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Just the ticket for Chelsea, or lamb to the slaughter (2)

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Over the weekend we brought you the happy tale of the Toronto-based Sunderland supporter who travelled all the way from Canada to find “Britain Closed” signs up everywhere. Having missed out on SAFC v Bolton Wanderers, she managed to get a ticket for the sell-out game at Chelsea this Saturday. Here’s a follow-up from the North-eastern press …

Salut! Sunderland is indebted to The Northern Echo‘s Andy Richardson, who has caught up splendidly with our story of the Canadian SAFC fan promised a seat at Stamford Bridge this Saturday after being robbed by the weather of the game she’d planned to attend.

Andy informs us that the supporter is 39-year-old Sarah Harriman and that it was indeed a call to BBC’s Radio 5 Live’s 606 programme that led to the offer of a ticket for the Chelsea match.

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Just the ticket for Chelsea, or lamb to the slaughter

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seaburn


We await news of Pete Sixsmith’s weekend with interest. Did he get to a game, any game? In the meantime here’s a heartwarming tale of human kindness …

When you’ve travelled all the way from Toronto hoping to catch a Sunderland win at home to Bolton Wanderers, it must seem a mixed blessing when the consolation for that game’s postponement is an unexpected ticket for Chelsea away.

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Match off as Britain closes for January

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Sunderland v Bolton is off, the only consolation that it was postponed early enough to stop people travelling. But in times of dire shortages of grit for the roads, are we losing ours as a country? …


The answer is probably not, at least not on the basis of a football match being called off. We haven’t necessarily become a nation of wannies.

But I cannot help thinking how we managed in the past.

The news came not long after I had written this at the Blackcats list:

But when it was the 60s and I had my paper round in Shildon, it snowed heavily every year and life just went on. I don’t recall schools closing, buses not running, people not getting to work. There were postponements, yes, but games were played on layers of snow.

To which Mick replied:

I remember The Big One in 1963, when the snow lasted for 2 months. I also did a paper round in all weathers (including New Year’s Day, which wasn’t a Bank Holiday until the mid-70’s).

And I also remember seeing games played on snow. It couldn’t have been deep, but they scratched out the markings and played on a white pitch. I’ve seen this at both Roker Park and St. James. I also have a vivid memory of seeing it on telly for a European Cup game between Spurs and (I think) Dukla Prague, which would make it 61-62 season (Spurs were champs in 61). Like with your first memories of games under floodlights, there’s something magic about watching a game on a snow covered pitch. It loooks great in white

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