Soapbox: Hannover horror show, then school’s out for ever

Sixer’s Soapbox gets Pete Sixsmith instead of the usual illustration today in honour of a big event: his retirement after serving nobly as a teacher (bring on the chalkface, blackboard jungle cliches) for something approaching 40 years. He wished the occasion to go unnoticed but it cannot. Ferryhill Business and Enterprise College is an odd name for a secondary school but that is where Pete has done his teaching, and there will successive generations of past pupils to testify to his skills. M Salut’s bet is that there are plenty of people out there who have done better in life than would have been the case had they not encountered Pete as Sir.

And the “horror show” has more to do with frustrating attempts, as described by Pete, to keep track of events in Hannover than with any serious failings on the playing front: this was useful opposition, significantly ahead of Steve Bruce’s squad in the pre-season build-up, and we still gave them a decent fight for it in the second half …

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