This is the match Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven may have been both relishing and dreading. Both Oxford fans, and passionate ones at that, but now part of the latest Mackem revolution. Their private thoughts on Saturday afternoon would be fascinating. Simon Bradbury, a former vice-chairman of the Oxford United OxVox group, knows Stewart well. Who better to answer the ‘Who are you?’ questions? …
Pete Sixsmith is back home after his southern travels, taking in assorted games and lots of culture between Gillingham and south-west London. He’ll be at the match on Saturday and you’ll be able to read his instant post-game verdict as soon as the whistle blows. After that you can revisit the site on Sunday for his match report.
But what will Pete be reporting on after what one SAFC wag has called the “Donald derby” in honour of our owner’s lifelong support for Oxford United? A win? A loss? (surely not). Or a draw? If you think you know here’s a chance to put that knowledge to good use, and if you don’t know here’s a chance to make an informed guess.
Or you could just speculate like the rest of us, even if it does make you blind like they told us at school.
Monsieur Salut writes: the great family of Sunderland AFC supporters has offshoots throughout the North East and wherever in the world that people from the region have travelled and settled for work or family reasons. Our illustrator Jake came up with the idea a couple of years ago of reporting on some of the branches that exist in far-flung places. Manchester is not really far-flung, but it’s as good a place as any to start. I turned to my old colleague Dave Bowman to introduce his Greater Manchester branch of the SAFCSA in the 21st year of its inception (or should that be the 22nd?) …
Pete Sixsmith is on his southern travels, taking in assorted games and lots of culture between Gillingham and south-west London. He’ll be at the match on Saturday having witnessed the 4-1 win over the Gills.
However you manage to follow the game – and the plaintive social media appeals for spare ticket show how tight its been for SAFC supporters – have a go at guessing the score.
Time once again to guess the score.
Fourth top and unbeaten in League One, albeit after just three games, Sunderland head south to Gillingham on Wednesday and are assured of a big travelling support.
Pete Sixsmith was not to be found in the matchday (matchnight?) programme for the League Cup game against the Owls. But he was present for a 2-0 defeat in which there was plenty to admire in Sunderland’s performance. He reckoned we played some really nice football before poor Ozturk’s awful error in the first half allowed Sheff Wed to go ahead against the run of play. The result was sealed with a second Owls goal near the end. Another redeeming feature? Sixer’s first SAFC programme article should be in Sunday’s edition, for the return to League One vs Scunthorpe. This, however, is his first, succinct verdict on tonight’s exit from th EFL/Carabao/League Cup …
The congestion of this week and next – with games tonight, Sunday and next Wednesday – means there’ll be an awful lot to fit in over the coming days.
So apologies for Guess the Score for SAFC vs Scunthorpe appearing now. The same applied to the Scunny “Who are You?”. At least there’ll be plenty to read between now and this time next week. We can but hope it will all be positive.
Monsieur Salut writes: this edition of Who are You? appears out of sequence, with a league cup game to be played tonight at home to Sheffield Wednesday, and Guess the Score will also look out of place when posted later (but before tonight’s game). our Scunthorpe United volunteer, Matt Blanchard*, the editor of Iron-Bru.co.uk, reckons well over 1,000 Scunny fans will make the trip north to the Stadium of Light for Sunday’s game, in theory one SAFC ought to win though Matt – who will be there – believes a 2-2 draw is on the cards …
Monsieur Salut writes: at around this time last season, Dave Briggs* gave us some great responses as a Sheffield Wednesday supporter before Sunderland’s trip to Hillsborough for a Championship game. He also got the result spot-on, saying we’d be ahead at the interval but they’d equalise and the match would end 1-1. Now the Owls are the fancied higher-league opposition – sorry, Eric, but technically the case – we went back to see how he was getting on. Dave would ‘like to think’ there’ll be a comfortable victory for his side, but accepts that team changes mean it could probably go either way. On the other hand, he fancies Sunderland’s promotion chances but is more pessimistic about the Owls’ Championship season, not least because of the impact of FFP transfer restrictions …
Three references to the approach some Sunderland supporters adopt towards their club caught the eye yesterday and today, says Monsieur Salut.
First, as most readers will have seen, several important points were made in Pete Sixsmith’s typically measured and intelligent report on the 1-1 draw at Luton Town.
It’s a great read in its entirety but this passage leapt from the page:
Some in the crowd and on the message boards, criticise Maja for not being strong enough, which is a bit like criticising an apple for not tasting like an orange. He is not a physical player (yet) but he is very good at getting himself between the ball and an opponent and won a number of free kicks because of this. Some of our supporters need to realise that he is young and is still learning. Two good goals in two hard games is a pretty decent record.
