Those who were there will be able to say “I was there” and those who weren’t there will be able to say “I wish I’d been there” but no one will be able to say how we came away with a point. Except, perhaps, our own Pete Sixsmith, who eschewed the triumphalism of the last night of the Proms to bring us this report:
Malcolm Dawson writes…..Fifty years ago, Peter Sixsmith, M Salut and myself were all at the opening fixture of the 1964/5 season. I wasn’t to meet either of them until many years later, but here the three of us are half a century on, still hoping that the first home game of a new season will bring some long awaited success. Our golden anniversary coincides with Match of the Day’s own 50 year celebrations and it came as a bit of a shock to discover that in all that time only 11 sides have won the Football League/Premier League title. Sunday’s opponents were to finish top of the pile for the sixth time in 1964/5 but it is doubtful that they will do it for the twenty first time this campaign. At least Pete doesn’t think so based on what he saw at the Stadium of Light. Here is how he saw things.
Still they keep coming. Eric Sweeney has not written for Salut! Sunderland for some time but, like so many others, has been spurred into action by the heartwarming Wembley run (s), Gus Poyet’s battling leadership and that familiar enemy – hope …
Malcolm Dawson writes there was no arguing in the North West Corner over the sending off. There was no sense …
Whatever pre Christmas spirit there was in Sixsmith Towers on Saturday morning had evaporated like the fumes of flaming brandy …
In a fair world, that – Wes Brown clinching all three points for Sunderland – naturally would be the outcome.
It may be more likely, given SAFC’s recent luck on the road, that Wayne Rooney’s pal Neil Swarbrick will miraculously overcome his problems with distinguishing between red and yellow and send off three of our team. The remaining eight will perform tirelessly and with a great deal of courage, but just fail to hold out for a draw.
Let’s stick to the first scenario, not the second. Brown, exonerated by the FA (and be under no illusions how high a hurdle has to be cleared under the appeal rules before that can happen), will do as he did at QPR in one of MoN’s early games and score the winner in a 3-2 victory.
You’ve just been hanged for a crime you didn’t commit. “Don’t despair,” someone shouted, the last sound you would ever hear, as the trapdoor opened. “There’s an appeal in.”
So Wes Brown’s name is cleared. The trapdoor opened long ago; the corpse of Sunderland’s defeat at Stoke has already been moved to the plot reserved for burials of the executed. Exhumation, and a proper place of rest, won’t bring back Wes’s second half at the Britannia any more than a posthumous pardon or acquittal will restore life to the hanged man.
Not sure if Mike Riley has yet made his call to Gus Poyet with abject apologies for a howler that has made Sunderland’s desperate battle against relegation all the harder. Nor is it clear whether Kevin Friend has been man enough to send Poyet his own mea culpa.
But the signs are growing that Friend’s latest disgraceful decision to Sunderland’s disadvantage, the sending off of Wes Brown for – as the Telegraph wittily put it – “kicking the ball with unnecessary force” has not gone unpunished.
All Sunderland supporters, and all followers of football with a shred of common sense and fairness, will hope – and pray, if they pray – the club succeed in the appeal against Wes Brown’s staggering unjust dismissal at Stoke City.
Wedgewood and Minton, Doulton, Moorcroft and Twyford. All names associated with the Potteries. Now after his performance at the Britannia …