Sometimes you just have to be prepared to try something, even knowing it might not come off, and you get your rewards. As it was with the lads suddenly finding where the goal was, so it was with the pre-match pub. We’d been told the White Horse on the A61 hill leading up from the ground to the M1 was boarded up, being refurbished. But it was easy to find and we all knew where it was, so that was where we headed for. And lo and behold it had been opened two days earlier! Last time we’d been here was the day after “9-11”. It was a League Cup match (we got beat but Laslandes scored!) and we’d arranged to bring Kazoos to rival the Sheff Wed band. We’d sat in the White Horse wondering whether it was disrespectful playing our Kazoos with bodies being pulled out of rubble in Manhattan. 5 years later and you are now allowed to make jokes about 9-11 (have you heard about the Real IRA bouncing the hijacked Goodyear balloon off Canary Wharf?). So when I mentioned the last visit, there was much ribbing of how it must have been a great comfort to the distressed and bereaved of New York to know of the restraint we showed with our Kazoos.
One benefit of being in a pub on the road in from the motorway was that we saw coach after coach of our lads and lasses pouring in. And a truly inspiring sight it was. 6,000 supporters travelling 100 miles to watch our mid-table Championship side is quite fantastic. Generally the tiny amount of hope that gets the crowds behind SAFC is amazing. After no success (other than our FA Cup win in 73) for 50 years, generally malingering in the second flight and our last two humiliating visits to the top flight, I am proud of the fact that we are averaging crowds of almost 30,000. Just imagine what we could achieve if we really could get some big name players, some exciting football and just a modicum of success? There seems to have been a bit of a trend amongst self-styled “ultra” fans of SAFC to criticise our supporters (presumably on the basis that it makes their “sacrifice” even greater in their own minds). Any objective view of the crap we’ve put up with and the crowds we can still pull in leaves one with nothing but admiration for the red and white army.
We heard in the pub that Stokes was injured, which is a real bugger. Hopefully it is nothing to keep him out for too long as I was encouraged by his debut against Ipswich and, while I know we don’t want to pressurise the lad too much, it is hard not to have great hopes for him. Good news however was that we stuck to the 4-4-2 with Elliott getting a rare chance up front – on this occasion with Connolly, so a break from the “big man, little man” routine.
One of the lads who was with us, this was his third away match. He’d been to Derby, QPR and now this one. Regular readers will know I’ve not been wowed by our football. But if you were going to choose three away matches you couldn’t do much better than those three. Not just in terms of result but in terms of quality of football. I’d watched Sheff Wed on the telly against Man City during the week and thought they’d looked canny. But we absolutely blew them away. We took the game to them and there really was never any doubt (except for the self-created one at the end) about the result.
Right from the start we were at them. Mind you one bozo did try a bit of self-destruction. A Sunderland supporter ran out of the lower tier and did that hooligan thing of jogging sideways across the front of the opposition supporters with his arms down by his side. Problem for him was that no police or stewards reacted and he didn’t really have anything else in his repertoire. I think in his mind he saw himself being quickly wrestled to the ground but now he was stuck and all he ended up doing was disrupting one of our attacks and getting belted by a Sheff Wed fan, eager to show that stupidity was not confined to any particular geographic area.
Fortunately this didn’t put us off (as a similar, all be it home fan idiocy incident had at QPR) and we kept up the pressure. On 20 minutes we saw an example of the “class is permanent” rule of football as Yorkie one-two’ed with Miller and then dinked the goalkeeper. Squint your eyes and you could have imagined a younger Keane and Yorke performing the same move in front of an adoring Stretford end. Yorke excites some strong opinions amongst the red and white faithful. Thing is in some games his lack of pace and his seeming languid approach can be infuriating – and he undoubtedly has had some stinkers. However, when we are playing well – as we were today – Yorke’s control and his ability to find an SAFC player with the ball contribute enormously to our game.
Half-time was approaching and I was just rehearsing my half-time whinge about us dominating games but not putting the ball in the net enough when Deano, playing another excellent game at right back, played a superb ball though for Hysen to tap in (not my favourite player – and he’d already missed one easy chance to tap the ball in from an Elliott strike against the post – but he too played well today). So the wind was taken out of my sails and I had to content myself with praising the lads and an all round topper performance.
Before the match the Hillsborough tannoys had been blasting away at us at a quite obscene volume. I don’t know if clubs do this deliberately. I hate tannoy music. I spent most of my life in the Roker End but as a teenager I used to go in the Fulwell and used to love the way the chanting would gradually build up from 2.30 onwards. Would it be too much to ask to at least have the opportunity to do that? Anyway the Hillsborough tannoy man broke the first rule of annoying tannoy tossers “never play a song the away supporters can take over”. He finished the half-time drivel by playing the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” which the grateful red and white army adopted as “Keano” and kept going through much of the second half.
The second half looked like it was going to be a stroll in the park, particularly after Connolly got a tap in and so we were 3-0 up. Many of the home fans were streaming out (and disgracefully even one or two away fans) when it all started to go wrong. A dangerous free kick came though everyone and a Sheff Wed player followed on. As the striker and Ward went for the ball it came though for a goal. There are occasions when such incidents end up with a free kick for overprotected goalkeepers but this wasn’t to be one. Tannoy tosser played Jeff Beck’s “Hey, ho Silver Lining” which I assume is their usual “goal” music. We joined in with ironic derision as it was obviously just a fluke consolation.
A couple of minutes later and we conspired to let the ball bounce round the box and come to their player ten yards out and to the right. He took it well, Jeff Beck started up again but this time we didn’t feel like giving it the ironic derision. How the hell had we got into this position?
Fortunately it didn’t last too long. Murphy (on as sub) took a shot that the goalie only could get a hand to put it into the path of Edwards for a tap in. I was dead pleased for Edwards. Having been critical of him in his debut against Preston, and singularly under whelmed by him in a difficult windy match against Ipswich at the SoL, he showed exactly what he could add to our play in this game.
Keane was fuming after the game – and rightly so. If there was to be six goals, 6-0 to us would have been more realistic. Letting those two goals in would have been fatal in some games. But for us we were much happier to concentrate on the great team play (particularly in the first half), four goals and three points. Also we are now just being kept out of the play-offs on goal difference and are looking like we could be a threat to anyone in this division.
The next few moths could be very enjoyable.
John aka “Herts”