Pete Sixsmith finds depressing reading in a detailed analysis of football finances …
There was an excellent double page spread in Thursday’s Guardian about football finances. It was written by David Conn, a journalist who has been banned from Elland Road by Ken Bates for asking out loud who the real owners of Leeds United are. So, we Sunderland fans can see a fellow traveller here.
Unfortunately, he is not very positive about the Premier League in general and our beloved club in particular. His assessment is that the total losses of the PL are £484,000,000 and that the total debt of the 20 clubs reaches a staggering £2,500,000,000.
The boot goes in next week when our end-of-term, end-of-season reports start running. Well, that may be putting it harshly since at least one of the contributors we have lined up will be making a strong case for the defence.
But for now, let us hail another man who has been making a compelling case for the defence all season. Step forward Phil Bardsley, winner of the official Player of the Season poll run by the club to add to the similar honour he collected in the SAFC Supporters’ Association awards. And he ends the season a winner on four counts, if you include the internal players’ vote and his debut as a McInternational.
A meaningless end-of-season match, a pointless edition of “Who are You?”? … Only in the sense that they’re down and we’re safe. Beyond that, Sunderland have masses of pride to play for – we cannot finish lower than 14th but 14th would represent failure – and Steve Bruce’s team should want to preserve their one notable achievement: unbeaten in London. For their part West Ham players have to show their fans they care about restoring the club to the Premier. And we close this season’s series on a high, with the Hammers-supporting writer and broadcaster Iain Dale*, who also runs the West Ham Til I Die blog. He is optimistic about a quick return, sees us as a similar club that will always collapse into dire runs and eulogises the surely departing Scott Parker …
Well, we’ve seen commodities we never quite expected today, sensitivity and wit from Millwall supporters horrified at the notion, accurately reported, that some of their number might want to cause trouble at Upton Park come Sunday. But let us not forget our real enemies, those upstanding folk in authority whose determination to kill off the FA Cup knows no bounds. This year’s final, when some of us would have enjoyed devoting a whole day to rooting for underdog versus moneybags, was reduced to a mere morsel of an ordinary Saturday programme. Pete Sixsmith certainly didn’t forget …
I’m paraphrasing the title of a fondly remembered Jack Rosenthal play from the 70s here, but it just about sums up the negative attitude that many fans have about the great and the good who run our national game.
For the first time in my memory, they scheduled the FA Cup Final on the same weekend as Premier League fixtures. Not the odd left over fixture, but a whole programme. They needed to play the Final early so that UEFA could take possession of Wembley for the Champions League Final which takes place on the May 28.
Fair enough, you might say. So, switch any Saturday games to the Sunday and leave Cup Final day free for those who want to watch it and for those who escape to Scotland for the day.
We can give them the benefit of the doubt and accept the word of the Millwall fansite House of Fun that raising money to fly the “Avrim Grant: Millwall legend” banner above the ground as Wigan equalised to dump West Ham in the Championship really was “just a bit of friendly banter”. We had own own moments of friendly banter two seasons ago when, as we supposed, a nation rejoiced Toon Doon.
But what are we to make of Millwall supporters planning to head towards Upton Park on Sunday, when we play the Hammers in the last game of the season?
Tash Scott* warmed loads of hearts with her cleverly constructed and moving account of a first trip to the Stadium of Light. She’s a Sunderland supporter with impeccable credentials but a postcode far from SR5 1SU. Here is her thoroughly engaging description of the life of a long-distance supporter, with extracts inserted by her dad, Derek, from the famous old poem by Robert Browning, who died in 1889, just too early to see Sunderland’s Team of All Talents take English football by storm …
It comes as no surprise to see from the official SAFC site that tickets for our end at West Ham are still available. They would have sold out long ago but for the greed of the host club in asking £46 for what is not necessarily the best view in the house.
But the original announcement on the WHU website justified the higher price on the grounds that the match could settle the Hammers’ immediate fate and was therefore one that could rightly be re-categorised. Er … cue for a climbdown? Free beer in the away end? Safe passage home?
Meanwhile, reaction among Sunderland supporters to West Ham’s relegation has been mixed. Pete Sixsmith sent a text saying “a nation mourns” and about the only positive a Hammer could take from his words is that when it was Newcastle United, the nation laughed. At the Blackcats list, I found a couple of people in happy frame of mind at them going down, though one SAFC fan, born in the south of Mackem stock, said: “Bit different for me as several family members are West Ham fans and my sister and nephew chose to go that way.”
Me? I resent Gold and Sullivan’s appalling fleecing of travelling supporters this Sunday, but that is not reason enough for gloating. I have several friends who support the club, and only one known enemy, and therefore sympathise with them; at least in the Championship, the friends should see wins and goals, while the enemy will be beaten up by Millwall, Cardiff and Leeds neanderthals.
And I am by no means sure we can muster a team for the final game that would be capable of lifting us higher than the dismal 14th place we now occupy. This, though, is how Pete put it before the equivalent fixture (West Ham away, not the last of the season) of 2009-2010 … Monsieur Salut
Once upon a time, I considered living and working in London. In the 1970s, the leftward leaning ILEA was offering houses, cars and probably caviar and champagne for any teachers brave enough to face the capital’s schools.
I seriously considered it and decided that if I did take the plunge, I would watch West Ham as my “London” team. They were similar to Sunderland – a working class club, although without the history and tradition that attached itself to Roker Park.
Pete Sixsmith wandered gloomily away from the Stadium of Light after another mugging. He was trying hard to be philosophical. Overhearing two other Sunderland supporters moaning loudly about what they had just witnessed, he mildly suggested there may have been positives. Read on, and deep, for the priceless retort …
Another home defeat after another second half collapse and another opportunity wasted to move up the league and claim the “Best Side In the North East” title. There’s not a whole lot to write about to be honest.
Started well, could have scored three before slack marking gave Jody Craddock the opener. Our midfield players get into good positions and then miss the target on a regular basis.
“If the season had gone on a couple of games more . ..” said a sports editor of my acquaintance. We can all fill in the rest. Otherwise, words fail me just now. I didn’t expect to ease to victory but nor did I think we’d put in a second half display worthy of the humbling nature of yet another dire home defeat. Let Steve Bruce do the explaining, and then let one the recipients of these messages respond …I’m going out for the day
Starting with the last home game of the season, yet another dispiriting defeat, these are the most recent of Pete Sixsmith‘s incisive seven-word verdicts capturing the essence of just about every game. He hummed and harred between verdicts reflecting our sloppy defending and Mike Jones’s denial of an apparently clear penalty at 1-2, and finally decided that Wolves fought for it more. When, rarely, Pete is absent, a supersub does it for him. There will be no immediate post-match report, though Pete’s full analysis will appear within the next couple of days.
The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – encapsulates the matchday experiences, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, of a fan who is usually there …
May 14 2011 SAFC (1) 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers (1) 3 … We ran out of steam; Wolves didn’t
May 7 2011 Bolton Wanderers (0) 1 SAFC (1) 2 Great result, strong performance and safety assured
April 30 2011 SAFC (0) 0 Fulham (1) 3 No forwards, creaky defence, hurry up summer
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