SAFC

Aston Villa 1 Sunderland 1: drawing on our progress

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fraizer

No one seriously expected to go to Villa Park on the back of a mini-run pursued exclusively at home and romp to victory.

Equally, no one a couple of weeks ago would have expected anything more than for us to come away with tails between legs, well beaten whatever the actual margin.

The measure of Sunderland’s progress in such a short time, after such a long malaise, is that we not only emerged with a deserved draw; we also succeeded in worrying Villa, top four aspirants, leading them for a while and defending when necessary in reasonable comfort. And along the way, we had our own chance or two to regain the lead.

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Who are you? We’re Aston Villa (3), lurking in Sunderland

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villatops

Long ago – long even before this photo* was taken in 1995 – I had a colleague who suddenly ended his lifelong support for Villa. They’d given him quite enough grief, ruined far too many Saturdays. No more. He’d even stopped looking too hard for the scores, and felt tons happier. Somehow can’t see that happening to Gary
Gleeson**, the last in our procession of Villa fans. He lives minutes from the Stadium of Light and was until recently chairman of the Villa supporters’ club branch in the North East. Read on to see why we should hope he gets to Villa Park tomorrow night …


You’re having the sort of season we’d love: one final already, another maybe to come and still pressing for top four. I bet you’ll tell me you’re not satisfied!

I’m very very satisfied. It’s difficult to argue that a cup final, the possibility of another cup final and being in the mix for the 4th place Holy Grail is not a very successful season so far. If I have to make a prediction, I think we’ll lose to Chelsea in the FA Cup semi final and finish 6th in the league behind Spurs and Liverpool. The immediate aftermath to that will be a huge feeling of anti-climax amongst the majority of the Villa faithful. “Faithful” is probably a poor term though. I’ve noticed grumblings in recent weeks that intimate to me a feeling of entitlement amongst some Villa fans. I’m more pragmatic, although living 200 miles from Villa Park probably allows me to see a bit more of the “woods for the trees”.

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Iceman’s floe of information is pure football class

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readytogoCredit to the popular Sunderland fans’ site Ready To Go and one of its Pure Football forum contributors, Iceman, for providing the discussion of the day for Sunderland fans.

Iceman was present at an illuminating social evening in the Sports Bar at the Stadium of Light and duly reported, with one bite-sized chunk after the other, the warm, witty or wise words uttered by Niall Quinn, Steve Bruce and some of the players in attandance – Craig Gordon, John Mensah, Kenwyne Jones, Michael Turner, Anton Ferdinand, Darren Bent and Lorik Cana.

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Who are you? We’re Aston Villa (2) – still down on Dowd

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josh2

Between losing his wallet and agonising over university options, young Josh Henwood* had plenty of reasonable excuses for his late response to our appeal for a Villa fan to preview tomorrow’s game. But he emerged from his papal nom de guerre – he’s PopeJosh at the VillaTalk site – with interesting thoughts on Villa, SAFC, England and, oddly enough, referees …


AND WOULD BELIEVE? yet another Villa fan (this time from within Gary McAllister diving distance of the Stadium of Light) speaks to Salut! tonight …

Salut! Sunderland
Birmingham at home and Villa away in the space of a few days. Is all this rubbing shoulders with the second city good for us

I was going to say before Saturday that it wasn’t what you wanted at all! But after the results I’m scared of the prospect of playing you guys. We can’t seem to get a good win going despite good performances, and you seem to be getting points with (no offence intended) not-so-great performances. By the looks of it, this Midlands weekend might actually benefit you much more than you thought.

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Who are you? We’re Aston Villa (1) – and beware rampant Carew

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carew


The re-arranged visit to Villa Park crept up on us a bit. A list of Aston Villa supporters’ club contacts proved suspect until, finally, we found Gordon Nicoll*, who runs the Studley and Redditch branch. Gordon worshipped Dwight Yorke, is undecided about Stewart Downing, thinks Birmingham City have been lucky and fancies Villa to end our little run and beat us for the third time this season …

Salut! Sunderland You’re having the sort of season we’d love: one final already, another maybe to come and still pressing for top four. I bet you’ll tell me you’re not satisfied!

Absolutely correct. As football supporters we never could be and us Villa supporters are seldom satisfied! If we won 8-0, we’d complain it should have been 10 and trust me I know a number like that! In fairness terrific season overall- disappointingly went out of the Europa cup at the preliminary stage but otherwise a tremendous cup season for us.

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Soapbox: Gordon sees off the Blues – now for Villa

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soapbox


SAFC 3 Birmingham 1: precisely what the doctor ordered. And what a stormer of a match, rightly praised in the dodgy stream commentary and now lauded by Pete Sixsmith, who wonders if we can follow up the really hard bit – getting some points on the board – with a more relaxed, less backs-to-the-wall approach …

There’s an old adage that keepers may not win you matches, but they make sure you don’t lose ‘em. The fact that we have taken four points from the last two games is largely down to our oft maligned Scottish keeper.

Add a 20+ goals a year man in Bent and that is why we are sitting reasonably comfortably in mid table, with Stoke City and Fulham in our sights as we banish the relegation fears of January and February.

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Who are you? We’re Birmingham (and out of Villa’s shadow)

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Me at 50

We’re on a mini-run, they’ve never had it so good in living memory. Saturday sees Sunderland v Birmingham City, and only a home win would have us seriously believing in revivalist terms. Leigh Bosworth*, pictured with a spoof front page presented to him on his recent 50th birthday, is co-founder of the newly relaunched Yorkshire Bluenoses (a branch of the BCFC supporters’ club until now divided into parts of the county) and rises to the Salut! Sunderland challenge with some great thoughts on Monty, SuperKev, money, cheating, Wayne Bridge v John Terry and his “best season” as a Bluenose …

Salut! Sunderland: So, completely useless against us in the Carling Cup and you haven’t looked back much since. Even Villa fans must be taking you seriously. Explain your great season so far …

The Carling Cup was not going to be a serious competition for us this season and even the £10 a head entry that night was too much for the lack of spectacle dished up by both teams. At least it was easy to get a beer or two beforehand and to get away from the ground afterwards.

As for our journey this season, we’ve had many a regaled cliché (no, not Gael Cliché) with the ‘professional’ pundits: we have had the expected struggle because we were simply not good enough without any proven players, then punched above our weight, dug in and ground out results, ridden our luck, been over the moon, this season’s surprise package and so on…

In brief though, it has been achieved without so-called megastars – who can be quite divisive – but rather with a bunch of honest players, a collective desire that is greater when they are thrown together, giving a fairly formidable team spirit, plus improving football as they have got used to each other, though without the goals the build up play has deserved at times. All in all, a cohesive group of technically competent footballers playing as a TEAM. Johnson & Dann, as the new central defensive partnership have been a wonder to behold, as they were untried at Premier league level, although Big Eck (Alex McLeish) as a former central defender himself, is a good judge of a stopper – possibly better than the fella we used to have at the managerial helm.

Interestingly, a month after we capitulated at the Stadium of Light in the Carling Cup, we beat you comfortably at our place and that was the first in our 15 game unbeaten run that took us into the top half of the table. This coincided with the new owners taking full control of the club and settling things down, which has helped enormously.

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Another evil of corporate football, or just a fuss about a name?

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Are the suits intent on chipping away at the soul of football until nothing’s left, as I suggested elsewhere in response to SAFC’s new Big Idea, hawking the name of the Stadium of Light? Or does it not matter a jot what the place is called as long as we are given something to appreciate once inside? Colin Randall thought he was sure of the answer …

sol

So there I was, driving through France and feeling happy with life. I’ve just about persuaded myself (perhaps prematurely) that we’re not going down. I love France and shouted as much when I saw the first road sign – Aix-en-Provence/Toulon/Nice – that told me I was on the last leg (Toulon being little more than a Jonny Wilkinson drop kick from where I live).

Then came a succession of noises from the mobile, enough to give me the idea there might be a hot new debate on the Blackcats e-mail loop.

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Soapbox: Man City slickers nearly slip up

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soapbox


At long last, Sunderland are showing signs of being the useful team we thought Steve Bruce had assembled when we were beating Arsenal and Liverpool and getting so close to victory at Old Trafford. Pete Sixsmith awards warm praise where it’s due, but wishes we could have kept those signs evident for 94 minutes, not just 45 …

If you had been a Martian visiting our planet and been told there was a football match taking place between the richest club on Earth and a team struggling at the wrong end of the table, and the person telling you had forgotten to mention which team was which, you would have assumed yesterday that the one in Red and White stripes represented Croesus and the Blues were the strugglers.

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SAFC 1 Man City 1: early thoughts

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Come back for Pete Sixsmith’s more considered view from the East Stand. This is how it seemed based on a mixture of radio commentary and Sky …

Craig Gordon, John Mensah and, until forced off by injury at half time, Kenwyne Jones did not deserve to be in a non-winning team.

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