Pete Sixsmith has long drooled over the Tour de France. Another Salut! Sunderland split: whereas Monsieur Salut accepts that the race passes through breathtaking scenery, and takes his beret off to Wiggo’s superb achievement and excellent French, the event itself leaves him cold. We both agree on the quality of Ryan Noble’s exciting winner in South Korea but only Sixer would have thought to link the two …
Salut! Sunderland present a quick digest of the week’s action, from another gloomy matchday to the bright hope that young Ryan Noble represents for our future …
Martin O’Neill (caricature courtesy of Kartun Malaysia) probably guessed what was likely to happen at Molineux – a nervy lead, soon allowed to evaporate – and chose to be nowhere near the dugout.
Noble is No 31 in ‘Vagueonthehow”s image
Martin O’Neill was there, and so was Pete Sixsmith was there, as the happy text messages confirmed, as Ryan Noble hit four more goals for the Reserves the heartening 6-3 win over the once-mighty Reds of Manchester United. So a great new hope for Sunderland’s future maintained his prolific record; the wonder is that the newly fallible United didn’t leave the Eppleton Colliery ground with him tucked in their pockets. …
Manchester United did some preparatory work for Thursday night football and the Europa League as the Red Devils roadshow came to a windy and chilly Eppleton CW last night. TV gantries, a huge double decker bus and a technical team that would have almost filled the stand, never mind the dugouts, all bore witness to the presence of the self-styled “world’s greatest club”.
OK, it was only a reserve game, but it’s always nice to rub their noses in the dirt, and it’s even better when a Sun’lan’ lad rattles in an eight minute hat trick. Our man at the Stadium of Light was Pete Sixsmith, taking in his second reserve game of the day. He was wearing his new anorak.
A cold night at the unsponsored, unsullied Stadium of Light, but the cockles of the heart were warmed by Ryan Noble’s hat trick to see off a previously unbeaten Mags second string. Premier Reserve League it may be, but after our recent dismal run against the representatives of The Great Satan, it’s good to put them in their place.
He scored them in eight minutes as well. The first one was a strong shot which Jak Alnwick, brother of wannabe porn star Ben, should have saved. For the second, he picked up a rebound from the keeper who had failed to hold a strong Jordan Cook shot, but the third was an absolute cracker.
The impressive James McClean played in Michael Liddle with a very clever back heel and his through ball set Noble loose in the box and he crashed it past Alnwick to earn a standing ovation.
Hard as nails. That’s Salut! Sunderland’s star writer
Pete Sixsmith . Viewed from afar, the North East looked as if cut off from the rest of the world by snow drifts. That must have been a picture of Tow Law. But it was cold enough as Pete saw Sunderland Reserves take on Wigan. Hadn’t we seen as much of Wigan as we’d want for a while? …
Tuesday night and outside it’s cold and the wind is blowing. Inside, the heating is on, the gas fire warms the room, there’s a welcoming bottle of Macallan open and a good book on the coffee table. So, what do you do but dig out the thermals and woolly socks, put on a warm coat and head for a reserve game at Hetton?
