After a disappointing first 45 minutes of our League One season – and let it be one season, for the right reason – goals from Josh Maja and, in the dying moments of the game, Lynden Gooch brought three massively encouraging points against Charlton Athletic.
Pete Sixsmith was not alone in representing the Salut! Sunderland editorial team at the Stadium of Light. Malcolm Dawson, deputy editor, and John McCormick, associate editor, too their places, too, among a remarkable 31,079 in the qround, leaving poor old Monsieur Salut – in London too briefly to be able to get up north for the game – to make do with Barnes and Benno after one local pub failed to stop the live coverage channel bouncing to Sky News and the other refused to show it.
When we went one down, to a penalty converted with absolute predictability by Lyle Taylor, who chose to join Charlton and not us in the close season, I feared the worst. But B&B saw lots of positives, Maja grabbed the equaliser as we appeared to improve greatly on a mostly poor first 45 minutes and, from what Benno described as an Oviedo cross of great quality, Gooch headed the winner.
Here, Sixer resumes his traditional seven-word summaries of each match he attends. He emphasises the important role played by the academy and in a second verdict, added ‘Top of the league; SAFC are top’. Rest assured he’ll have more to say later …