Aye, Aye, Aye Aye, Sky Blues prefer us to the Ricoh

John McCormick writes:  if you want to know the origin of the headline you’ll have to read on to the middle of this piece, where Malcolm, our esteemed deputy editor, has reworked a version of the old Fulwell End favourite “Monty is better than Yashin” following a recent barrage of voting from the Sky Blue bit of the West Midlands.

I have to say I found that barrage a bit strange. After all, when a blog adopts a title which includes the phrase “dodgy numbers”, and then ends with a disclaimer which states “the arithmetic’s correct, it’s just the rest could be a bit wonky” it’s best not to take it too seriously.

And when it says “unless new voter(s) decide to cast vote(s) for only one team and to throw rationality to the winds – and why not, it’s what football’s all about”, which is what I wrote in my last post, you might get some idea that we welcome other clubs’ fans and enjoy hearing from them.

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Burton, Scunthorpe or Peterborough – who’ll join Sunderland, Barnsley, Charlton and Portsmouth?

UPDATE: we saw the poll had grown, improbably, to 11,000+ votes with Coventry way out in front on 26 per cent. Couldn’t blame Jimmy Hill this time but something was clearly up.  For the culprits, go to the Coventry site Sky Blues Talk    … but don’t get too cross as our lot would gladly have done the same to them. The poll, unsurprisingly, is suspended …

After Colin reposted our “who’s going up?” poll (on the left, below) in one of the Question and Answer sessions  with our owners there  was brief flurry of voting, as you might have expected given the number of visitors we had. And then things slowed down until, by the weekend, things were at a trickle, although votes were and are still coming in. Again, this was to be expected as the eyes of the football world were on Russia, where eight or nine ex-Sunderland players were taking part in the World’s most prestigious competition outside the Third Division. We now have over 800 votes cast, which is enough to be going on with, although Colin in his gut feeling poll, had almost as many when only one vote was allowed per person.

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Barnsley drop, Burton and Posh replace Luton and Scunthorpe, Walsall get off the bottom in our promotion poll.

When I first put this poll up, a mere week ago, I wrote

“this is predominantly a Sunderland site and we aren’t claiming results are totally unbiased… …Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that SAFC  fans have not been blindly optimistic.”

After only a week I would not able to add a lot to this statement, were it not for two things. The first is that the poll was tagged to promote it to all League One fans for over 24 hours before it was promoted on our facebook page and then on Colin’s subsequent posts on this site. This gave us a small (very small, as it happens) hint of what the whole of the League One fanbase might think. The second was that Colin’s own poll closed, with some findings we can bring to bear on this one.

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The bookies say Sunderland, Barnsley, Charlton, Portsmouth, Luton and Scunthorpe. What about you?

And so we have it: the fixtures are out. You’ll be getting your fill of dates, and conjecture from all over, no doubt, and enjoying the pre-season buzz of anticipation that it brings.

But when you’re tucked up under the sheets, reading Charles Buchan’s “Football Monthly” with a torch and reality bites, do you think you’ll win League One?

Or even get promoted?

If you do, please let us know. If you don’t, let us know who you think will make the grade.

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Relegation watch: still looking at Watford, Bournemouth and Norwich, with Leicester hanging on

John McCormick:
John McCormick: getting ready, only a month to go

What a website! On 15th June, in response to my “who went down, who’s going down?”  Dave left a comment which included:

“… I think Pearson will, at some point, have a big row with a player or a fan, and the team’s spirit that kept them up will dissipate…”

Two weeks later Leicester City’s website contained the following:

“…it has become clear to the Club that fundamental differences in perspective exist between us. Regrettably, the Club believes that the working relationship between Nigel and the Board is no longer viable…”

The effect on team spirit remains to be seen but as I said at the start, what a website!

A week ago I left you with a poll whose results were suggesting the targets of my dodgy numbers “relegation watch” would be the three promoted clubs and Leicester. Since then another couple of thousand votes have been cast but they didn’t make much difference, despite the turmoil  at the Kingpower . Here are last Friday’s and this Friday’s results:

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Relegation: it’s still Bournemouth and Watford. Can Leicester and Norwich relax?

John McCormick:
John McCormick: I’m biased. Are you?

Strange, isn’t it? I spend Monday evening idly browsing the MLS (aka Major League Soccer) website trying to work out how it (the league, not the website) operates and then along comes David Millward with a piece about a football convention in the USA. I wonder if the fans he mixed with can get their heads around relegation and promotion better than I can handle the subtleties of the MLS.

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Sixer spots the difference as Portsmouth follow Southampton to Hartlepool

Sixer by Jake
Sixer by Jake

.. that difference being that the Saints were on the way up when they visited the Victoria ground. Pompey are heading in the opposite direction. From the heights of the Premier and Wembley to the foot, or nearly, of the third tier with worse possibly to come, Portsmouth present a sorry face. Pete Sixsmith hails the 400 Pompey stalwarts who still travelled north for a midweek game at bottom-placed Hartlepool …


Tuesday night
and a glance at the fixture list flags up Hartlepool United v Portsmouth as the game of the evening. Four years ago, Pompey were playing at the Stadium of Light, Old Trafford and, er, the DW Stadium. Now, they are appearing at Gigg Lane, Boundary Park and Broadhall Way, Stevenage. Next year it is likely to be Plainmoor and the Crown Ground, Accrington.

It is a dramatic fall for a club that has connections with Sunderland. Like us, they are an industrial city. Like us, they have a long history. Like us, they have had good and bad seasons. But never one like this.

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