Pete Sixsmith saw a very good performance, a good point won – again – against top opposition and ended up feeling just a hint of disappointment …
At 5.20pm, as I came out of the East Stand beaming at the excellent performance I had just witnessed, I heard the bloke in front of me say: “If we had put the subs on a bit earlier, we could have beaten that lot.”
Or, more truthfully, from Heidelberg. A first dispatch from
Pete Sixsmith , who is on the pre-season trail with Sunderland – except when getting hopelessly lost – and gagging for the game against Hoffenheim …
Well we arrived. It took longer than we thought, but we made it to Heidelberg after a long, long journey that tested the Mazda 6 and its passengers, but by 8pm on Thursday the four of us were sampling our first German beers in a small corner bar midway between the hotel and the town centre.
The trip was going well until we decided to drop into the riverside town of Boppard for a rest, a meal and a shufty at the River Rhine. All three were accomplished and we followed the scenic route down the river gorge to Bingen – and then missed a sign.