John McCormick writes: Me and Mr Sixsmith are pretty much of an age yet when it comes to the archives he leaves me standing. I can’t remember Andy Kerr, don’t believe I ever saw Harry Hooper and I definitely never saw Brian Clough. Roker was too difficult for me to get to on my own and there was no one to take me. I could have got to Newcastle easily but didn’t, and I had to wait another season before I could follow the club I had chosen over them.
But, ladies and gentlemen, I did get to see Charlie Hurley, Jimmy Montgomery and Nick Sharkey, among others. I can count myself blessed.
But I digress, unlike Pete, who would never divert from SAFC to discuss TV programmes or topical music.
Peter Allen: ‘These days, Saturdays for me mean dodging Gilets Jaunes missiles on the boulevards of Paris’
Monsieur Salut writes: Peter Allen is my very good pal and partner-in-crime (if that’s the right way to describe our shared trade of journalism) in Paris. He happens to support Portsmouth and, having made it to Wembley, hoped to visit Sunderland for this Saturday’s game. Instead, he will be stuck in France, scouring the internet for an audio or visual link.
His real Who are You? was the one he did back in December but which became a casualty when this site crashed on the day we played them at Fratton Park. I refreshed it earlier this week and it remains, despite being out of date in terms of the League One promotion race, a great read. See it at this link.
And now, at much shorter length, is how he sees things as the season nears a climax …
Even as I wrote last week that we would remain masters of our destiny and go up automatically provided we matched our rivals’ results, I was riddled with doubt, says Monsieur Salut.
A quick look at the fixtures at the top end of League One table showed there was no room for the least slip. Even when I saw that Coventry were ahead at Portsmouth, it seemed too much to hope that this would remain the case (if the spirit of Jimmy Hill has any influence, his old club’s two games involving us and Pompey could not have gone better).
As for Barnsley and Luton, did anyone seriously expect other than comfortable wins at Plymouth and Accrington Stanley.
Pete Sixsmith in exalted company. Tune in to BBC Newcastle to hear him with Simon Pryde, John Anderson and Marco Gabbiadini. Total Sport 5.30-7.00.
THIS interview, from just before our 3-1 defeat at Fratton Park in December, was among many items lost when the Salut! Sunderland site crashed. It took an expensive repair job to get back to normal but not everything was salvaged. John McCormick edited and posted the original article so what appears below – restored now more than anything because Peter Allen put a lot of thoughts into his responses and it remains a good read despite the passage of time – has been cobbled together from the e-mail exchange of questions and answers and the headline will differ from John’s.
Monsieur Salut writes:Peter Allen* was my favourite confrere among the British continent of foreign correspondents when I lived in Paris. We worked, ate and drank together, often enough finding a televised match to watch. We were even tear-gassed together, covering a student riot outside the Sorbonne. Pete is still in Paris but is a lifelong Pompey supporter. He’s seen good days and miserable days for his club. [Back in December] he thought the League One championship would be decided when our teams met near the end of the season. [That has all changed but here is how he looked forward to that first game between us this season, when Wembley for Checkatrade and maybe even the playoffs were far from our thoughts] …
This will be my last visit to our “ones to watch* series before the end of the season.
You’ll have to judge for yourself whether or not our readership, ably assisted by the Coventry Ninjas**, got it right at the beginning. For my part, with three of the five – Portsmouth, Charlton and Barnsley – fighting for second place and another two still with a chance of the playoffs I’m inclined to think they didn’t do too badly.
The problem is that the sixth club is Sunderland, and that’s who they are all fighting with.
It grew and grew.Salut! Sunderland invited readers old and new to contribute their photos from a great if ultimately disappointing weekend in London for the Checkatrade Trophy final against Pompey at Wembley, writes Monsieur Salut.
Slowly, pictures started to arrive. And then our associate editor John McCormick chipped in with his more advanced techie skills to turn a spur-of-the-moment idea into a project, creating the slideshow you can see by following the link in my tweet above to the Salut! Sunderland Facebook group.
(John Mac adds – I’ve now managed to embed the video at the bottom of the page too, but our facebook page is always worth a visit)
Pete Sixsmith brings us Wembley Way – three hours before kick off
NB WE ARE ADDING YOUR PHOTOS IN COMMENTS BELOW AS THEY COME IN – CLICK TO ENLARGE – AND JOHN MCCORMICK HAS CREATED THE VIDEO SLIDESHOW
The girls of St Joseph’s Catholic Academy, winners of the EFL Girls’ Cup
Sixer and M Salut
Olivia Hutchison’s photo at kick off
George Forster, Mr SAFCSA, with hair at 92. His son-in-law, M Salut & Sixer with less
Leon Constantine and mum
Us!
Sorely missed last night
Hope denied
Jake captures our gloom
All of us who were there will have memories to last the rest of our lives. Send your own best photos to us – by clicking here – and we’ll find a way of publishing the best of them.
Monsieur Salut writes: Pete Sixsmith and I did it in style, lunch (nothing to write home about) and drinks in the Bobby Moore suite, seats on the halfway line. It was a great occasion and at half time, we imagined a bit of silverware was ours. Wasn’t to be. Poor Catts had an excellent game even if, as he stepped up for his penalty, I turned to the charming young Irishwoman next to me – the girlfriend of a member of our coaching staff – and said ‘that’s not a great idea’. It wasn’t.
Sixer also enjoyed his day out. We both recognised that Pompey’s second-half transformation made victory for them a deserved one. But congrats to St Joseph’s Catholic Academy from Hebburn on winning the EFL Girls’ Cup final, played before the Checkatrade game – they beat a team from Mangotsfield, Bristol 3–1 – and now on to greater things …
Congratulations to the girls of St Joseph’s
The trail of tears led all the way up the M1 and A1, up the East Coast Main Line and to all points South, East and West from that benighted stadium in a North London industrial estate.
Except there were no tears. There was pride in the way that the team had played in the first half, pride in the resilience they showed in coming back in the last minute of extra time and pride in the fact that a friendly invasion of London had gone off well.
John McCormick writes: Colin e-mailed to ask if I could update the phone message Rob Hutchison sent after the game and which he’d managed to put up via his mobile. It seems a long time since Malcolm and I spent a pleasant pre-Accrington lunchtime in Rob and Olivia’s company and it’s always good to hear from him. Here he is with his one-word ratings after a rather different game:
This will be my last visit to our “ones to watch* series before the end of the season.
The trail of tears led all the way up the M1 and A1, up the East Coast Main Line and to all points South, East and West from that benighted stadium in a North London industrial estate.