Yes, everyone will remember Jermain Defoe’s goal-of-the-season contender. Tim Krul will especially remember it, having been rubbished by an infantile lynch mob led by Jamie Carragher for his sportsmanlike gesture of congratulation in the tunnel at half time.
But spare some thoughts, too, for Billy Jones and William Cowell.
Pete Sixsmith witnesses a good, solid performance with more than a hint of Dick Advocaat’s ‘win ugly’ strategy but also a goal of the utmost quality. This was the sort of display that will, if maintained, keep the crowd on the players’ side and secure the necessary points before those dreaded final trips to the Emirates and Stamford Brdige …
John McCormick writes:
It was a special day.
At about half three I was in the Liverpool Women’s hospital, holding my new-born granddaughter.
“It’s been a good weekend,” I said to Peter, my Blackburn-season-ticket-holding-son-in-law.
“Yes”, he said. “Before Leeds I said all we needed was three points and a baby”.
“Three points and a baby. That’ll do me,” I thought.
And I hoped like hell, as we drove home, trying to hear the radio above the noise of grandma and auntie Helen in the back, that that’s what it would be.
Sixer has had the first of his says – https://safc.blog/2015/04/sixers-sevens-sunderland-1-newcastle-united-0-defoe-makes-adams-looks-ordinary/ – and Monsieur Salut has done the balancing act tequired at ESPNC (http://www.espnfc.com/club/sunderland/366/blog). But if we are honest, it all comes down to the result – what three points mean to our prospects of survival and what doing it five in a row against Newcastle means for tribal instinct.
Here’s Rob Hutchison‘s appraisal, one word per players but read each word in sequence and you’ll get his drift …
Monsieur Salut writes: Pete Sixsmith is not often purring these days. After the stupendous strike by Jermain Defoe in the last moment of the first half, an unstoppable volley from 25 yards to make Charlie Adam look frankly commonplace, he was a happy lad. Well, happyish. ‘Lovely goal? Wasn’t it just? But now we need to finish them off’. We didn’t do that but we did win – five against NUFC in succession – and we won by making Newcastle look poor, something other teams have done to us all season …’
There’s been plenty to keep us busy in the build-up to Sunday’s derby.
The framed photographs you see are the alternative prizes offered to Sunderland and Newcastle supporters entering the Guess the Score competition at https://safc.blog/category/salut-competition/guess-the-score-salut-competition/
The French Connection strikes again. Monsieur Salut is no more French than Lee Cattermole but has a French wife and city-in-law and spends a lot of time in France. Now our associate editor John McCormick turns out to have a half-French nephew, Anthony Petit*. Despite the name, Tony probably isn’t little at all; he certainly isn’t a Sunderland supporter. To adapt our old Eric Roy chant, ‘C’est Ooh Agh, c’est ooh agh, je suis un Mag y’naagh’. In remarkably good English – his mother’s from Birtley and he has some choice words for Mike Ashley – he upholds the tradition of cracking Who are You? interviews …
Monsieur Salut writes: I have checked the origins of this news item and it may well have come from S Bruce of Hull, or J Colback of Killingworth, in either case embarking on a new career as an informed Salut! Sunderland newshound. On further inspection, it must be from one of our own …
Well we all know Fletch won’t score three unless the Mags put out Gibraltar’s un-Rocklike defence.
But could he or Jermain Defoe or Connor Wickham or, indeed, Danny Graham or Duncan Watmore get the goal that wins the latest edition of the Wear-Tyne derby?
No Sunderland supporter truly cares where a winner might come from. Newcastle fans will think more or less likewise.
The build-up to Wear-tyne and tyne-Wear derbies – says Monsieur Salut, pettily using lower case to diminish Jimmy Nail’s Big River (half-decent song, actually) – should start at least as early as the approach to any other game. This one is horribly important to us. Steven Fletcher boosted his confidence no end with his hat-trick for Scotland, but can he do to the Mags what he did to Gibraltar? While covering the inquest into the deaths of the IRA’s would-be bombers killed by the SAS on The Rock, M Salut befriended a court official who happened to have played badminton for Gibraltar at the Commonwealth Games. A match was arranged and ended in a draw, each winning one game. M Salut is, and was not even then, an especially fit man. Is that the measure of Fletch’s otherwise commendable achievement?
While we ponder such weighty questions, it seems a good idea to run a few blasts from the past. Here, as a start, is my cousin David Athey, whose outstanding piece, first published here a few seasons ago, sums up what I think should be the true nature of a rivalry that divides families, friends, schoolfriends and workmates …