Scunthorpe vs SAFC prize Guess the Score: make Rod Liddle eat his words

Jake asks for a return to winning form

Monsieur Salut introduces the latest prize Guess the Score competition. Don’t worry if your entry is ‘held for moderation’ – it can happen if you haven’t posted before or are using a different computer – as we will know when you tried to post it and if more than one reader correctly predicts the outcome, that will determine who was first …

At the beginning of the season, Rod Liddle – that most acquired of tastes as a man and a writer – wrote about Sunderland in The Sunday Times: “Let’s see how these overpaid moppets cope at Scunny on a cold January afternoon.”

Liddle is a Millwall fan so presumably won’t be there to “see” how things go.

That January afternoon is almost upon us and who would bet against it being cold? Sunderland play at Scunthorpe on Saturday, the second half of the League One season now well in progress and the business end of our promotion campaign approaching.

Your task: forget Liddle and guess the score. Be first to be right and you win (though you must have a UK delivery address). Scunny fans – even Liddle – are welcome to have a go, too, and a winner who doesn’t support SAFC would receive a suitable alternative to the mug you see below.

There is at this stage no plan to ban Paul Devine, exiled in the Netherlands, or Bill Harris, in sunny Sacriston, from entering just because they have won so many mugs between them that they can surely have room for no more.

The Liddle quote implies that Jack Ross’s side is full of cissies and prima donnas. Whatever their other failings, among plenty of qualities, that is perhaps the least accurate jibe to toss their way. Those who see Sunderland week in, week out have witnessed plenty of commitment and, as the poor disciplinary record suggests, no reluctance to get stuck in.

But it is time for the quality in the team to assert itself. With another postponement looming, to heighten the prospect of future fixture congestion, Scunthorpe away is a game that is not only winnable but needs to be won.

Ha’way the Lads.

Enter the prize Guess the Score

21 thoughts on “Scunthorpe vs SAFC prize Guess the Score: make Rod Liddle eat his words”

  1. I hate to predict anything less than a win and would go for 3-2 to the lads but John Mac has got that. Scunny are on a good run and will be confident. I will go for 2-2.

    Rod Liddle did some pre season predictions a few years ago and put us down for relegation, saying: “I like Sunderland, and like Martin O Neill, but can’t see them scoring enough goals.” ….so don’t be too hard on him.

    The fact he works for the Sun and is one of those “social” commentators in the mould of Piers Morgan and James Whale makes my comment difficult……..

    • I have to question Rod Liddle’s knowledge of Geography though when he questions whether players who regularly play on Wearside could handle a cold, January afternoon at Scunny.

      Has he ever been north of Bedford I wonder?

      • I saw somewhere that he grew up in Boro, never a great start in life (with due apologies to my sister’s family). I also read that he admits to imbibing 70 units of alcohol a week; I suppose he thought the weekly maximum for men was a daily allowance. From my grumpily dry January vantage point, I could choose either as a factor affecting his judgement

      • If that’s true, then one can only assume he’s playing up to the prejudices of the Home Counties types who get the ST, who want the dreaded Thatch on the £50 note and who think anyone with an accent is an unwashed oik. Rather like the types who sat behind Sixer at the theatre in Cheltenham I think it was who said they’d enjoyed the Pitman Painters but wondered why the actors had to speak in those awful accents.

        I should point out that they had seen it previously as I’m pretty sure Pete wouldn’t be at a play by Lee Hall.

      • Not that nice. I played there with Phil Steele – my first and last professional gig, to the relief of all music lovers – and became acquainted with a smattering of the town’s youth. They all objected noisily to the juke box being turned off for the folk club to start and one took great pleasure in brushing past me saying ´mind your feet and mind your f******’ guitar ‘. He did not use asterisks. Rod would have approved.

  2. The eternal optimist says bring it on Maguire good to play can’t see a clean sheet but McLaughlin playing blinders at the minute they have been playing well but going for a 1-5 rout to the lads

  3. Normal service to be resumed in that most idyllic of destinations. Sadly I won’t be there, due to unavailability of tickets (a common theme this season), to see me bonny lads hammer four without reply. Fower nowt is my prediction.

  4. 2-3.

    0-2 at half time (Maja, Wyke)

    Scunny make 2 substitutions and that starts a fightback – 1-2

    Wyke gets his second.

    Ref gives them a dodgy pen, it’s tipped onto the post but goes in

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