In his post-match e-mail from the home game versus Swansea City, Martin O’Neill tells it likes it is (or was on …
This is where Pete Sixsmith records his instant verdict, in seven words, on each Sunderland game. When he cannot make it, a supersub steps in and his (or her) seven-word summing-up is preceded by an asterisk.
This week the supersub happens to be John Mac, until such time as Pete’s actual text reaches John’s phone, which didn’t have a SIM card until an hour after the game ended. Some supersub that. John’s words “* Be thankful Swansea don’t have a Fletcher”
– Pete’s follows:
Jim White* is a happy Swansea City supporter, vice-chairman of the Swans Trust that part-owns the club, the owner of his own email marketing company and the man behind the leading Swans fan website SCFC2.co.uk. He is loving life in the Premier (and since writing this a trip to Wembley – ed) just as much as when he was last here and will be flying high, up in the sky, to keep the white flag flying at the Stadium of Light …
The update is that if Heathrow can see its way clear to letting Monsieur Salut’s plane take off, holidays in Sri Lanka beckon. Salut! Sunderland‘s deputy editor, Malcolm Dawson, has already reached exotic parts, Lytham St Annes, and is there for a few days.
Stephen Goldsmith writes: Well, fancy that! Sunderland win at Fulham and Newcastle lose at home to Swansea. That should be …
Last season, Peter Thomas‘s comprehensive match report was reproduced here after SAFC beat his team, Swansea City, 2-0 at the SoL. After his excellent answers in the pre-Liberty Stadium ‘Who are You?’ interview, it seemed fitting to offer, belatedly, his thoughts on how the game went. All that follows is his, from his own blog, a long read but one giving an interesting yet fair counterbalance to views of the game from a Sunderland perspective …
Not often, Pete Sixsmith misses a game. Either some non-league or oval-ball (RL only) nonsense has taken his fancy or up with certain, usually London prices he will not put. Where Swansea away fitted into this is unclear, but luckily our old friend and very occasional contributor Bob Chapman, who is – like Pete – a teacher so a bit of a brainbox, offered to clamber into Sixer’s Soapbox to deliver the Monday morning lecture. As for the question Bob poses at the end of his report, mentioned in the headline, Newcastle’s failure to beat Aston Villa – a match that surely had home banker written all over it – seems more worrying for them than a draw at Swansea is for us..
An American(SAFC-supporting) view of yesterday’s game, from our regular columnist Robert Simmons …
Martin O’Neill accepts in his post-match e-mail that we might have done better, but hints that the good times are just around the corner …
Twice ahead, thanks to Steven Fletcher on each occasion, we slipped back into the bad old ways of defending far too deep, invited the inevitable and saw it happen. Even after the equaliser, indeed even after Swansea went down to 10 men, Sunderland lived dangerously That assessment relied on the trusty BBC Radio Newcastle duo of Nick Barnes and Gary Bennett, both of whom felt Swansea fully deserved at least a point. But Sixer’s Sevens draws on what a Sunderland supporter sees from the stands.
That fan is almost always Pete Sixsmith and is intended to capture the glory and shame, hope and despair, excitement and ennui of the Sunderland matchday experience. The full archive – see link below – sums up what all Sunderland supporters feel, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, in the words of one who is usually there. On those rare occasions when he is not – which included today, or when his own verdict is delayed, the seven-word assessment is preceded by an asterisk to denote his absence. Thanks to John Marshall, a SAFC fan in Bristol, for standing in at the Liberty Stadium …
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