Bristol Rovers

Portsmouth then Sunderland, Ipswich, Rotherham, Peterborough and Coventry top our poll. But where are Lincoln?

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On Friday we had over 3,000 visitors, followed by a quiet weekend. Not everyone took part in our top six poll  but over 1200 votes (not voters) have now been cast. That’s not bad, I suppose, for a League One fans’ site but I am expecting a few more will chip in before the season kicks off.

Early results suggest the headline I used then – for which I visited a couple of betting sites to find the promotion favourites – was on the right lines. Of the six clubs I named five are in the top spots. Lincoln (currently lingering in 8th place) are the exception with Sunderland, unsurprisingly, replacing them. There’s a gap – slight but quite evident – between the top three and the next three,  after which numbers drop off, so Lincoln and Doncaster, who made last season’s playoffs and now lie seventh, have quite a bit of ground to make up.

All of the clubs in the League received votes, which I’m taking to signify that we  managed a wide reach. It will be interesting to see if enough fans of so-called smaller clubs, which are predominantly towards the bottom of the poll, visit in large enough numbers to move their favourites upwards. Crowdwise, numbers are against them but we have only small numbers voting so you never know.

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

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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?

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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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Salut! Sunderland’s HAWAY award-winning entry and two noble gestures from Bristol Rovers and Walsall

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Doug Shields before Rovers 0-4 Doncaster. ‘The only time I smiled that day.’ Click on the photo to see all Who are You?s in the season just ended

Monsieur Salut writes: by tradition, Salut! Sunderland reproduces the Who are You? interview that has won our top HAWAY award. There is a twist, and a much-appreciated one. Doug Shields, a Bristol Rovers fan and the author, said he would prefer his prize to go to ‘a decent charity in Sunderland’. The runner-up, Richard Hall (Walsall), immediately made a similar gesture, asking for a replica top to go to an inner-city Sunderland school, perhaps as a prize for its summer fete. There you have it: football’s antidote to the shame brought by lowlife hoodlums running amok in Portugal in pretence of supporting England.

I shall offer an Art of Football print – the Sunderland range can be seen here and is superb – to the newish Sunderland fans’ museum and am open to suggestions as to the school. If I receive more than one approach or recommendation, I shall draw a winning school at random (provided it broadly fits Richard’s geographical preference). Thank you, genetlemen …

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Salut! Sunderland’s HAWAY awards: Bristol Rovers, Walsall and Rochdale take the honours

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Jake: ‘thanks to all who participate’. Click this image to see all of this season’s interviews


The season is over and Sunderland couldn’t quite get across the finishing line. But there were positives, says Monsieur Salut, despite the failure to achieve what everyone wanted and the club needed.

Salut! Sunderland‘s modest contributions to the season’s brighter aspects included a good deal of fine writing for which credit is due to Pete Sixsmith, Malcolm Dawson, John McCormick, Wrinkly Pete, Rob Hutchison, Bob Chapman, Paul Summerside, Bill Taylor, Lars Knutsen, John Marshall and whoever I have overlooked.

And then there were the Who are You? interviews, in-depth interviews with fans of opposing teams before each game.

Our fellow League One clubs proved a tremendous source of wit and wisdom as the interviews mounted up. It is now time to offer some rewards to those responsible for the best of them.

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The Salut! Sunderland Haway awards: Peterborough, Wycombe, Rochdale and Bristol Rovers in the running

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Jake: ‘thanks to all who participate’. Click this image to see all of this season’s interviews


It has become a bit of a stuck old gramophone record, Salut! Sunderland‘s pride in a tremendous season of Who are You? interviews with opposing supporters.

Judging is at an advanced stage for our HAWAYs – annual awards for Highly Articulate Who are You?s – and with only a couple of sets of votes still awaited, front-runners are emerging.

League One has been a goldmine for the series (not forgetting our cup-game interviewees from other divisions)

As Monsieur Salut put it when writing to the judges: “I could have put them all in a hat and drawn three at random, so good have so many of the interviews been.”

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Do they mean us? How Sunderland fans shocked a Bristol Rovers Gashead

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Monsieur Salut writes: you might struggle to believe it but Doug Shields, a Bristol Rovers diehard, did an excellent and amusing Who are You? interview here before the game at the SoL. This offering also has its entertaining moments.

But he doesn’t seem to have enjoyed his brief acquaintance with our fans the other night.

A lot of what follows is about food and I do wonder whether sour grapes might have crept into Doug’s dietary programme.

Or perhaps all Gasheads are gentle, indeed genteel souls whose idea of letting their hair down is to have two sweet sherries, not one, to wash down their crustless cucumber sandwiches while mistaking ‘Ha’way’, meaning come on, for ‘away’. Little wonder us ruffians from the north seemed so uncouth. Let Doug, a self-confessed lager drinker, take up the story …

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Sunderland’s win at Bristol Rovers is also a win down Mexico way

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. This is a beauty but click on the image to view all Art of Football’s Sunderland-related treasures

As we all now know, the Checkatrade Trophy has assumed an importance the Champions League, the FA Cup and the Carabao can but envy. The semi-final win at Bristol Rovers, courtesy of Will Grigg’s first goal for Sunderland from open play and a second from Lewis Morgan, leaves us Wembley bound.

There is still much work to do in the league as we strive to take a top-two position. But for now, we can savour the moment and look forward to the March 31 final against Portsmouth. Two grand old clubs at Wembley = a sell-out crowd and a memorable occasion. More from Pete Sixsmith and/or Malcolm Dawson, both present at the Memorial Ground, will follow in due course but may have to await their return from the West Country. So let’s deal with other business …

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Sixer’s Checkatrade Seven: Singin’ in the rain at Bristol Rovers

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John McCormick writes: I thought we never looked like losing, and I like the way this club is shaping up for the end of the season. That doesn’t mean anything’s done and dusted yet, but as Pete Sixsmith’s post game seven word text makes clear, we have at least one pleasant diversion  to look forward to as well as a growing sense of belief

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