Jake: ‘more of the same, Lads’
Monsieur Salut writes: we had to bounce back from Wembley and we did, in some style as you’ll know if you were there or have read Pete Sixmsith’s rousing account of our 3-0 win.
Now another Lancashire test awaits. We need to do something similar at Rochdale on Saturday. Over to Ian Wright*, our Dale stalwart, with answers to Salut! Sunderland‘s questions. Even before the win at Stanley, he reckoned we should have enough quality to overcome any post-Wembley doldrums….
There IS a prize and you know what it is. Click the banner to have a go
Job done at Accrington Stanley and our old friend Eric Bower won Guess the Score, correctly going for a 3-0 win to get us swiftly over any Wembley blues, or Blues for that matter.
With a break this weekend it’s time to revisit our “Ones to watch”.
If you’ve been following this series you’ll remember that we’re tracking six clubs over the course of the season. The six were chosen by a people’s vote,that new tool of democracy, with the club which came top of the poll – Coventry City – also providing a baseline against which the other five will be compared.
If you’re wondering how Coventry came to be chosen click the hyperlinks at the bottom of the page. (And if you want to see how I’ve followed our selected teams in previous seasons you can follow this link ).
Max Stryjek saved a penalty, Danny Graham and Steven Fletcher both scored and John O’Shea was sent off. Does it matter? Not at all. None of them were at the Stadium of Light.
Pete Sixsmith was, however, and his seven word text, sent as the whistle blew, sets the scene for a report that people will really want to read tomorrow.
A couple of days ago I thought I’d got it wrong, writes John McCormick, and should be looking at trains to Manchester, or at least asking the boss if I could have the car, in order to get to Rochdale. I had got it wrong as Rochdale head north over the weekend and I have no chance of getting up for that game. This means I’ll be relying on Pete Sixsmith for mid-game texts and a final report.
And what does Mr Sixsmith rely on himself? Nothing more than his memory, which luckily goes back a long way, although sometimes it’s a struggle:
Monsieur Salut writes: we are honoured to have some lovely Who are You? interviews with opposing fans. This is up there with the best in my view. John Beckett*, a former Manchester police emergency dispatcher and now a driving instructor, has been hooked on his local team – not United, not City but good old Rochdale – since early childhood. He’ll be among the away fans on Saturday …
Salut! Sunderland: small club in the shadow of giants but you have a strong community identity and probably feel superior to them on that basis alone! Explain Rochdale AFC for those who remember only that you beat us on penalties in a Checkatrade game.
John Beckett: Rochdale AFC (or The Dale) were formed in 1907. We were accepted into the Football League in 1921 and have remained in the 3rd and 4th tiers ever since.
Thankfully after 36 consecutive seasons in the old Division 4/League 2 we finally won promotion in 2010.
This alone is one of the main reasons we have a great support. No one can ever say we are gloryhunters but we are true die hard fans!
Hail the return of Guess the Score in prize format – Monsieur Salut is in a slightly better mood this week despite the defeat at Burton Albion – and all readers, Rochdale fans included, are invited to take part.
A Sunderland-supporting winner, that is to say a SAFC fan correctly predicting the result of Saturday’s game, will receive a mug that looks a little like this …
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.
“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.
With a break this weekend it’s time to revisit our “Ones to watch”.
, a mere week ago, I wrote
