The lads played nine home games in the Premier Reserve League this season, eight of which were at the ground in Hetton. We won five, drew two and lost two, had six different captains, scored twenty goals and conceded nine. The most Man of the Match awards went to M’Voto, not bad when you consider he only signed in January and the top scorer at home was Ross Wallace who scored all three of his home reserve goals in the final match of the season. We saw a few stars of today in Julio and Gary Neville and a few of tomorrow in Ched Evans and Daniel Wellbeck, but if you didn’t get down there this season (and why not?) this is a bit of what you missed.

We kicked off the season on August 30 away from Hetton at the Stadium of Light itself as the Barcodes were in town and the home supporters wanted as much distance between themselves and the truly unclean as possible. Kav was the only senior player on display, as Ian Harte’s international clearance hadn’t come through in time. The Scumbag’s tricky little winger Godsmark gave them the lead early on before Gavin Donoghue equalised with a header.

Gus Poyet was sitting in the stands with Dennis Wise as a prelude to abandoning him and Leeds and buggering off to a bigger club in the shape of Spurs, all of which was hilarious to us Sunderland lads as the world realised that Leeds’ early season success had all been down to the Uruguayan, and as everything went tits up for Wise at Leeds the little rodent bailed ship and headed for yet another widely hated club. Anyhow Gus managed to resist the temptation to throw a ball on the pitch during play, which was good of him.

Michael Kay was withdrawn at half time after a solid first half in preparation to travel to Old Trafford on the Saturday for his only appearance in the ‘16’ throughout the season, while we stood in the longest pie queue in history. The lads came out and dominated the early stages of the second half. Jamie Chandler put us 2 – 1 up and we should have increased the advantage but Newcastle’s Donninger hit one from so far out only the pie queue travelled further that night. Bugger.

Gavin Donoghue was the captain and Jamie Chandler was Man of the Match in front of a season’s best, 3271 supporters. The Lads drew 2 –2.

September 18 and In one of many games I’ve watched or more accurately endured against Manchester City this season we once again ended up on the wrong end of the score-line. Every time I see Cit’ee, dark clouds seem to gather, although admittedly tonight those clouds were made up of the midges that use the Hetton ground as a feeding hole.

Kav and Harte contributed the experience to the Lads’ side whilst Dicka’s brother, Kelvin, played for City. In simple terms, the difference that night was the finishing, and more specifically Ched Evans – by a country mile the best player to visit us in the ressies this season. Keano, sign the young Welshman up.

Ched would have been entitled to go home with the match ball that evening, but he’d have had to scour the streets around Hetton for one due to the standard of our shooting that night.

In terms of shouting, however, Man City’s one man, mad dog supporters club was in attendance and sales of Asprin rocketed in Hetton that night.

Billy Dennehy grabbed our only goal and added the Man of the Match at least for the home side anyway, although Jack Colback nearly stole it with a sublime subs appearance. The Lads lost 3 – 1.

October 10 and Bolton came to Hetton and with any luck, by the time you read this we may have helped put the arrogant Gartside’s first team down a division, but this night was all about an all round team performance.

Bolton had experience in the form of Nicky Hunt and internationals Walker, Michalik and Temourian, but our combination of experience in the form of Harte, Halford, Connolly and Ward with the youthful ability of Dowson, Kay and Richardson saw us home.

The first half having ended goalless, Halford set up our first when he slipped in O’Donovan to score, with a lovely through ball that had so much disguise it may as well have had a pair of dark glasses and a moustache Wigan Warriors rugby team would have been proud of. Greg visibly grew (if that’s possible when you’re already six foot twenty nine) after he had set up the goal and had a rare good game in a Sunderland shirt.

Hartey scored one of those rocking horse shit things – a penalty awarded to Sunderland - and Colback, who had a fantastic cameo as sub, set up fellow youngster Liddle for the third.

Jake Richardson had a rare night of captaincy, whilst I gave the entire team the Man of the Match award in front of 984 supporters. The Lads won 3- 0.

October 30 and Wigan were the visitors with a strong side including Agahowa, Olembe, Ryan Taylor, Carlo Nash and ‘One Size’ (that’s Fitz Hall to the uninitiated).

We on the other hand put out a very youthful side (no one with a first team start) to try to protect what was by then left of our injury ravaged first team squad and did what Sunderland do best, make you sweat, but pull a late goal out of the bag.

It would be over the top to suggest I was watching Real Madrid that night but the clever interplay, give and go’s and triangular play, particularly of Waghorn, Dowson, Colback and most all Henderson was a joy to watch as their blossoming talent started to show.

Ryan Taylor was sent off for Wigan for a second yellow, although he may look at the petulance of his team mates in the minutes leading up to his dismissal and feel that he ended up paying the cumulative cost of their poor discipline. Young Nathan Luscombe grabbed his first goal at this level with the winner five minutes from time.

Robbie Weir wore the armband whilst Jordan Henderson got Man of the Match in front of 847 supporters. The Lads won 1 – 0.

Next up on 5 December were a Small Town from Yorkshire . The Smoggies arrived to sample strange concepts they’d only previously heard of like: crowds, atmosphere and breathable air, and what’s more, Julio was back. They were unbelievably top of the table at kick off although I was told that the authorities have considered drugs testing for this anomaly, but apparently all the chemical inhalations in smogland make the results unreliable.

The experience was provided by Yorke and Irishmen Connolly, Murphy and Kavanagh, whilst Gareth Sproutface’s second string included a less than slim-line Robert Huth who was predictably christened Jabba the Huth.

Yorkie grabbed the first, which made the game a little tasty for a while before O’Donovan poked home the second. Sebastardian ‘Tourettes’ Hines spent the entire first half directing foul language at the referee, linesmen, his team mates and anyone else who happened to be in earshot, which was pretty much everyone in a five mile radius.

The second half had me on the edge of my, well consciousness. I wasn’t sure whether we took our foot off the gas, something smoggies probably aren’t used to, or that we just didn’t have anything else to give. Trevor Carson after having done very little for the first 65 wrestled the man on the match award away from our two experienced central midfielders by making a string of fine saves and blocks. Hasta la victoria, Julio but I l ook forward to seeing u back in a SAFC shirt very soon.

Yorkie wore the armband but Trevor Carson wrestled the Man of the Match award in front of 826 supporters. The Lads won 2 – 0.

January 8 and a rare venture away from home, to the Scum . Christmas came and went and in the depths of winter we attempted to define dedication. Perhaps the definition was travelling into the hinterland to the intellectually deprived wastelands of Newcastle-supporting territory on a Tuesday night, in a force seven gale followed by a blizzard and surrounding yourself with a bunch of whinging foul mouth Geordie kids posturing that they’d ‘knack yer’ but for the single tubby steward resplendent in orange day-glow holding all 30 of them back, and all just to write you a match report on the reserves.

If that hadn’t matched your definition, then I hoped that the fact that it was my birthday and I was doing all of the above purely to bring you a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark time of both year and footie season, when I should be in the pub getting lashed on the dark stuff. I hoped that you’d agree.

The lads put out a strong side including Stokes, Anderson, Miller, Halford (in a holding midfield role), Harte, Connolly and Wallace. Whilst the Scum had few familiar names other than Edgar and the most over-rated centre forward of our time, namely Andy Carroll, who made me look like Didier Drogba – he even conspired to miss from all of half a yard. Halford’s crossbar wobbling header was sandwiched by two quality strikes from Stokesy who had another disallowed for offside, also hitting the woodwork twice. Jamie Chandler converted the other, whilst they were so shit we even had to score their goal for them – Peter Hartley unluckily deflecting home Carson’s parry.

As soon as the third one went in, a snow and rain storm, the type of which you only see on the movies, hit, and we couldn’t wait to get out of there. Their crowd was such an embarrassment of charvas (I christened the word embarrassment as the new collective noun for charvas), it was like being trapped in some sort of surreal large scale audition for Shameless.

Peter Hartley was captain for the night but the Man of the Match award had to go to Stokesy playing in front of about 50 top lads & lasses and a few hundred hopefuls for Shameless. The Lads won 3 – 1.

February 12 and Liverpool arrived at the ground overlooked by the Bob Paisley bar. The Lads’ experience that night was provided by Harte, Anderson, Yorke and Stokes whilst we got one of our first looks at Jean-Yves M’Voto.

The decisive goal came as early as the eighth minute when Krisztian Nemeth brushed M’Voto aside, possibly unfairly, and cleverly scooped the ball steeply over the advancing Carson. If the Sunderland fans were hoping the referee would give a decision against Nemeth they should have known better, as yet another groundhog-day of dismal refereeing decisions struck for the umpty-ninth time this season.

Subsequently, the highlights of the match on a bitterly cold night were the Hetton Silver Band’s cracking rendition of ‘Abide With Me’ at half time and Grace and the girls in the café providing me with what is pessimistically described as a bacon sarnie but appears to be more accurately described as half a pig in a mammoth sized bun…. and a coffee so full to the brim that there was barely enough room for any milk… and all for only £2.80 - Magic.

Although the Lads had the majority of possession they only really threatened at set pieces and it seemed to me that the lack of regular youth team players such as Colback, Henderson, Luscombe and Waghorn had a greater effect than many might have supposed.

Yorkie was captain, whilst M’Voto won Man of the Match in front of an impressive 1324. The Lads lost 1 – 0.

March 13 saw the arrival of reportedly the world’s second biggest team – Manchester United who included Kuszczak (looking and sounding like Arnold Schwarzeneger), Neville, Eagles, Pique, the much talked about Daniel Wellbeck and former Sunderland loanee Danny Simpson – thankfully without the dark sunglasses I’m told he now wears even in nightclubs – oh dear. Danny unusually played at left back, matching him up against his former right wing partner Carlos Edwards who was attempting another return from injury.

The Lads also included Fulop, Wright and Harte whilst McShane and Miller played against one of their former clubs. T he match itself was disappointing and only made eventful by the referee’s personal attempt at a ‘soft yellow card’ world record. Whether the ref’s display was anything to do with the match being covered live by MUFC TV I’ll leave to your imagination, but my money was on him asking his mam to record it on their betamax so he could watch it when he got home that night, assuming he would be allowed to stay up that late. The highlight of the match was Gary Neville being booked for what I could only surmise was possession of an offensive face as I saw no other offence committed at the time.

The winning goal came courtesy of a penalty after substitute David Gray had expertly tipped the goalbound ball over the bar and promptly received a red card. Hartey sent Arnie the wrong way from the spot. The final whistle went to our collective relief and that allowed the autograph hunters (not all of them from our first team squad) the chance to get a signature from some of their United heroes.

Wrighty was captain whilst M’Voto won another man of the Match award, in front of 1032 supporters. The Lads won 1 – 0.

Six days later on 19 March, while I was stuck in bloody Woking of all places, the Lads played a youthful Everton side, so I resigned myself to a night spent in a hotel with less atmosphere than a Middlesbrough match, cheering on Manchester United purely because they were up against our relegation rivals Bolton.

The match ended goalless, which is guaranteed if you can’t make it, but still need to sum up with a 500-word match report. The lack of goals may have been in part due to the strong defence we put out, compromising of Wright, M’Voto, Higginbotham and Harte, whilst Miller and Stokes added experience further up the pitch. One of the few moments of note saw Billy Dennehy’s brother Darren get himself sent off for the Toffees.

Wrighty was captain whilst M’Voto won yet another Man of the Match award in front of 803 supporters.

April 23 and if Everton hadn’t been eventful, Blackburn made up for it in our final home league match of the season.

The Lads won 7 –2 in a match that the referee still managed to make a stop start affair. Ross Wallace grabbed a hat-trick, although it looked like he should have had four but one was ruled offside. Stokesy grabbed a brace, Chandler grabbed one and Billy Dennehy scored in what may be his final game for the club before being released this summer.

Glynn Hodges proved he’s still the arse he always was as a player – ask Gordon Armstrong - by getting sent off (as manager) in an unbelievable argument with the officials.

Wrighty was captain that night whilst predictably Rocky Wallace won the Man of the Match award in front of 513 hardly souls. The Lads won 7 – 2.

See what you’re missing? Hope to see you down Hetton next season.

Dov