Circumstances have kept Pete Lynn, our Wrinkly one, away from Sunderland games so far this season. He has not been boycotting the club, as he explains below. On Saturday, he makes his long-awaited debut as Simon Grayson once again tries to end a dismal winless run, against Bristol City at the Stadium of Light. Pete has already supplied an excellent candidate for Who are You?, his Bristol-supporting nephew doing …
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
What do the following three sporting institutions have in common – Sunderland AFC, Warwickshire County Cricket Club and Solihull Moors AFC?
Phil Clarke, on the far right (not in the Marine Le Pen sense) with, from L-R, the son, James, of his uncle – our own Wrinkly Pete – Pete himself and Phil’s son Red
Pete Lynn, aka Wrinkly Pete, writes: Phil Clarke*, is my nephew and, sad to tell, a lifelong Bristol City fan even though his origins, like mine, are in Sunderland. I did my best to persuade Phil to abandon the Robins for the Black Cats last season when he and his youngest son Red made their first ever trip to the Stadium Of Light. Before the match, the family visited the shop where my parents – Phil’s grandparents – met, without which meeting none of them would exist! Best not to dwell on the game itself, as the Lads were Gabbiadinied by Southampton … what follows is a good read made all the better by a wonderful Martin Scott anecdote …
Since the Ipswich debacle, Sunderland have been unbeaten. That is the good news, the bad being that we still cannot win and the worse being that we seldom look like doing so.
We know the feeling, the one Brentford had before beating Millwall 1-0 at Griffin Park, and we know it all too well. Sunderland have been waiting 10 months for a home win; they had to wait only six.
Billy Grant, our excellent Brentford “Who are You?” interviewee, has already said he feels the Bees are playing very good football and that someone – no names – is due a “bashing”.
Billy’s favourite awayday: Boro. That’s him, Monsieur Salut-style baldpate, with a scarf that could be ours
Monsieur Salut writes: Billy Grant* talks about his beloved Brentford the way we all wish we could talk about our beloved Sunderland. They’re a joy to watch, he says, and he really does believe they’re on the point of walloping someone (to be fair, he didn’t actually say it would necessarily be us, but given the sorry state of our confidence … ).
I have a soft spot for the Bees since I live only a mile away from Griffin Park when not in France and my younger daughter’s first senior game was for their ladies’ team. I see huge posters for the club on the back of local buses. At least one neighbour gets to most home games.
Read on for another fine, authoritative interview from another fine supporter of proper football. Saw our decline a mile off, considers Terry Butcher maybe the worst manager he’s seen, says Sunderland away is Brentford’s ‘big game’. Brentford away, meanwhile, offers a great awayday/away-weekend and if you are among those likely to be there (I get home from France two days too late) you can follow the links below to see where friendly pubs, plenty of them, are located …
Another of Salut! Sunderland‘s services to the football-loving community, in this case that part of the community that likes an occasional flutter.
Hands up anyone who wishes they’d put a tenner on Leicester City to win the Premier League title when they were 5,000-to-one (heaven knows what odds you’d get now on Leicester keeping a manager or Sunderland not only winning but with a clean sheet). Tony Stone would probably know as he describes himself as a ‘lover of betting and winning’. The nature of placing bets has changed; online betting is now king and here Tony reflects on the reviews options open to punters …
Lovely view. I leave it to the more knowledgeable to say whether it’s from the Thames at Brentford or nearer Richmond
It is rare though not unheard of.
Without needing to post an entry, Clive Whittingham – a supporter of QPR not SAFC – won the Guess the Score competition , correctly predicting a 1-1 draw in our most recent 90 minutes of disappointment.
Observant readers will know of the new rule that the scoreline forecast by our Who are You? interviewee is automatically deemed the first entry in each competition.
How many of the 26,000 fans who turned up for another rotten Sunderland display will be back for the Bristol City and Bolton matches at the end of the month? A good win at Brentford would do wonders for everyone’s morale. Would it placate Paul Summerside? Sorry to be negative but what reason do we have to be otherwise, however improbably it is to think Paul’s wish for four new players in January will be fulfilled, except by spreading very thinly the crumbs Grayson might be allowed from the cut-price sales of Kone and/or Ndong? What follows is short and not very sweet … …
Another day to forget in the life of a Sunderland supporters
Pete Sixsmith longs for the day he can write something upbeat about a Sunderland first-team performance. The visit of QPR offered no such opportunity. That he can muster the enthusiasm to write at all is remarkable; that he does it so well, and with a nice line in gallows humour, too – must be a marvel of the modern age …
In the end, I probably made the right choice. I witnessed what, in the words of Simon Grayson, was a small step to success with a lot of positives and where we didn’t get the breaks, rather than watching Shildon crash out of the FA Cup 6-0 at Guiseley. To be honest, an afternoon in a laundrette watching the machines whirl round would have been preferable to either.
Monsieur Salut writes: for much of the match against QPR at the Stadium of Light, the Sunderland nightmare seemed be getting darker and darker. Pete Sixsmith reported that the defending was getting worse by the game as we went one down yet again.
Until the McGeady equaliser, QPR seemed more likely to score again. Gary Bennett was deeply unimpressed, too, describing a side ‘all over the place’, without pattern and devoid of confidence with a number of seriously poor personal displays with Matthews especially culpable. Sixer’s other instant verdict was ‘Another poor performance. Very little encouragement here’. Come back for his full report tomorrow or Monday … …
