Finished 3-3: this report now supersed by https://safc.blog/2012/03/sixers-sevens-manchester-city-3-safc-3-and-it-feels-like-losing/
We have not won at Man City since 1998, when Kevin Phillips scored the only goal at Maine Road. We managed to score twice in the first half in the grander surrounds of the Etihad today.
It all began so well with a comfortable win over QPR that dumped them in the relegation zone and, with Everton winning 2-0 at Swansea, pushed us back up to eighth top. Unfortunately, Everton had the taste for victory more powerfully rooted in their mouths and proceeded to repeat the scoreline at the Stadium of Light.
A great excuse reached me today to remind everyone of the Salut! Sunderland competition in which you are invited to guess the score of tomorrow’s game between Manchester City and Martin O’Neill’s finest.
Rick Haswell-Cohen* is a lucky lad. Fell in love with and married a Mackememoiselle, then woke up one morning to news that the team he’d always supported was suddenly mega-rich. Salut! Sunderland is deeply grateful to Rick, creator of the North-eastern branch of the Manchester City Supports’ Club, for stepping in despite huge pressure of work when the original volunteer had to withdraw. The goodwill has its limits: he doesn’t think the Etihad will be the start of our process of getting over cup disappointment…
Better late than never, Pete Sixsmith weighs in with his thoughts on a momentous day …
The East Stand went mad. The West Stand, containing new season card holders Mr and Mrs Horan, went mad. The Directors’ Box must have gone mad. One man went so mad that he attempted to French kiss Ji Dong Wan.
Maggie your boys took one hell of a beating and all that. This is for connoisseurs of extravagant football commentary … and this brilliantly edited version, which cannot be embedded, is even better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3iQbKNGZis
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It is the sports editor’s nightmare: you send your best reporter to a contender for match of the season.
It turns out to be an astonishing day packed with drama and emotion. You prepare to clear the front page for his lucid prose. And then he lamely cries off, citing “what looks like a serious computer problem”.
Hilary Fawcett has proclaimed her admiration of Sir Alex Ferguson, whose many achievements include making everyone at Salut! Sunderland feel impossibly young. That doesn’t stop her taking a bit of pleasure, even before we saw off Mancini City, in the ruination of his 70th birthday party …
This is a day every Sunderland supporter will savour for a long time. Martin O’Neill was forced by injuries and …
This is where Pete Sixsmith captures the glory and shame, hope and despair, excitement and ennui of the Sunderland matchday experience. When, rarely, Pete is absent or delayed, a supersub does it for him and the seven-word verdict is preceded by an asterisk. Pete’s full analysis of the game will usually appear within a day or two. Today was a day of unqualified glory.