It might only have been two weeks since the last game, but an awful lot has happened in football, and a lot has happened at Sunderland. Having listened to Quinny on his two hour phone-in on Thursday evening, I’d like to give him a bit of an apology. After the Wigan game, I wrote in my report how disappointed I was in his open acceptance of the now infamous “39 th game” issue. In my defence, I made the classic mistake of believing what I read in the papers, instead of jumping to the highly unlikely conclusion that someone (a chairman, more than likely) had rung the press with a completely erroneous tale of blanket acceptance.

According to Niall, who’s a worse liar than the Pope, all he, and the (majority of) other chairmen had said was that no decision should be made until the proposal had been fully explained and investigated. There was talk in the aforementioned phone-in of the money generated being used for the benefit of football development for disadvantaged children – I’d say to this that the Premier League is not a charity (apart from lining the pockets of brain-dead wannabe celebrities, that is) and should not be treated as such. If the Prem want to use their member clubs to the benefit of the less fortunate of the football world, then fair enough. Organise a pre-season tournament, but you simply can not play competitive matches, ones that would have any sort of affect on the outcome of a domestic competition, on foreign soil.

End of that one, for the time being, and hopefully with the removal of Scudamore from any position of responsibility as soon as possible before he sells the vital organs of all Premier League season-ticket holders to the highest-bidding research laboratory.

During our usual planning of the visit to Pompey (who to meet in which pub, where to have a night out before the bus trip, who is bringing the inflatables for a decent kip on the way down, that kind of thing) it became apparent that our usual restaurant of choice for breakfast had closed down. Been closed down, I would guess. The little grease-bucket under the railway arches near the harbour station would not be serving us our traditional mega-olympic with extra cholesterol. Ah, well, as with Del’s Diner under the arches at King’s Cross and its eventual disappearance into the redevelopment of Euston, that’s progress.

So Ron and I hit the Half Moon for a pre-bus relaxant, talked rubbish about football to anyone who would listen, then tried a last one over on the Dark Side, where the streets were lined with chavs and the ‘Spoons was nearly empty. Still, it was a nice pint, then the bus up to Belmont and another half hour talking rubbish about football in the Sportsman before trying one in the Broomside lodge/hall/arms/whatever. They had three handpumps but no beer because, apparently, there’s only one tap in a barrel and they can’t therefore put a new one on. I gave up and had Guinness. Our luxury coach arrived, four seats each (almost) and we were (not quite) out of our brains on the twelve fifteen, more inflatables than Torquay beach. So comfy that we were sound by the time we got to the next pick-up point, and had a canny amount of kip before the 6:30 coffee stop half an hour short of Portsmouth. That meant we arrived at the “under renovation” café just after eight, but found another upstairs at the bus station where grease abounded. Just what we needed to keep us warm as we wandered around waiting for the pub to open. We met up with the posh folks who’d been down since Friday afternoon, wandered eventually to the Dolphin (straight into the top ten or so pre-match pubs) then failed to get a taxi to the ground until we’d walked half way there. The nice lady driver got us to the Brewers Arms where we squeezed in a couple more and watched, as on our last visit, Arsenal on the TV but missed Eduardo’s leg going in two separate directions and in doing so helped send William Gallas mad.

As is the way with automatic turnstiles, there was a man at each one showing us how to stick the tickets in (even Ben’s OAP ticket) and we were in. They’ve managed to put a roof on without changing the seats in any way, so we were low down in F row, noting the camber on the pitch, and watching the team run out in much the order we’d expected. Almost.

Gordon
Bardsley Noz Evans Collins
Reid Leadbitter Whitehead Dicka Murphy
Lonesome Jones.

Lonesome alright. I’m no real fan of five across the middle, especially when we’re playing a team that we’d beaten quite comfortably (by our standards) in a good game only a few weeks ago. As the half progressed, there was a distinct lack of players getting to the bye-line and a distinct lack of crosses coming in from the right angles, meaning that Jones wasn’t getting the kind of ball he could attack the goal with, and he spent most of his time in possession facing away from James despite giving Campbell another hard afternoon. We might have had a penalty on 35 minutes when Murphy’s shot was blocked by Campbell, but it wasn’t given, and for a while we did look the more dangerous side as we won a few corners and free-kicks, but didn’t actually force a save from James. The away fans really tried to lift the game with an impressive noise to drown out the pesky bell at yon end, and it did seem to work for a while. Whitehead was having his best game in a while, and Dicka was also doing what he does best without wasting the ball when he got it. Reid did a lot of good things out wide, and Murphy also got forward, but we, just like the home side, didn’t cause the keeper to get his knees dirty, restricting his work to collecting crosses and hoofing away back-passes and wayward through balls. In short, neither side produced a shot on target, and we’d seen nothing to suggest that the 0-0 after 45 minutes would be any different after 90 minutes.

At half time, I met up with some of lads from Bish, who passed on the sad news that Egghead, Sunderland to the core and as mad as they come, had died on Friday. Hells bells, the bus back from home games will never be the same without his repertoire of songs, win, lose, or draw. RIP marra.

Leadbitter shot just wide from a free-kick as the second half started in a slightly more positive fashion, then Defoe’s effort was well saved by Gordon ( the first shot on target, I believe) before they brought on Kanu and he started to imposed himself on the game. As Kranjcar (spelling?) came into the box from their left, Reid looked to have possibly fouled him before Bardsley made sure of the penalty by cleaning him out and that was the 0-1. We tried to shake it up by removing Leadbitter for Yorke, then Reid and Murphy for Chopra and Prica. Despite having another three potential strikers on the field, and winning more corners, there was still not an effort on target and you can’t win games (or draw that many, to be honest) if you don’t get efforts on target. Considering the open nature of the game at our place, this contest was a big disappointment, the home side were no great shakes, but we failed to have a real go at them.

I honestly thought we’d got something from the game, and Portsmouth were indeed there for the taking, but I got that one wrong. At least I was right about the kick-off times at Gallowgate, mind, but our result makes next week’s game at Derby one with increased significance. They may be all but gone, but the fact that those around and below us – Wigan excepted – failed to win means that a win at Pride Park could make a big difference to our season. Let’s not leave it until the last game to get it sorted, because that’s Arsenal at home.

The radio gave us a little relief on the way back as the goals rained in at Sid James Park, and we passed the rest of the journey with the Etch a Sketch that we’d found on the luggage rack. Simple things, I suppose.

Man of the Match? Well, Collins had another good game, as he tends to this season, and you can’t blame the keeper for letting in a penalty, but I’ll give it to Reid because, despite the fact that we didn’t get a shot on target all game, he looked like the man most likely to create something.

Sobs' Book click here...