EFL League One

A look back at what Salut! Sunderland’s Sixer made of Shrewsbury Town and its meadows

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Pete Sixsmith

NB: we’re back after our technical problems – but you, the readers, aren’t yet back as fully as we’d like. Unfortunately, you cannot post comments. We are working on this.

In the meantime, you can always have your say on anything that appears here, or for that matter any SAFC topics which do not, at Salut! Sunderland’s Facebook group.  Click on any of the preceding four words. If you are told that you need to join the group, you can do so easily. Approval is very quick.

If you do try to post a comment here, it will be stored in our beneath-the-bonnet files and one of these days, one of us will get round to reproducing them all …

Colin Randall writes: an appalling admission but yes, this is my debut for the season. Just back from France before the drawbridge is raised, I am heading for Shrewsbury hoping to witness an away win to match Phil Parkinson’s stomping first experience of being in charge of a home game. Pete Sixsmith’s superb series on his own first encounters with Sunderland’s opposing teams and their grounds ran its course last season. Here, though, is a reminder of one of its many fine moments – memories of both the old Gay Meadow ground and its successor, New Meadow …  

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Sixer’s Sevens. Sunderland 5 Tranmere Rovers 0. Can’t be bad!

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NB: our technical problems have not been completely fixed. Readers cannot post comments. We are working on this.

In the meantime, you can always have your say on anything that appears here, or for that matter any SAFC topics which do not, at Salut! Sunderland’s Facebook group.  Click on any of the preceding four words. If you are told that you need to join the group, you can do so easily. Approval is very quick.

 

Pete Sixsmith returned from a well-earned break to find the site laid low by technical issues and a team laid low by technical superiority.

Could a quick return to the Stadium of Light provide an opportunity for the team to recover? His seven-word, post-game text, not to mention the result, would seem to suggest it could.

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Sunderland vs Tranmere Rovers: hoping for that delayed new manager bounce

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Jake: ‘no messing this time … please’

NB: our technical problems have not been completely fixed. Readers cannot post comments. We are working on this.

In the meantime, you can always have your say on anything that appears here, or for that matter any SAFC topics which do not, at Salut! Sunderland’s Facebook group.  Click on any of the preceding four words. If you are told that you need to join the group, you can do so easily. Approval is very quick.

In the Premier League, we moaned as Sunderland put in one rotten display after another. In the Championship, it was the same as, far from pushing for immediate promotion, we disintegrated as a side and almost as a club.

Last season, we whinged about all those draws. Yet we reached Wembley twice and nearly got back up again, gifted an own goal in the opening minutes of the playoff final only to devise a way of losing.

And this season, we find ourselves with a new manager rather earlier in the season than appeared in the script. And in 10th place after more rotten displays, most recently a 1-0 defeat at mighty Wycombe Wanderers.

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Wycombe Wanderers vs Sunderland: a good one to win from ninth place

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Jake: ‘must be the kind fo game we have to win’

At first glance, the League one table makes for depressing perusal. Sunderland and down to ninth and are now eight points behind the convincing leaders, Ipswich Town, with no games in hand.

The second glance makes it seem more respectable. We are just one point behind a top six place and have two games in hand over Blackpool in sixth with the same pathetic goal difference of +2.

This Saturday’s opponents, Wycombe Wanderers, are second and only four points ahead of SAFC having played one game more. So leave aside Ipswich’s so far exemplary sprint to the top and we remain competitive.

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Sunderland’s lengthening list of promotion rivals: Ipswich, plus Rotherham, Peterborough, Portsmouth and Doncaster (or Wycombe, Fleetwood, Blackpool and Coventry)

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Another weekend without football, another weekend providing space to keep our readers – and pundits – up to date with our chosen clubs. If you think as far back as the start of the season you’ll probably recall six clubs being selected by our readership as the most likely to finish in the top six slots come the end of the season.

Sunderland made the cut but would have been selected regardless. The other five clubs were Ipswich Town, Rotherham, Peterborough Portsmouth and Doncaster. Ipswich apart, they haven’t done as well as expected. In fact, they haven’t done as well as Sunderland who, as the first two graphs show, haven’t done as well as they did last season

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Sixer’s Sevens: Lincoln 2 Sunderland 0, Sixsmith 4

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At 3,12pm the BBC reported Chris Maguire had been sent off. In the absence of any confirmation from Pete Sixsmith I went looking elsewhere and found a site that gave the score at 2-0. It was quickly corrected to 1-0, something Pete did confirm. How many League games since we prevented our opponents from scoring?

Pete became a bit busier after half-time, sending four seven word texts instead of the usual one:

A performance flatter than the Lincolnshire countryside

Imps cause Ross all kinds of trouble

Outplayed and out thought by rampant Imps

And one that says it all:

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Lincoln City vs Sunderland: more points on the board please, Lads

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Jake: nowt for Lincoln City and three or four for SAFC would make for a good-looking scoreline’


A well-known writer on Sunderland AFC has solemnly declared that this Saturday’s visit to Lincoln City will be the farthest south he will travel this season in the cause of following the team.

It remains to be seen whether that writer, none other than our own Pete Sixsmith, will maintain this boycott of half the country if promotion ends up being potentially sealed at, say, Burton in April. Or indeed if we return to Wembley for some reason.

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Substitute Sixer’s Soapbox: an ultimately shaky win over MK Dons and ‘unhelpful constant criticism’ of Ross

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Readers will know we have been experiencing technical problems caused by a malicious redirection of certain of our pages to a scummy Turkish escort site. Salut! Sunderland is now more secure (at a hefty price) but neither that, nor as much self-help and professional cleansing as we have been able to do without further expenditure, has rid us of this Turkish blight.

When a page redirects to Istanbul – as happened with Sixer’s Sevens after the MK Dons match and this full report by our deputy editor Malcolm Dawson – we are excluded from the invaluable headline-grabbing newsnow.co.uk site and the number of readers plummets alarmingly.

Reposting, while irrtating for readers who have already seen the relevant item, has been known to help. So we are today republishing Malcolm’s outstanding analysis in the hope it may avoid the vulture-like attentions of our friends from the east and attract the audience it deserves.

A full professional clean-up to eliminate (maybe!)  the bug would be too expensive so if anyone knows a SAFC-supporting IT wizard who would be happy to do it for a pittance, please say so …

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Sixer’s MK Dons Sevens: a flying start but nervy 2-1 win

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Monsieur Salut writes: Pete Sixsmith greatly enjoyed his midweek trip to Bramall Lane, a winning display on the field enhanced by a feelgood, relatively sober atmosphere among our travelling fans.

And so back to the mundane but – surely for us – more important world of League One. Sixer was there with our associate editor John McCormick in the East Stand, deputy editor Malcolm Dawson back in his usual seat so a decent turn-out for the Salut! Sunderland editorial team.

A bright start produced two goals, another cracker for Max Power – ‘even better than on Wednesday at Sheff Utd’, said Sixer – and a second from Luke O’Nien. At half time, Pete deplored ‘another spineless referee’ for failing to reduce ‘Franchise FC’ to 10 men for an assault on O’Nien that screamed red but drew yellow.

Jake: ‘from Spain, it sounded like the classic game of two halves’

In true Sunderland fashion, we failed to build on or convincingly defend even a two-goal lead and, as Ipswich coasted to victory at home to Tranmere, a goal was duly conceded.

Sixer reported us ‘living on our nerves’ while Gary Bennett said we looked too much like an away team clinging on desperately to a slim lead. That said, we did hang on and three valuable points are ours. Pete’s seven-word verdict – take your pick from the two he offered – will be followed by a full appraisal …

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