While walking from the Leigh Arms to Goodison Park Pete Sixsmith and I discovered we shared a tenuous connection through the Willy Russell play “Our Day Out”. Written in the seventies, it’s the story of a group of inner city Liverpool kids who are taken to Conway castle by their teacher. Some of the people they meet along the way form some harsh opinions. Perhaps it has a message for Mr. Halfon that one shouldn’t be too judgmental when meeting people from elsewhere.
John Mac writes: Man City breezed past second division Leeds on Sunday, extending to 41 years the length of time that has elapsed since United last won the FA Cup (they have won the league twice since then but that all seems a long time ago, too).
Forty years ago this fixture could have been the final had City not come up against a different second division side in the fifth round, one that was much, much better than the Leeds of today.
Following the weekend Sixer’s Sevens summing up that Man City-SAFC game, and better 40 years late than never, here is Pete Sixsmith‘s account of his trip to Maine Road, when the first of three teams from the top division succumbed to the Stokoe magic. The general plan is pursue our 1973 cup run in similar fashion until May 5. It beats getting upset again about our lamentably early exit this season …
You can pay £62 to see Arsenal play Man City or for half of that you can go to Wigan, …
Malcolm Dawson writes….The result at Southampton brought us some Christmas cheer but if truth be told I wasn’t full of …
A very productive week for all concerned in the Salut! Predictions League, a fact which must frustrate Bill and Robert …
Steve Bruce‘s dismissal of stories that he has put a £20m price tag on the head of Jordan Henderson is timely and wise.
One sure result of publicly stating such a value would be to announce to the world that Jordan was for sale.
And another would be to fix the quoted sum as the highly negotiable starting point, with one of the Manchester clubs, Chelsea or maybe even ‘appy ‘arry coming in with a joke offer of rather than less than half. For a player we very much want to stay at Sunderland anyway.
Behind the belligerence and the bombast, Sir Alex Ferguson reputedly has a sense of humour. Just as well; he’s going to need it …
Sir Alex Ferguson withdrew “with heavy heart” last night from the race for Jordan Henderson’s signature after Sunderland flatly rejected a Wayne Rooney+cash bid for the exciting young midfielder.
At long last, Sunderland are showing signs of being the useful team we thought Steve Bruce had assembled when we were beating Arsenal and Liverpool and getting so close to victory at Old Trafford.Pete Sixsmith awards warm praise where it’s due, but wishes we could have kept those signs evident for 94 minutes, not just 45 …
If you had been a Martian visiting our planet and been told there was a football match taking place between the richest club on Earth and a team struggling at the wrong end of the table, and the person telling you had forgotten to mention which team was which, you would have assumed yesterday that the one in Red and White stripes represented Croesus and the Blues were the strugglers.
Over the past few days, there have been some good exchanges between Sunderland and Man City supporters, especially – in the case of City – from the Bluemoon fans’ site.
Pete Sixsmith’s reminiscences on the day he took his Dad to see SAFC v City at Roker Park (a treat for a football fan, but Dad didn’t care for football) were rightly admired. City fans may challenge Pete’s observations on the match itself.
Now, Blues fans are, for obvious reasons, voicing their great hopes for Adam Johnson*, who returned to his native Sunderland to score the last-gasp equaliser. It was, in all honesty, deserved but broke our hearts all the same.
Come back for Pete Sixsmith’s more considered view from the East Stand. This is how it seemed based on a mixture of radio commentary and Sky …
Craig Gordon, John Mensah and, until forced off by injury at half time, Kenwyne Jones did not deserve to be in a non-winning team.
Image: 