Tottenham Hotspur F.C.

Sixer’s Sevens: Tottenham Hotspur 5 SAFC 1. An embarrassment

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Pete Sixsmith: seven words, no more, no less
Pete Sixsmith: seven words, no more, no less

We all hoped. How many of us truly expected? Another quite shocking performance, this time in the second half at White Hart Lane after a creditable opening 45 minutes, probably seals Sunderland’s fate. A few minutes remain as I type and I can hear the wonderful away support singing heartily at 4-1 down. Of course the maths are still on our side, if only just. But even at 2-1, witnessing defending as sloppy as it comes Pete Sixsmith considered the game well and truly up. ‘Embarrassing,’ Gary Bennett has just said, and still our fans sang …

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Tottenham Hotspur v SAFC ‘Who are You?’: they thought they had problems

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Jake demands answers
Jake demands answers

At ESPN, I have suggested that Gus Poyet tries to get his hands on the Edison wax cylinders on which Harry Houdini, not Harry Hood, recorded a description of one his greatest escape acts a century ago this year. He could then play it repeatedly to the team before Monday night’s game at Spurs. As our grasp on Premier status gets ever weaker, we come across Marc Aron*, one of the Tottenham fans responsible for the e-spurs site (@e_spurs at Twitter) with a mission to ‘bring N17 closer to fans around the globe’. He’d find few SAFC supporters to share his assessment of our Jozy, based on what we’ve seen …

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SAFC v Tottenham Hotspur ‘Guess the Score’: maybe not 6-0

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Jake hopes the (notional, prize-free) winner is someone who tips SAFC to win
Jake hopes the (notional, prize-free) winner is someone who tips SAFC to win

Spurs at home on a Saturday night. A great start to the evening if the Lads win. Gloom galore if it goes the wrong way.

Just for fun, have a go at predicting the scoreline. Spurs fans are welcome to join in. Don’t be put off by the lack of a prize; it’s only a mug when there is one. And don’t be offended if a Sunderland supporter opts for 6-0 or better for us. We don’t actually think our strike force is the equal of Man City’s.

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Tottenham Hotspur ‘Who are You?’: Micky Gray’s penalty nightmare, Waddle’s free kick

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Jake demands answers
Jake demands answers

Anthony Ashton* – Ants to his nest of friends, in Sunderland as well as more familiar Spurs habitat and in his adopted city of Norwich – jumped at the life-enhancing chance to occupy the ‘Who are You?’ hot seat ahead of SAFC vs Tottenham. We gave up moons ago on persuading Jeff Beck to do it. But every lost Hi Ho has a Silver Lining and Ants rises to the challenge with no guitar solos but a friendly, honest set of responses on both clubs, PDC and Poyet (and AVB of course) and the afternoon he shared the misery of Sunderland-supporting friends at the 1998 Wembley playoff final. He knows Sunderland so well he even remembers Chris Waddle’s goal from a free kick in the final game at Roker Park…

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Poyetry in Motion, on Chelsea: ‘an exceptional game of football’

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Jake captures the Bard, with thanks to Owen Lennox
Jake captures the Bard, with thanks to Owen Lennox

Gus Poyet‘s post-match e-mail arrived around the time Mr Pardew was complaining on MOTD that his side had been unfairly treated. What would you rather do, listen to Mr Pardew bleating on or read an e-mail from Gus? I thought so, so with no further ado I logged back on and posted the e-mail for your delectation. Here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth, and now I’m off to bed. I’ve a busy day tomorrow (actually today, it’s after midnight): M Salut’s still off line and there’s Pete’s match summary, Spurs ‘Who are You?’, Guess the Score and a top-notch podcast to look after. See you then, John Mac

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Sixer’s Sevens: Sunderland 3 Tottenham Hotspur 1 Trevor Francis 0

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NEWsevens copy

So the new season, or the bit before it starts, carried on as the old one ended, with a game against Spurs. There, the similarities faded to nothing. We must not get carried away but the 3-1 win – after dignified defeat in last season’s final game in which our frailties were nevertheless there to be seen – offered mighty encouragement that the tide may be about to turn. It was no fluke; if anything the result ought to have been more emphatic. And how chuffed we all were that Trevor Francis’s pre-match babbling – PDC doesn’t know if his new men are any good, it’ll be more of the same next season, etc – were made to look so comprehensively moronic.

Salut! Sunderland’s own star, Pete Sixsmith, now resumes his inimitable series of seven-word verdicts from the many games he gets to, or the few he watches from the other side of the world …

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‘Who are You’ winners: Wigan. Then Man City, Man Utd, Norwich, Spurs

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Jake presents this year's winners
Jake presents this year’s winners

The Salut! Sunderland jury has spoken.

And the verdict in our 2012-2013 “Who are You?” awards – the honours presented each season for the best interviews with opposing supporters before their teams play ours – ended up, by pure coincidence, as a final between Wigan Athletic and Manchester City.

With the same outcome …

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