Pete Sixsmith is no stranger – it’s oft said – to Ofsted inspections. Here are the findings of one of his own, which he conducted after making an impossible demand for nine points from the last three home games

A few weeks ago I said that we needed nine points out of the next three home games.

Colin said he thought seven was a more realistic target and I was eventually inclined to agree with him – three wins was surely hoping for a bit too much.

As a teacher, I know that targets have to be realistic and achievable. I don’t expect my students in the Learning Support Unit to achieve As, but I do know that they can achieve decent and worthwhile GCSE grades.

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Dickson Etuhu
Picture: Peadar O’Sullivan

The first emotion is one of overwhelming relief. As the week wore on, the fear was that we’d be hard pressed to put out a team at all; to claw three massive points out of that unpromising scenario represents a mighty achievement.

And the second emotion? Genuine pleasure that – not for the first time this season – our most consistently criticised players pulled enough out of the hat when it mattered to secure the win.

All week, the view among fans subscribing to the Blackcats forum seemed to be one of deep gloom at the prospect of Etuhu’s return from the African Cup of Nations. And who should pop up with a powerful headed finish to Whitehead’s superb cross to give us a nervy half team lead?

Who then kept us in the game with world class saves (OK, if we overlook one fumble that nearly cost us dearly)? Craig Gordon.

But the moment I loved best was perhaps restricted to those of us viewing the game live but thousands of miles from the Stadium of Light.

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Why is it that whenever the big guns of the Premier League come up with an innovative new idea, proper football fans smell a rat? Pete Sixsmith is our would-be Pied Piper

The news that the Premier League is considering exporting its teams for an extra game does not seem to have filled footie fans with much enthusiasm. It just goes to show what a miserable bunch of self centred people we are.

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George Orwell’s road to the pier. Rugby League. Soul music. All that, yes. But football (real football) is not something we readily associate with Wigan. Paul Farrington*, the editor of wiganer.net, puts us right on that – and predicts heartache for SAFC fans when we clash at the SoL on Saturday

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Did she fail me as a daughter? Did I fail as a father? Take your pick. Either way, Nathalie Randall did not grow up to be quite the sort of football fan her dad had hoped for. A fixation with John Barnes turned her young head towards Anfield, Sunderland’s next port of call after the encouring dismissal of Brum. Let Nathalie take up the story of her disloyalty – and let her “first team” disappoint her on Saturday……

So how did I become a Liverpool fan?

Born in Bristol and brought up in London by an obsessive Sunderland-supporting father, I still went on to support what he says is the wrong team.

How did this happen? Accusations of “glory hunter” have never been far off although in fairness, if I had wanted to be a glory hunter the question begs: why Liverpool?

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Perhaps safest to say nothing to Roy Keane’s face, but could it be that our esteemed leader is among the growing band of devoted readers of Pete Sixsmith’s Soapbox? Or was it just great minds thinking alike?

Well, I got the team selection right. And more important, so did Roy. He said that we have to make the Stadium of Light a “Snarling Place” and he picked a side that was able to do this.

We got into Birmingham’s face right from the start, and we stayed there. They were never allowed to settle and the two centre halves were roughed by Kenwyne in the first half and then by Kenwyne and our latest Swedish recruit in the second. Prica replaced Yorke, allowing Whitehead to move into the middle and Deano and Miller dominated the centre of midfield.

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The only thing in the world that truly matters tonight is that Sunderland duly got the three points needed from the game against Birmingham. Two nil, might have been three.

But that wonderfully vast world of SAFC support ought to be aware that among the fans who witnessed this crucial victory was one Charlotte Ord. All of eight years old, she was making her first visit to the Stadium of Light. I hope she will never forget that she saw her team win.

I needed to be thousands of miles away to know of Charlotte’s SoL debut. My day had started with a slightly despairing search for somewhere in Abu Dhabi where the match would be screened. The late kickoff had me worried.

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