Malcolm Dawson writes….Dennis Walton became the proud owner of two Sunderland inspired designer mugs, courtesy of our sponsors Personalised Football …
As regulars know, or should know, a rollover stops at two at Salut! Sunderland. We don’t want to annoy our sponsors, Personalised Football Gifts by having them pack threes and fours.
But just in case we do get back to Wembley this season wouldn’t it be nice to have that pair of mugs as souvenirs of the 4th round?
Sunderland vs Liverpool. This has not been a happy fixture in most of SAFC’s seasons in the Premiership and Premier League.
From head-to-head stats at Liverpool Online, I calculate that in 13 top-flight meetings since the FA Cup final of 1992, which they won 2-0 of course, Sunderland have won three, two have been drawn and Liverpool have claimed all three points eight times.
No one guessed SAFC 1-3 Hull. Plenty among us saw the potential for a traditional flop immediately following a derby win, but the common Guess the Score practice is to be, or appear, positive.
Drummer was chuffed to win the Aston Villa competition but would probably have gone happily without his prize mug in return for one of Connor Wickham’s shots being a little more, er, hard to save.
Here, then, with the Christmas greetings of all at Salut! Sunderland to all who read it, is the latest Guess the Score competition.
After the excitement of Sunday, it’s back to basics with a mug from Personalised Football Gifts as the prize.
I still have a card my mother once sent me. It showed a long-suffering wife looking daggers at her old man as he hands her the most romantic birthday present he could think of getting: “Here you are, pet. Just what you always wanted. A framed pitcha of the Sunderland football team.”
Well, look at the mug above. Imagine it as a smart framed photograph. It will be yours if you are the first to post a correct prediction of the score for Sunday’s derby at St James’ Park.
In his winning stab at 0-0 for Liverpool vs Sunderland, Paul Devine – soon to be the owner of two splendid mugs – said: “One pointer could well be Liverpool’s date with Basel, where winning could mean El Dorado.”
Fat lot of good that did Brendan Rodgers, then, if they really did have an eye on last night’s game as opposed to just being not very good.
The only way forward is to forget the most recent past. Let’s all regard SAFC 1-4 Manchester City as if it were another country, some minor detail of history (as Jean-Marie Le Pen once described the Holocaust). Just get out there at Anfield and rattle a few cages again.
Can we bounce back? Can we pressurise Simon Mignolet into making one or two of those unforced errors of his, or reduce Jordan to his ineffectual, own goal-scoring self of earlier in the season?
You don’t get long to rest on your laurels in the Premier League.
In a fairer world, Sunderland would have had a week to bask in the glory of the invigorating and much-praised performance against Chelsea. Or there’d even be an international break with Roy Hodgson putting away those blinkers and handing Lee Cattermole his first full England cap.
We don’t often do well against them at home, but when we do it’s spectacular. Most of us recall that …