John McCormick writes, I’m not sure whether or not I ever saw Luton during the sixties. Pete Sixsmith didn’t, so I doubt that I did. I might have seen them in the game below but it’s unlikely as I was in my first year away and didn’t go back that often. I did go back two years later, though, when I was one of 53,000 that saw us cruise past Luton in a cup game. Can you guess what year that was without reading Pete’s piece?
What a stupid question. Why would anyone not want to read Pete’s piece?
NB: Richard has now, at Monsieur Salut’s request, expanded on his acclaim for Barnsley. See below for the longer response to the relevant question
Monsieur Salut writes: back when played Luton Town at Kenilworth Road in the second game of the season, our Hatters’ Who are You? interviewee Richard Armstrong correctly predicted a 1-1 draw. He thought then that after the glory of promotion the previous season, Luton would be mid-table while we would reach the playoffs.
Given all that has happened since, with Luton second top one place ahead of us, it seemed a good idea to go back to him ahead of Saturday’s crucial return. What does Richard think now, how will Nathan Jones’s departure for the manager’s job at Stoke affect the Hatters and do Sunderland now look capable of winning automatic promotion? Read on and, if you’ve seen all the League One frontrunners, let us know whether you agree on who is best of the bunch ..
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.”
We know it. They know it. The Charlton game was important but Saturday’s battle of third-top, Sunderland, versus second-top, Luton Town, is immense.
The stakes are perfectly simple. Win and Sunderland go second in Luton’s place, still enjoying a game in hand. Lose and we lose that game-in-hand advantage as the Hatters will have stretched the gap between us to four points.
A draw, disappointing as it would be to fail to improve on the 1-1 outcome at their place, would at least leave things as they are, though a glance at the fixtures shows top-of-the-table Portsmouth have an eminently winnable home tie against Blackpool. Sunderland and Jack Ross have to show they can rise to what will be a high-pressure occasion.
Your task is the guess the score at the Stadium of Light.
Lars Knutsen makes a welcome return to these pages with his view of the season so far, a quick take on the Charlton game that adds a new dimension to Colin’s report and a perspective that I suspect very very of us will have taken as we watch the “will he, won’t he stay” saga unfold in the context of some very real team and fan bonding. It’s well worth a read …
Regular readers will know that the Salut team make occasional appearances in the official matchday programme. Recent visitors will know that my last contribution came at the end of 2018, when I wrote about my take on the year before the Shrewsbury game.
However, that piece only came about after Sunderland had to fit in an extra cup game following our draw at Walsall.
I was originally asked to do something for the Bristol Rovers programme, with a focus on League One’s promotion challengers over the Christmas/New Year period. The extra game forced a change to the timetable and then other events took over, with the result that the piece I duly sent off never made it into print.
Monsieur Salut writes: my thanks to Dave Suddick, from our Facebook group, for the shot of SAFC’s marvellous travelling support as seen from his seat with a Charlton friend. I felt for an unexpectedly absent Pete Sixsmith, recuperating after surgery but in remarkably good spirits before and after, as I joined my pal and former colleague Kevin Maguire, and his pals from the Jarrow branch of the SAFCSA, at the Valley. Dave’s photo reminds me of Kevin’s own memories of Roker Park; he was a Fulwell Ender but once went into the Roker End just to see what the Fulwell looked like.
We were in for decent value for our £24 tickets though the entertaining nature of the game could not overcome Sunderland supporters’ disappointment that having weathered a Charlton storm after their fortunate equaliser, we could not take chances that would have lifted us to second place ….
John McCormick writes. Like Blackpool, this one was on the itinerary I compiled early in the summer. Like Blackpool, it didn’t survive my first scrutiny of the fixture list, which is a pity as I’ve never been to the Valley and I was looking forward to it.
Pete Sixsmith has, of course, so here he is setting the scene for our second away trip of 2019 and, as he says, it’s a cracker
At one stage Monsieur Salut thought that he might not find a Charlton fan to keep our Who Are You series up to date but thanks to the wonders of social media – and especially the Charlton fan site Into the Valley – the Addicks came up trumps and long term supporter Richard Justham took up the challenge and provided us with a comprehensive set of responses to our questions.
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 …