Ipswich or Portsmouth? Rotherham or Peterborough? How about Lincoln or Coventry? It’s your choice

Last season our punters got it more or less right and correctly predicted most of the top six. Luton were missed but that was mainly down to the Coventry Ninjas, whose hijack of last year’s poll pushed them (Luton) out of the top places.

Maybe the ninjas or another club’s fans will do the same again this season. As far as I’m aware the polldaddy vulnerability that allowed multiple voting still exists and all I can do is disable the ability of readers to see the results in real time. That might change how the poll coding works (it’s built-in and can’t be changed) but it takes something away. A pity, but there we go.

I’ve got a lot on for the next few weeks so I won’t be conjuring up a novel method of tracking and displaying our chosen clubs’ progress or the lack of it. All I’ll be doing is monitoring the accretion of points for now, though I might come up with something different later in the season.

As always, your comments are welcome. We hold posts for moderation but they do go up eventually, subject to meeting commonsense rules of decency, manners, libel etc.

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Rambling through Accrington, Coventry and Ipswich to Lincoln. How do Sunderland’s rivals shape up financially?

League One comprises 24 clubs. Three of them, Bury, Bolton and Blackpool, are entering, exiting or plodging in the clarts of receivership. Leaving them and Sunderland aside gives us twenty clubs.

I thought I’d take a look at their finances. Nothing detailed, just a skim through any entries at Companies House and a quick perusal of a search engine, enough to kill some time I have and satisfy idle curiosity. My idea was to divide the twenty into two and cover 10 clubs each time. After that matters should have moved ahead with the Lancashire Bs and Sunderland’s takeover and I should be able to revisit these four.

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Sixer’s Sevens: Accrington Stanley don’t bog us down after Portsmouth

John McCormick writes: put yourself in my place.

0-2 up away from home, with 15 minutes left. If Accrington score and we win 2-1 your “guess the score” is correct and you win a shirt. Do you want Accy to score?

It took me less than a minute.

“sod it” I thought “get a third”

And we did, a minute later. So I thought “get a fourth, and a fifth. Haway the lads!” But we didn’t. So much for the power of positive thinking.

Pete Sixsmith’s report will be here tomorrow. Until then you’ll have to make do with the knowledge that this win did us a lot of good just when we needed it, and very positive seven word post-whistle text.

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The Accrington Stanley Guess the Score: now for the bigger prize

It is obvious enough. Time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and put together the run we need to overtake Barnsley and leave Portsmouth and Charlton behind, says Monsieur Salut.

Of course Sunday was a great occasion and a game we all wanted to win. But promotion is – for me – by far the bigger prize.

Guess the Score.

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Accrington Stanley-Sunderland Who are You? ‘Get over Pompey, win those games in hand’

Ian: our Stanley interviewee

Monsieur Salut says: Ian Reynolds-Young* was there for the washed-out first attempt to play this match. He missed Accrington Stanley’s impressive visit to the Stadium of Light but will be there again on Saturday. I hope he is right to think we will win 2-0.

Ian is the editor of the Offical Accrington Stanley Supporters’ Club (OASSC) monthly newsletter and webmaster of www.onstanleyon.com. Read on: his replies are a treat …

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Sixer’s Soapbox: Accrington have bottle. What about Sunderland?

John McCormick writes: I hesitate to give an analysis from a TV broadcast but I thought Accrington Stanley’s confidence grew after about 20 minutes because of our failure to get a grip on the game and the penalty came as no surprise. Surely we could have stopped them before then.  Afterwards, we had to battle to stay in the game, which, to our credit, we did, and O’Nien almost won me a mug right at the end.

Perhaps Jack Ross is reconfiguring after Maja and we’re getting there. Or perhaps not. Let’s see what Pete Sixsmith has to say. After all, he was at the game.

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Sixer’s Sevens: Sunderland manage to draw at home to Accrington Stanley

Jake: catch Sixer’s instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season

John McCormick writes: this game coincides with the start of a real ale festival at the Masonic and I thought to wander down there, have a couple of beers, maybe three, and enjoy the game and the craic.  Circumstances dictated otherwise but I did manage to watch the game.  Did I enjoy it? Let’s make an informed guess, based on a seven-word text sent immediately post-match by Pete Sixsmith

Monsieur Salut takes up the story: two goals down against commendable but less than mighty opposition, I wondered whether our season was over. OK, the playoffs – but who wants that? That we clawed our way back to a draw spared humiliation but not a deepening concern. It feels like a mini-crisis …

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Sunderland vs Accrington Stanley prize Guess the Score. Time for players to raise their games

Click Jake’s banner to visit Salut! Sunderland’s home page

Will Guess the Score predictions become gloomier, asks Monsieur Salut?

Two losing scorelines were submitted for the Blackpool game, and they came from a known Sunderland supporter and from “Brian”, who insists he is also one of us, just a hypercritical one of us.

There was not prizewinner on Tuesday night. No one thought it would end 1-1.

And nor did I when the Blackpool goal went in and there was no immediate response. At 70 minutes, I decided the next 10 would be crucial, and so it turned out.

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