Sixer’s substitute’s Soapbox: plenty to enjoy at Hartlepool

Malcolm Dawson climbs up on the soapbox
Malcolm Dawson climbs up on the soapbox

Malcolm Dawson writes…..the past few days have been a hectic time for our star reporter, Pete Sixsmith. Having been at the Shildon v Stranraer pre-season friendly, endured a soaking at Bishop Auckland, sunned himself at cricket in Scarborough, taken in a grand tour of Yorkshire mill towns by rail and then on to Carlisle for the first of back to back warm up games, last night’s visit to Hartlepool has left him exhausted.

This bright sunny Thursday morning sees him lying supine on the red velvet chaise longue at Sixsmith Towers with his copy of The Kenneth Horne Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and a DVD of The Hundred Greatest Moments from the North Dorset and South Wiltshire Combination Alliance League – Reserves Division to get him through the day. That and ever attentive butler Pardew, who keeps our sage’s glass of Dent Brewery “Owd Tup” topped up and regularly supplies him with morsels of Taylor’s pork pie.

So it falls to me to give the eye-witness view of events at Victoria Park last night and very interesting it was too ..

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Gus Poyet’s new contract: delight first, then relief and qualified hope

Jake: 'trust in Gus'
Jake: ‘trust in Gus’

Delight seemed as good a first response as any to news that Gus Poyet had signed a new contract, flattening all the speculation about being lured away to low-rent clubs in east London or on the south coast.

It keeps him, theoretically, at Sunderland until 2016 which translates as two seasons to do what no manager since Peter Reid, mid-term and only fleetingly, has managed since the first half of the 1950s (third in 1950, fourth in 1955), and restore to the club its historical upper-table status.

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All’s well that ends well

M Salut has put the “Wembley and safe” series to bed, leaving me to come up with a different way of passing on my thoughts about the season. So here’s the plot for a play with ten acts, one for each month. You could use alternative titles such as “Much ado about nothing“, “The tempest”, A comedy of errors,  or even “A man for all seasons” but I don’t think there’ll be many takers for “As you like it”

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Wembley and Safe (3): everything’s not all right

Jake is sleeping soundly again
Jake is sleeping soundly again

Jeremy Robson would be the first to acknowledge that he does not suffer fools gladly. Woe betide them, as our old teachers used to say, if the fools are currently wearing our red and white stripes. In an ideal Robson world, football would still be something viewed from the Clock Stand paddock of Roker Park, just to the left of the halfway line. Here’s Jeremy’s very particular take on the ups and downs of the season just ended …

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Wembley and Safe (2): soiling the hands to get at the gleaming coins

Jake is sleeping soundly again
Jake is sleeping soundly again

Colin Randall writes: the Wembley and Bust Safe series will now get more controversial. It is possible to rejoice at our salvation, and acclaim the manner in which is was achieved, while considering the season as a whole, with obvious moments of exception, to have been dire. Rob Hutchison did modify his review after the victory over West Brom. I wonder how he’d change it again after joining the London and SE branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association for the train journey to the final game …

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Wembley and Safe: (1) skies smiling at me after incredible SAFC season

Jake is sleeping soundly again
Jake is sleeping soundly again

Monsieur Salut writes: the series is here. I know I said at Salut! Sunderland, and at ESPN, that it would wait until after the final game. But that was because the two contributions I’d so far received were negative, one more than the other. It did not seem right, after so astonishing an escape won on merit, to precede what is now a relaxed end-of-season party with gloomy recriminations about what went on before. Salut! Sunderland‘s erudite deputy editor, Malcolm Dawson, has changed my mind. His piece is realistic but upbeat, difficult as any Sunderland fan could be the latter about events from August to mid-April apart from the cup runs and derby wins.

There’s plenty of room for criticism and the next instalment will prove it. But for now, the last game still awaited, let us hear how Malcolm approached the season’s denouement …

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