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.
Jake: ‘thanks to all who participate’. Click this image to see all of this seaon’s interviewsWith nominations about to close in Salut! Sunderland’s annual HAWAY awards – the prizes offered for best interviews with opposing fans over the season just ended – there is a clear front runner.
Since judging is not quite complete, and readers may still take part as previously invited simply by adding their choices in order of first-second-third in the Comments below, it would be premature to give away more.
Nominations close at midnight UK time so there is not much time left for stragglers, and we do have a quorum with votes already cast by several contributors.
A proud heritage trashed by gruesome mismanagement (listening, Ellis?)
Monsieur Salut writes: this is obviously the grimmest evening, in footballing terms, since Salut! Sunderland was created back at the beginning of 2007 (a promotion season under Keano). We’ll all have more to say and we’ll all, by and large, go on supporting our club. Here are some immediate thoughts …
It took me several looks at the bottom of the table, and at the remaining fixtures, before I finally accepted that there was no longer any permutation that could, however remote the thought, keep Sunderland up.
The stark reality is that there can have been few more deserved relegations in the history of English football. Most of the other contenders for that description involved us, too.
You could see it coming, couldn’t you. Darren Bent comes on with 15 minutes left and equalises with two minutes to go. Then in injury time they score a second from another cross. Which just goes to show that what we’ve been saying all season – indeed, for a few seasons, is correct: You can create all the midfield play you want but you without a proven goalscorer it will come to nothing. So we’re sunk and Burton might think they did enough to stay up today. One of the seven word texts Pete Sixsmith sent: “clear why these two are going down” suggests not, but let’s concentrate on ourselves, as Pete sent another at the final whistle:
Sixer: soon to be reunited with cricket grounds and tasty cornets
Salut! Sunderland didn’t get round to entering this year’s football blogging awards. This was not a case of sour grapes after our also-ran status in previous years; the deadline simply came and went. Perhaps we should just have sent the organisers links to Pete Sixsmith‘s matchday reports and the twin series, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Team/The First Time Ever I Saw Your Ground. In a fair world, we’d then have walked it. Voting still seems to be open so you can keep it in the family and give Roker Report a helping hand.
Here, Sixer admits to being a little lost for words when describing a team Sunderland have played only once (he was there) having written this cracking piece before his visit. What more is there to say, beyond reflecting on a rare SAFC win that should have changed the course of our horrendous season but didn’t? …
Tricky one this: the Brewers have only ever played us once and that was five months ago when George Honeyman and James Vaughan scored in our 2-0 win at the Pirelli Stadium. This was the game that many of us thought would see us turn the corner, move up the league and maybe get on the fringe of the playoffs.
Shows how much we know.
Monsieur Salut writes: the pain of relegation is not eased that much because everyone expected you to go down anyway. But Dave Child*, who combines being a fully-fledged Brewer with a spot of radio commentary (that’s how he met PDC), didn’t think the season would be as bad for Burton — or us for that matter – after their escape a year ago. I took the easy option for this edition of ‘Who are You?’, not because there are so few Burton fans to choose from but because Dave did a good job first time round and is a home-and-away regular who’ll be at our last-but-one home game this Saturday.
Dave is also a food critic, reviewing pies at the grounds he visits. Let’s see what he makes of the SoL fare …
There is a prize. You judge whether it’s a great one
First of all, let Salut! Sunderland add its tribute to the supporters who have put up with this season’s woeful absence of quality, commitment and results and attended games week after week.
Almost as a further act of torture, the mathematical possibility of survival cannot vanish altogether if SAFC beat Burton Albion in what otherwise looks little more than a case of who avoids bottom place.
And if two out of three – Bolton (home to Wolves), Barnsley (away to Leeds) and Birmingham (home to Sheff Utd) – were to lose this weekend, a win for us would keep a weak flame flickering. It’s more complicated than that, with three possible relegation sides battling for points and Barnsley also having their game in hand at Forest on Tuesday, but that about sums it up.
It’s also the stuff of flying pigs. Bolton and Birmingham only need to draw and SAFC to lose for us to be down whatever happens to Barnsley.
Sixer tastes the tropical flavour of a County Durham winter as he delivers the papers
Most weeks, readers of Salut! Sunderland drop by on Friday morning to catch the latest instalment in Pete Sixsmith’s twin series, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Ground (if the game in question is away), Team (if it’s at the Stadium of Light).
This week, the Millwall edition was posted earlier than usual – namely at this link.
Malcolm Dawson writes…..jings it’s cold up in the North East of England this morning. Occupied as he is at this time of year, with sacks of various types, distributing news to the good folk of Shildon and gifts to the children of the populace who flock to see the great man in Weardale and Tyneside at this pre-festive time, Lord Peter Sixsmith, has today delegated the task of reporting on yesterday’s rare, but welcome events in a place where proper pubs survive, where Marstons brew the Burton Union way, where buns are cobs and “arrrl reet marra” is translated as “ay up duck” to one of the underlings who ensure that all goes well at Sixsmith Towers on such a rare occasion. So don your quilted maroon smoking jacket and read on as you tuck into the kedgeree and devilled kidneys …
