John Penman and his 10-year-old daughter Hayley are fixtures in the East Stand at home games – home for Sunderland, a longish trip south for them. Hayley is promising to become Salut! Sunderland‘s youngest columnist, younger even than Sixer. She won’t be at Wembley, willing to settle this time for a One Direction concert, but dad will. Here John retraces the steps of ghosts of cup finals past …
As I said in an earlier Countdown to Wembley piece, I didn’t make the 1985 or 1992 cup finals. Nor, it must be said, have I made any of the playoff games, finals or otherwise. The nearest I have ever come to them was to arrive in Sunderland the evening after the loss to Crystal Palace.
Mary Coughlan’s anthem to the Irish drinking culture has these words:
.. and as the floods rise we drown our sorrows
Tossing it back like there is no tomorrow
And in the end we’ll sit or we’ll stand
And p*** it back down the bog holes of Ireland
John McCormick’s semifinal story has a familiar ring of competing allegiances. He couldn’t let friends and fellow chess-players down but …
Here’s the start to a series of jottings on Sunderland’s success in reaching a Wembley final for the first time in 22 years. Monsieur Salut writes about our history of appearances at the national stadium at ESPN – http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/sunderland/id/2751?cc=5739 – but everyone’s experience of these events is different, as are our respective levels pf passion and active support. Here, just to kick off the series, Paul Roberts tells of his own journey from mild passive interest to nail-biting anticipation … other readers should contact me if they wish to write something of their own
Countdown to Wembley: click along this line to see all articles in this series
When Sir Kevin put that penalty away to give Palace a foothold in the promised land I found myself wondering if justice was being done. I know Sixer isn’t impressed by Palace, according to his post earlier this month, and I can see where he’s coming from but I don’t think Watford, sited inside the M25 and on the Tube’s Metropolitan Line, is much different from Fulham/QPR/Palace.
John McCormick writes:
Salut Sunderland has always welcomed good writing, from supporters of any team. This post continues that fine tradition and, as our leader is away, gives me the honour of introducing a contributor from one of next season’s new arrivals. You’ll already have no doubt read that Sixer was not too bothered by the playoff final result and I’ll be adding my own view in a week or so.
It’s a Friday evening during the football season , but here in the Northwest, from where two teams will shortly compete for the most famous knockout trophy in the world, things now seem very muted. What’s it like in the Northeast, where two teams have a really serious weekend coming up?
It’s an FA cup final weekend but not a proper one. How can it be? The league hasn’t finished. There will be Premiership games on the Sunday. The final itself kicks off at 5.15 on Saturday, to suit God knows who, presumably not the thousands of fans who will struggle to get back to Greater Manchester. Money, money, money, it’s a rich man’s world and bugger the poor supporters, as ABBA could have written.
Of course, it’s not just the timing of the final and the continuance of the Premier league. The Press and TV in the Northwest this week has been full of one manager’s resignation and another’s appointment, not long after covering a Merseyside derby which included a legendary player’s almost last appearance. It’s only now that the TV down here has turned to Wigan and Man City, and it feels quite exhausted in doing so, as if football has been done to death, which maybe it has.
You may have thought John McCormick stretched things somewhat when he wrote about his trip to the 1973 semi-final. He disagrees, having retained a fairly clear memory of that remarkable day 40 years on. When it comes to the final itself, John says, things are much more cloudy leaving his recall of that particular weekend full of holes …
In the second part of her reminiscences of 5:5:73 Jeanette Sutton (nee Coyle) recalls the game, the post match celebrations …