Happy New Year!

At least I remember to come on here on New years Eve!

Happy New Year to anyone having a look. Good luck and God bless in 2015.

I come on here sometimes just to give a view on anything that is in the air, or maybe to ramble on about  the continuing and ridiculously frustrating  fortunes of SAFC,  and of course those of the Durham and England cricket teams.

Well not even any of that tonight. Time is tight, although I am in with the whole crew tonight. So I thought I'd restrict myself to a few predictions, if only to test myself! And I'm returning to a few regular topics as well.


Politics.   The awful state of affairs in the UK is set to continue with another hung parliament. No overall majority.  The right vote is split, but despite the Tories and UKIP collecting 49% of the vote between them they have to sit and watch as the ridiculous Ed Milliband, taking only 35% with Labour takes the chair at No 10 , supported by Alex Salmond. So two people who hate England are now in charge of it. This will not end well.

Football.   Sunderland scrape to safety again.  By two points this time!
  Chelsea win the Premier League.  Man City, Man Utd and surprisingly Liverpool make up the rest    of the top four.  Derby, Ipswich and Boro are Promoted, Derby through the play offs.

Cricket.    Durham do okay again, making it to fourth in the CCC. England draw with Australia in the Ashes series.

Surely the world wakes up to the evil of militant Islam? 

We'll see. Happy New year!


 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

A Happy and Holy Christmas to everyone who might bump into this page.

 And a happy New Year.

Happy despite living through an era of utterly hopeless and venal politicians, who willfully ignore those they are meant to serve and grovel instead to a supra national and unelected body for their lead in almost all matters. This subservience to the EU will not end well, neither here in the UK nor elsewhere in the continent where people are suffering under the anti democratic yoke of this neo fascist, self serving organisation.

Happy despite the throttling of news in this country by the state broadcaster. The BBC should be closed down forthwith, so blatant is it's shameless political bias. When did you last hear on the BBC - until tonight as a token, on Christmas Eve - any mention of the ritualistic and casual slaughter of Christians in the middle East and elswhere in the unforgiving and backward looking Muslim world? Or of the trials of the people of Israel, who are supposed to endure hundreds of miles of  Qatari funded tunnels being threatiningly dug under their land ? No, I thought not. Don't hold your breath.

Happy that all serious indicators show that there is neither any increase in global temperature again this year ( it's eighteen years now so they have decided to call it a pause, which indicates that they know when it will all start up again, but they just elect not to say), nor any particular change in global climate, beyond what has always occurred. Who, after all ever said that the climate was a static thing? But happy days for those involved in the gigantic international rip off that is being perpetrated on the populations of the world in the name of "Global Warming" and "Climate Change".

But Happy Christmas despite these few and all the other whinges I could trot out. And Happy especially if you happen to have the good luck to be a Sunderland supporter, still glowing after the fourth derby win in a row on Sunday!

 In a terrific and controlled display Gus Poyet's team, held off and picked off a Newcastle team that for most of the time in the game looked fearful of it and huffed and puffed without effect.

 Adam Johnson,  shown on the left, wheeling away after scoring the winner in the last minute, had ran eighty yards up the pitch with the ball, evading two desperate fouls and found his way into the box to thrash home the ball at the end of the move. It was a stunning goal, one of the best I've seen given everything and it won us a famous victory.


More of the same lads if possible as we usually follow a result like that with a flop, or a defeat. Maybe not this time eh? Now that would be a happy Christmas!

POYET AND SUNDERLAND'S RESURECTION

Hello again. Despite myself, I feel I should return to the subject I ought really to have rinsed from my caring by now:  Sunderland AFC.

So I thought I would say my bit on the astonishing escape from Premier League relegation a few weeks ago by this hardy perennial of under achieving football teams.  I doubt if there has ever been such a turn around.

For anyone who might read this and who comes from outside of England,  (I know there have been a few!),  some facts bear repeating.

When Gus Poyet arrived at Sunderland we were in a truly terrible position. One point from seven games, which was soon to be one point from eight after Poyet took little more than a watching brief for his first game, which was lost 4-0.  So, in what is, if not the best league in the world, certainly the most competitive, we had effectively given every team an eight game start.

To compound this grisly state of affairs, the club was, (once again!) in a state of shambolic chaos on and off he pitch. Players had been in open revolt at the antics of the previous manager Paolo DiCanio, whose brief impact at the end of  last season kept the club up that time. Keeping up it seems is what we do, just about. There was turmoil everywhere you looked, and signs that the off field governance of the club was just as bad added further to the gloom. It was all awful, almost as bad as I can ever remember it feeling.

But Poyet set about his job with a manic and wildly celebrated home derby win in his second game,. He slowly managed to bring his own passing style to the team, and bit by bit, despite this new style contributing to some very high profile and costly errors, the results improved. But by Christmas we were still at the bottom of the league, a position from which most usually consider it almost impossible to survive.

But we were in a vein of good form, including a sensational cup run which eventually saw the team make it to Wembley for the first time in twenty two years. Just before that final, which we eventually lost 3-1, we suffered a disappointing home loss to Hull City. Before that game most thought we had almost got to the point were we had a good chance of survival. This loss however presaged a horror run of form which eventually saw us staring at what looked like an insurmountable task.

After a run of about nine games without a win, most of them lost, we had six games left and were seven points from a safe position. Just to rub the wound a bit with salt and vinegar, we had at that point won eight of the previous 39 home league games, going back two years or so. The three games we had at home  offered only limited hope. So it would have to be done away form home wouldn't it? But wait! The three away games were Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United, in that order. A hopeless task surely?

This run of six games to save our skins, started with the first two of those away games. With only a minute to go in the first of them away to City we were, incredibly, 2-1 up after going behind to a soft goal in the first minute. Of course this is Sunderland and so one of our players of the season, goalie Manone, let in a soft goal and we draw. But this result, and stirring performance, galvanised the team. Onto Chelsea away, but again we fall behind to a a soft goal. No problem! Connor Whickam scores an equaliser, his third of the week after his double during the week against City, and then with ten minutes to go we win a penalty and score. This time we hang on. Amazingly we have managed four points from two of the hardest games of the season.

A thumping 4-0 win against Cardiff, was followed by an astonishing away win at Manchester United, scoring the only goal and hitting the posts twice. What astounding stuff! We were almost there, and in a night of bedlam at The Stadium Of Light we beat West Brom to complete what is now regarded by almost everyone as the greatest escape in Premier League history. We eventually finish five points clear of the drop. Staggering, just mind blowing.

But. A story like this shouldn't really have a but should it?

But, will the club now, after all of this, take the brave steps needed to try and make sure this does not happen again?  GusPoyet has surely done enough to be allowed the opportunity to do this job exactly as he sees it.

We cannot afford to lose this chance. It really might not come again. Over to you Sunderland AFC.

The debacle of English cricket. (NOT just the players!)

A disgusting surrender by too many again in the last test, but there is more to this story than players not playing anywhere near their potential. 

These players will get much dog's abuse when they eventually return to England, most of it deserved.

Honourable exceptions begin with Stuart Broard who was for me the second best bowler in the series. Harris, a superb bowler again all series, has slightly better figures, but he has been bowling after Johnson, not leading the attack himself and then bowling after Tremlett or Bresnan. Ben Stokes also can hold his head up high, he could not have been expected to do more. Top of the batting averages, only centurion, best strike rate with the bat. Fifteen wickets at an average under his batting average, a good old measure of an all rounder's performance. No doubt England will now flog him to death and have the same pernicious effect they seem to have on so many players that play their way into this England environment.

Which raises the subject of the colossal amount of people employed by England at various levels, who will probably escape censure following this humiliating winter.

What are they doing to players when they get hold of them? Players who, through constant high performance at their counties, get selected and are then apparently required to learn at the feet of these masters how to play cricket? The list is too long, and goes back too long.

As far back as Jimmy Anderson about six or seven years ago. Out of the England team and cricket altogether for a while as he struggled with a stress fracture caused by the England set up insisting he change his action in case he suffered ..............a stress fracture! Only by returning to his own "inadequate" action did he become the bowler that took so many wickets. But Anderson had the strength of character to stand up to this battalion of wage collecting automatons and do his own thing, many will not. It will be interesting to see how Tymal Mills bowls in the coming summer . I'd bet he bowls a bit slower.

How much damage have this lot done to Steven Finn? Will he recover, and does HE have the internal nous to tell them where to go? Stuart Meaker and others, including Liam Plunket, who came back to Durham significantly reduced as a bowler after he had been with England, (although he hardly helped himself!), have suffered a decline after contact with this all knowing, all seeing cabal of coaches. In the summer I heard one of them on the radio saying that "we need to make Steven (Finn's) action more repeatable" Unbelievable. They have ruined him by messing about with his run up, and now they are wanting to change an action of about fourteen years, rather then just letting him do what HE feels is right.

And all these batting "coaches". Twenty five innings now and not one score above 400. This is not a blip. Good established batsmen are in their shells against good accurate bowling, not daring to play their own game at times. What effect will they be having on young players going on Lions tours, or just getting into the England team? Stokes might be fine in this regard, I certainly hope so, he seems to be a strong character, but many might not be.

The players and head coach get the biggest rewards and so they will get the most stick. Fair enough, they have been largely appalling, showing a distinct lack of application at times.

But there are many whose names will never be mentioned who are are at best doing no good at all, and more likely causing lasting harm to young players for the future. They will keep their heads down, collect their cash, trot out the right cliches and look after themselves. England spend millions on the England set up, and it is a set up that would not have allowed Mitchel Johnson to sort himself out. QED.