So has our Wrinkly one, who also answers to Peter Lynn, finally seen the light staring back at him from his imaginary crystal ball?. We regret to say he has. Scroll down for the updated predictions and his thoughts on a grand evening out to Middlesbrough. Well, the company was good, not to mention fish and chips at Wetherby and slices of Mrs Wrinkly Pete’s cake …
John McCormick writes: So you think it’s bad, do you?
In this post Wrinkly Pete opens with a reminder of a time when the mortgage interest rate was just about dropping into single figures after peaking at 15%+, Sunderland were struggling in the bottom half of the second division and averaging gates of under 20,000, and down here in Liverpool the militant tendency were about to send my redundancy notice out via taxi.
Then he jumps forward almost thirty years to bring a simple message to all our readers.
John McCormick writes: Pete Lynn, aka Wrinkly Pete, is no stranger to this website. Nor is he a stranger to the Stadium of Light, despite having to make a considerable effort to get there.
But make the effort he does, and sometimes the journey, if not the result, makes him wax lyrical. Here he is explaining in his usual inimitable manner why he enjoys the trip up north:
When Peter Lynn, young-at-heart but prematurely aged physically by watching Sunderland, began his exercise in calculating how the rest of the season would go, he concluded that 37 points would be enough for survival – and that we’d get them.
After enduring the atrocious displays at home to Stoke and then at West Brom, even forgetting the equally clueless cup exit at Burnley in between, you might have expected him to chuck in the towel.
Not so.
Pete predicted no points against Stoke, knew we’d be booted out of the FA Cup at Turf Moor, and bargained on only a draw at the Hawthorns. He was wrong in his expectation of a win against Spurs.
And he was wrong in his prediction against Crystal Palace. But weren’t we all?
I’m sending out an SOS, ‘cos I’m in so much distress
When Peter Lynn, young-at-heart but prematurely aged physically by watching Sunderland, began his exercise in calculating how the rest of the season would go, he concluded that 37 points would be enough for survival – and that we’d get them.
After enduring the atrocious displays at home to Stoke and then at West Brom, even forgetting the equally clueless cup exit at Burnley in between, you might expect him to chuck in the towel.
Not so.
Pete predicted no points against Stoke, knew we’d be booted out of the FA Cup at Turf Moor, and bargained on only a draw at the Hawthorns. So he has only one point to retrieve. Will it come? Where might it come from? Well, Pete reckons we’ll beat Spurs for a start, though he doesn’t say how beyond a call for 100 per cent support from the crowd and Honeyman-level commitment from the team ….
Before the Stoke game, “Wrinkly Pete” Lynncalculated the points Sunderland might pick up from the rest of the season and concluded, perhaps generously, that we would snatch survival once again – even if we lost to Stoke, which we duly did and in style (what kind of style would require the sort of bad language Salut! Sunderland tries to avoid).
Using that article as his template, and then adding progress reports, Pete proposes periodic updates to let us all know how each result affects his prognosis. It could end in tears. Whether those tears are of joy or distress remains to be seen …
Peter Lynn dips back into his collection of dodgy old hits for inspiration as he does some back-of-envelope calculations on what David Moyes needs from the second half of the season if Sunderland are yet again to avoid the drop. He even allows for the unthinkable, losing at home to Stoke on Saturday , as he steers us to safety…
I’m sending out an SOS, ‘cos I’m in so much distress
So sang Edwin Starr on his hit Stop Her On Sight and I am hoping that I will not feel the same as I begin my four-hour drive home, post match on Saturday.
If David Moyes, pre-match on Saturday, can get his team to realise that this is War, another of Starr’s hits, then we might get a win and make a further small (?) step towards safety.
Ask Jeremy ‘Clock Stand Paddock’ Robson where Sunderland play and he’ll say ‘Roker Park’
The Things We Do For Love competition attracted some excellent entries, some great memories. Choosing a winner of the above print of Roker Park – with mighty thanks to our generous sponsors http://www.wearedorothy.com – was tough.
Check out the earlier mentions of the competition here and, when Pete Sixsmith’s reminiscences on Sunderland in the European Cupwinners’ Cup in 1973, prompted more memories here.
But this, from Wrinkly Pete, aka Peter Lynn, is the winner on the arbitrary choice of Monsieur Salut. Out thanks to Pete, to all others who posted contributions and to the folk at Dorothy, who assure us the prize is in the post.
