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.
I expected to be finishing this series with a single post. It’s just not possible. While things have moved ahead with Blackpool, they seems to have stalled at Bolton and Sunderland still have to get out of the starting blocks. And as for Bury, their can has been kicked far down the road in the hope of allowing a solution that it reached the start of next season. Unfortunately, that only seems to have allowed more problems to build up, or at least existing ones to grow.
And with that the word length just kept getting bigger and bigger and the page length longer and longer. So once more I’ve decided to split the page and give you a where we’re at with Bolton and Blackpool and leave Bury and Sunderland to another day.
As ever supporters of both Blackpool and Bolton are welcome to chip in with their corrections, additions, thoughts, observations, even hopes, subject to the rules of decency, libel and so on. You maybe held for moderation but any posts meeting our standards do go up eventually.
Here are the last five of the clubs in League One apart from Blackpool, Bolton, Bury and Sunderland, who will arrive presently, by which I mean when I get round to it.
As ever, visiting fans are welcome to post comments, corrections, updates and their thoughts on their and other clubs’ prospects for the season.
It was on 18th June that I put up the first in this series, covering the League One clubs beginning A-L, apart from Bury, Blackpool and Bolton. This, part two, was intended to cover the back end of the alphabet but, at 2,300 words, ended up far too big for a single webpage.
There was only one answer. I had to split the piece and cover only five clubs, meaning there will be a part three for the last five and part four for the Lancashire Bs and Sunderland. These will arrive at some yet undetermined point in the future, bet you can’t wait.
Get the vocal chords in order for another mighty effort
This time last year, we were wondering whether a May weekend in Southend would be our promotion party. We know what happened to that fond dream.
How do you all fancy Rotherham as the ideal place to celebrate a return to the Championship?
It’s just a provisional list, liable to change for international demands, congestion caused by cup ties and TV.
And it starts with a home game against Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven’s lifelong football passion, Oxford United.
We have no idea what kind of line-up will be available to Jack Ross for Aug 3. We do know the team will get a hearty backing with 22,000 season tickets already sold. And it is clear beyond doubt that after the disappointments of the season just ended, a good start will be expected.
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 …
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.
John McCormick writes: For some reason the newsfeeds that pick up Salut! posts didn’t pick up the original of this one. There may be technical solutions involving spiders, RSS feeds and index urls but we’re taking a shortcut by reposting this article under another title. This will help ensure that Pete’s prose gets the readership it deserves. Those of you with RSS subscriptions might be slightly put out to find you have essentially the same post twice while some might be annoyed to find that logging on was pointless. For that, we apologise. Others, of course, will enjoy a second opportunity to read the Master’s work and say no apology is needed.
And wasn’t it good to see three former Sunderland players turn out for Europe’s top final, and to see one of them, and a special one of them at that, lift the cup.
Colin Randall, aka Monsieur Salut, writes: week after week, men and (less often) women report for newspapers, radio and television on football. Some are extremely gifted, other are less so but perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Bosses, as ever, will get away with not paying people if they can but by and large these writers and broadcasters receive salaries or fees for their efforts.
On sites like ours, usually with very limited income and sometimes with none, the work is willingly done for free. We are fortunate to be blessed with excellent contributors; just take a look at the articles from Malcolm Dawson, John McCormick, Bob Chapman, Ken Gambles, Wrinkly Pete, Lars Knutsen, Bill Taylor, John Marshall and others too numerous to mention. Jake, alias John Clark, chips in with neat illustrations.
Pete Sixsmith towers above all but the very finest of the professionals with his outstanding combination of footballing and general knowledge, natural eloquence and wit. As a journalist, I have been edited as frequently as I have edited others, among them some important others. Pete’s prose never needs more than the lightest of touches.
His material reward is next to nothing, save for the rather rare share of modest advertising revenue and the odd – and also rare – freebie.
Salut! Sunderland‘s audience can number a few thousand on exceptional days but more typically hovers somewhere in the high three figures. Sixer richly deserves to be read by many more. Here is his review of the 2018-19 season, another piece of splendid writing to close the series …
Pete Sixsmith’s peerless analysis of only Sunderland’s second season in the third tier is deliberately timed to coincide with the moment Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur kick off in the Champions’ League final in Madrid (OK a bit early to make sure). Just felt right …
Colin Randall, aka Monsieur Salut, writes: week after week, men and (less often) women report for newspapers, radio and television on football. Some are extremely gifted, other are less so but perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Bosses, as ever, will get away with not paying people if they can but by and large these writers and broadcasters receive salaries or fees for their efforts.
On sites like ours, usually with very limited income and sometimes with none, the work is willingly done for free. We are fortunate to be blessed with excellent contributors; just take a look at the articles from Malcolm Dawson, John McCormick, Bob Chapman, Ken Gambles, Wrinkly Pete, Lars Knutsen, Bill Taylor, John Marshall and others too numerous to mention. Jake, alias John Clark, chips in with neat illustrations.
Pete Sixsmith towers above all but the very finest of the professionals with his outstanding combination of footballing and general knowledge, natural eloquence and wit. As a journalist, I have been edited as frequently as I have edited others, among them some important others. Pete’s prose never needs more than the lightest of touches.
His material reward is next to nothing, save for the rather rare share of modest advertising revenue and the odd – and also rare – freebie.
Salut! Sunderland‘s audience can number a few thousand on exceptional days but more typically hovers somewhere in the high three figures. Sixer richly deserves to be read by many more. Here is his review of the 2018-19 season, another piece of splendid writing to close the series …
For Wrinkly Pete, otherwise known as Peter Lynn, in this penultimate instalment of Salut! Sunderland‘s annual series of end-of-season reviews, promotion would have been premature, exposing Sunderland to a challenging time in the Championship. He may be right, though most of us probably wanted to go up all the same.
But Pete refuses to see another League One season as too much of a hardship. He has enjoyed himself in the one just ended and most of all at away games.
Pete Sixsmith concludes the series tomorrow with a magnificent appraisal of our season. It is timed to appear just as Liverpool kick off against Spurs in Madrid so you’ll know where to turn should that event fall below expectations …
