Gillingham

Test Matches and Sunderland playoffs. Part one: Gillingham and Newcastle United

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Jake prepares for the play offs

John McCormick writes: I had a taxi booked for this morning. It arrived late. Apparently, there were fewer on the road than usual and those that were there were being driven by Evertonians. It would have been a fine night in the city centre.

All this season and last, Pete Sixsmith has brought us his twin series of reminiscences recalling the first time he visited the homes of upcoming opponents or the first time he saw them on be that on Wearside at Roker Park or the Stadium of Light, or occasionally at places like Darlington or Hartlepool.

Before he started on this epistle from the past he had this to say on last night’s game at Anfield.

My seven-word verdict on last night’s Champions League turnaround would have been: Bottled it and beaten by Farringdon’s finest.

I rarely watch games on television – and never when Robbie Savage is “summarising”- but I did watch this one and revelled in a wonderful team performance by Liverpool. At the head of it was our former player, Jordan Henderson, who never stopped running and tackling, who set up the opening goal for Origi and who was a fine captain deserving of all the success that is coming his way. I’m not a great lover of the club or some of its self-satisfied fans, but I do like Jurgen Klopp.

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Sixer’s Sevens: Gillingham shown what for as Will Grigg steps up

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Jake: catch Sixer’s instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season

John McCormick writes: For 10 minutes I was winning a mug but I was worried, especially as Pete Sixsmith had sent a half time text saying “Our defending is barely Northern League standard”. Then we got that second pen and I began to relax a little, even though that mug was mine no longer. As for Pete, he found something to celebrate – in muted terms – in another text at the end of the match

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Sunderland vs Gillingham prize Guess the Score

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Off on holiday the morning after the Accrington Stanley game, Monsieur Salut presents a pre-prepared edition of prize Guess the Score, with Gillingham condemned to the long midweek trek north …

When Sunderland travelled to Gillingham back in August, the emphatic 4-1 win was the third of the new season and seemed likely to be followed by a smooth ascent into the top two. They scored first but even that early setback was nullified a minute later as we romped to victory.

Peterborough and Portsmouth had won their first four games, so SAFC had to settle that evening for fourth place, having dropped one point. But it was reasonable to expect the leaders would fade as we continued to assert ourselves under new management and new ownership, with a fresh-looking squad.

Twelve more League One draws later (as I write, prior to the Accrington Stanley game), we know how that expectation came unstuck.

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Barnsley lurk behind Peterborough, Portsmouth and Sunderland, while Charlton and Coventry stutter.

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With a break this weekend it’s time to revisit our “Ones to watch”.

If you’ve been following this series you’ll remember that we’re tracking six clubs over the course of the season. The six were chosen by a people’s vote, that new tool of democracy,  with the club which came top of the poll – Coventry City – also providing a baseline against which the other five will be compared.

If you’re wondering how Coventry came to be chosen click the hyperlinks at the bottom of the page. (And if you want to see how I’ve followed our selected teams in previous seasons you can follow this link ).

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Coventry are base as Peterborough join Charlton, Barnsley and Portsmouth (and SAFC) on our watch list

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There should have been an update to this series (see the archive links below for the earlier posts) at the start of the season but I travelled up early for the Charlton game, spending the Friday in Leeds before driving on to the North-East, then when I got back home I did a match report to complement Pete Sixsmith’s and didn’t have time for anything else.

This was followed by five games in two weeks, with no space to fit anything in, and here we are.

This means my last post in the series was the one that explained the role of Coventry City‘s fans in propelling their club up and Sunderland down in our poll and asked who should be the sixth team to join Coventry, Sunderland, Charlton, Barnsley and Portsmouth in our  deliberations. Peterborough was the very clear preference from the four choices offered; they got more votes than the other three clubs (Southend, Plymouth and Luton) combined.

Those six will be the ones we start with, and I can’t imagine it changing before Christmas.

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Sixer’s Soapbox: Gillingham are good. We are better

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Pete Sixsmith popped into the library at Rochester to type his report from the Gillingham match, one he thoroughly enjoyed. After the 4-1 victory at the Priestfield, he’s heading on to Wimbledon, where we hope the Sunderland revival will continue.

No doubt Pete will fill the time with cultural activities and the occasional partaking of refreshment, in the manner described below. Let’s hope he he finds another library, for accounts of his travels make an excellent read even when they don’t focus on the main purpose of his trip

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Sixer’s Gillingham Sevens: a Sunderland romp in Kent

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Monsieur Salut says: for once in my life, I hardly blinked when an opposing side, Gillingham, took an early lead. I just knew we’d bounce back and almost from the re-start, that’s what we did. In what seems to have been a splendid first-half attacking display, Sunderland proceeded to go 3-1 up, Josh Maja adding a fourth in the second half. From Barnes and Benno, I gathered that we rode our luck on occasion but deserved the victory because we took our chances and Gillingham didn’t. ‘Job done,’ they agreed …

Pete Sixsmith was there, enjoying his first visit to Kent for a game involving SAFC, so it’s his seven-word verdict you see below. He’ll find dozens of non-league games to take in before the Wimbledon game on Saturday but this is as good a start as he could have imagined to his travels down south …

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