Blackpool

SAFC vs Blackpool prize Guess the Score. Wanted: a winning home debut from Grigg

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There IS a prize and you know what it is

Pete Sixsmith was at the disappointing 1-1 draw in the ‘Donald derby’ – reflecting the divided loyalties of our Oxford-supporting owner Stewart Donald (and his executive director Charlie Methven) – and will be writing about his day at greater length over the next 12-24 hours

But with three home games coming up in quick succession, and assuming a slightly worrying degree of significance as Luton and Barnsley set the pace at the top, we need to get the usual features out of the way even if they upset the natural order of Salut! Sunderland business.

Monsieur Salut accordingly brings forward the Blackpool Guess the Score competition and thanks the many thousands of people who came here last week to sample the goodies on offer …

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Salut!’s Seasonal Summary. Part Two: from Bristol to Blackpool

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By now you should have read part one of this series, the preview of the Christmas period which I wrote for the SAFC programme. You might even remember some of the words I wrote, especially the conclusion:

“Christmas and early January remain crucial, which for us means holding our own away and completing doubles over Bradford and Shrewsbury at home. I’m not one for predicting results or tempting fate, and am all too aware there are no easy games in this league but I think we can do that, and I can see us still being in contention when the decorations come down.”

 

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Sixer’s Sevens: Maja makes the difference at Blackpool

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Jake: ‘just enough’

Was it 7,000, 8,000 or perhaps even more Sunderland fans who made the trip to Blackpool for the New Year’s Day fixture at Bloomfield Road? Pete Sixsmith was among them and was delighted to record Josh Maja’s 15th goal of the season. Barnes and Benno kept those of us nowhere near the Lancashire seaside in touch and it was clear from their radio coverage that having been well on top, we proceeded as so often to live dangerously after going ahead.

Gary Bennett said repeatedly how important the second goal was to us (‘come on,’ he said before one corner, ‘score from one of these set pieces!’… the cushion never arrived, there was clearly an occasional threat to McClaughlin’s clean sheet, a Bradford-style goal-line incident and a lot of necessarily solid defending. And won. Not the most convincing of victories, but Sunderland stepped three points closer towards promotion. Sixer’s seven-word verdict – on which he will doubtless build for his full report – salute the massive contribution of the scorer, a man we desperately want to hang on to …

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Blackpool vs Sunderland Guess the Score: seaside frolics?

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Jake: ‘forget the hangovers – roar the Lads to victory’ at the seaside’

New Year’s day is part of a great English football tradition. Games are played on January 1 just as they take place on Boxing Day, so much better than the wimpish French trêve (it also means truce but here denotes a widwinter sporting break).

And Sunderland, accompanied by 7-8,000 supporters, are at Blackpool. A special Who are You?, to be published on Sunday afternoon, will combine answers from the Lancashire club’s mascot, the Bloomfield Bear, and another look at the smashing interview gven to us a few years ago by the Blackpool and BBC legend Jimmy Armfield, who died in January 2018.

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Blackpool vs Sunderland Who are You?: Bloomfield Bear helps us remember Jimmy Armfield

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Click on the Bloomfield Bear to see the archive of Who are You?s so far in a vintage season for the series

Monsieur Salut writes: which of the Newcombes, father Gary or son Kieran, a) appears in the photo and b) answered our questions? Not sure about the photo but we can take it Gary answered the questions since the responses suggest a longer stint as a Blackpool fan than that of his lad. Kieran’s lips are sealed beyond saying ‘they’re the bear’s answers’ so here, before the exceptional treat of another look at replies the late Jimmy Armfield once gave us, is the Bloomfield Bear, complete with a succinct reference to the afternoon at Wembley that brought a fairytale season back in the top flight after 40 years, if one with no happy ending.

And then he can work out how to entertain home fans PLUS 8,000 Sunderland supporters on New Year’s day …

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Burton, Scunthorpe or Peterborough – who’ll join Sunderland, Barnsley, Charlton and Portsmouth?

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UPDATE: we saw the poll had grown, improbably, to 11,000+ votes with Coventry way out in front on 26 per cent. Couldn’t blame Jimmy Hill this time but something was clearly up.  For the culprits, go to the Coventry site Sky Blues Talk    … but don’t get too cross as our lot would gladly have done the same to them. The poll, unsurprisingly, is suspended …

After Colin reposted our “who’s going up?” poll (on the left, below) in one of the Question and Answer sessions  with our owners there  was brief flurry of voting, as you might have expected given the number of visitors we had. And then things slowed down until, by the weekend, things were at a trickle, although votes were and are still coming in. Again, this was to be expected as the eyes of the football world were on Russia, where eight or nine ex-Sunderland players were taking part in the World’s most prestigious competition outside the Third Division. We now have over 800 votes cast, which is enough to be going on with, although Colin in his gut feeling poll, had almost as many when only one vote was allowed per person.

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Barnsley drop, Burton and Posh replace Luton and Scunthorpe, Walsall get off the bottom in our promotion poll.

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When I first put this poll up, a mere week ago, I wrote

“this is predominantly a Sunderland site and we aren’t claiming results are totally unbiased… …Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that SAFC  fans have not been blindly optimistic.”

After only a week I would not able to add a lot to this statement, were it not for two things. The first is that the poll was tagged to promote it to all League One fans for over 24 hours before it was promoted on our facebook page and then on Colin’s subsequent posts on this site. This gave us a small (very small, as it happens) hint of what the whole of the League One fanbase might think. The second was that Colin’s own poll closed, with some findings we can bring to bear on this one.

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The bookies say Sunderland, Barnsley, Charlton, Portsmouth, Luton and Scunthorpe. What about you?

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And so we have it: the fixtures are out. You’ll be getting your fill of dates, and conjecture from all over, no doubt, and enjoying the pre-season buzz of anticipation that it brings.

But when you’re tucked up under the sheets, reading Charles Buchan’s “Football Monthly” with a torch and reality bites, do you think you’ll win League One?

Or even get promoted?

If you do, please let us know. If you don’t, let us know who you think will make the grade.

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Jimmy Armfield: farewell to a noble man of football

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Monsieur Salut adds some belated lines in homage to Jimmy Armfield – footballer, manager, sports reporter, NUJ member, broadcaster, church organ player, absolute gent …

The two news items seemed unseemly if read one after the other. Sanchez moved from Arsenal to Man Utd on a new weekly pay rate of hundreds of thousands. And word reached us of the death of Jimmy Armfield, whose biggest pay packet was £70 a week, as he told Salut! Sunderland back in 2011 (see the interview here).

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