John McCormick writes: With a traveller like Pete Sixsmith on our books we’re always going to be able to tell a tale or two to enthrall our readers, and it’s no surprise that Pete’s home and away “First Time” series have gone down great guns. But Pete’s not the only one with long memories and we’ve all come up with tales of trips, wins and losses which have gone down in legend. So too with players. Cloughie (I never saw him) Charlie Hurley, Quinn and SuperKev, perhaps, or lesser heroes like Danny bloody Graham – whom I actually did see score a goal. But it’s not always Sunderland players, our writers and readers are renowned for their fairness and am
n ability to recognise class. So we’re taking a little trip away from the Stadium of Light to revisit some of Ken Gambles’ early heroes.
Here’s how M Salut introduced Ken’s piece in March, 2015, not long after the death of one of them, double winning Dave McKay, with the title:
Ken Gambles is Sunderland through and through. But the recent death of Dave Mackay got him thinking back to some of the giants of English football seen in his student days. Let Ken reacquaint older readers with – and introduce younger ones to – some of the players who gave him such pleasure without ever pulling on the red and white stripes of Sunderland …
John McCormick writes: I didn’t see much of last night’s game. I did see Jack Rodwell’s foul and would have had him off at half time to prevent a potential second yellow. But David Moyes apparently didn’t think there was any need to worry; Rodwell stayed on and had a “quietly effective game”, according to Pete Sixsmith.
What else did Pete note?
Find out for yourself as he regales us with not only another fine match report but also a slight diversion down memory lane, past Roker Park and towards 1961, when Spurs used only 17 players, all from the UK, in doing the double.
