceedings to a close, I was fuming. As I walked back to the car I was fuming. As I drove away I was fuming. I have rarely fumed as much.

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Clueless, brainless, disorganised, pathetic….yes, but what did we really think of the Lads v Wigan?

Until nearly midnight (albeit UAE time, four hours ahead of the East Stand), Salut! Sunderland was shortchanging its readers. Sixer’s Sevens stretched to only six words, the first four in the headline plus “equals relegation”. I added “pitiful”. But enough of the fence-sitting; here’s what we actually thought of Sunderland’s performance….

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Who are you? We’re Wigan

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Bernard Ramsdale*. The name deserves to be chanted, with approval, from every part of the Stadium of Light. Just when it seemed Wigan had “done a Stoke” and failed to produce a fan to preview Saturday’s game, Bernard stepped up once more. This is the same Bernard Ramsdale who has already given Salut! Sunderland one of the best opposition fans’ previews – maybe the best – all season. Thanks to a top man and true fan – and check out the Latics site he helps to run, Ye Olde Tree and Crown – even if he does think Cisse may be bound for the JJB before too long…

Since we met at the JJB, your season has gone slightly better than ours. Is Steve Bruce right to complain about lack of recognition???

He is definitely right, but on the plus side people have been ignoring us since we became the last ever team voted into the Football League in July 1978! It hasn’t done us any harm though has it? No other club in the Premier League can claim to have come from non league football to being top of the best league on the planet in less than 30 years, can they? ??Many people confuse Latics’ lack of recognition as being caused by the local rugby league team, but they are not the problem. They actually have many thousands less fans than the football club and the last time they won anything black and white photography was just beginning to take the world by storm! The real problem was pointed out by Sunderland fans having a pre match pint in and around Wigan town centre prior to our game earlier this season. ??They just could not believe the number of people walking around the town on match day in the colours of rival Premier League teams. That, as they saw first hand, is the real problem with our lack of recognition, or support.??

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Roker Park and me: I’m still standing

Roker4

Far away, across the Atlantic, Jeremy Robson maintains unwavering support for Sunderland. And he appreciates the Stadium of Light as much as most of our fans. But his heart lies a few streets away. And where Roker Park once stood, Jeremy refuses to venture…

It’s almost 12 years since we left Roker Park.

To this day I’ve never returned to the old site. I remember standing gazing around the wonderful old stadium for as long as the stewards would let us after the Everton game, in a feeble attempt to take in the magnitude of those last few moments in the place where we’d all spent so much of our lives, and where history was written, where reputations were won and lost, but most of all a place where millions of memories were generated amongst countless thousands of us. All different, all shared and yet all unique.

OK, there was the Liverpool game coming up which I had no intention of going to. No point to that at all, I’d decided without hesitation when the fixture was announced.


“They’re going to be selling stuff off from Roker,” people would say. “What are you going to get? Some seats, some turf?”

“Nowt!” I’d found myself replying stiffly. “I’m not buying anything.”

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Soapbox: 48 years on

Soapbox

Desperately disappointing as it was to surrender a lead so late, and desperately bad as Phil Dowd’s refereeing was, we were probably the cause of our own misfortune against Spurs. We failed in so many respects that ‘Arry was doubtless correct to say it would be been beyond belief for them to leave the SoL pointless. Pete Sixsmith‘s analysis of the game covers all these points and draws gloomy historical comparisons, without quite echoing the Ricky Sbragia verdict: “I didn’t bollock them. I just state the facts. We were f****** s***. I told Steed Malbranque to take that late corner short and he said, ‘Yes.’ Then didn’t. Our left-back George McCartney’s in the box for it too. Why, I don’t know.”…

Forty eight years ago, Tottenham Hotspur came to Sunderland en route to the first double of the 20th century.

They came with a team made up of quality footballers and quality men like Danny Blanchflower, Dave Mackay and John White and were managed by a manager in Bill Nicholson who let his team do the talking on the field and who never had to bother with the gentlemen of the press. He created a team that won with style and showed respect towards opponents and referees.

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