View from the Cemetery

Two home games, two wins and ten goals, have I changed cemeteries over the summer? Glorious sunshine and the ground looks a picture, canny few of the good folk of Ryhope letting their allegiance go and forsaking the colliery to visit us down the bank, happy smiling faces all round. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, well, well, new machinery!

A cup final again, and only twelve months since we made a right pigs ear of the last one. Now Ernie Armstrong was a canny old boy, a decent if dirty player in his youth,or so I have been told, but just how much remembrance does he want in Ryhope? However, let's not be ungrateful, promotion might not suit the likes of thee and me, and while admittedly it's not Wembley like what Whitley Bay are looking forward to, it is a night out and a chance to bring fame if not fortune to the village of dreaming spires; or was that burning tyres? I forget....

So once again we reach the end of a long and difficult season, only to find the prize snatched away from us at the death. It makes the blood boil to think of the hours of sweat and effort put in by the troops, only to fall agonisingly short right at the death. I refer of course to the news that has reached us here that once again the programme has failed to win first prize in the Northern League awards. Is there any justice? Just because some lad at Marske has nowt better to do than hand copy a thousand pages every week, why should our beautifully produced effort come second?