Where have you been? I hear you cry. Yes, gap in reports from over the fence during the winter months, but I have an excuse. Thanks to the little known Anglo-Australian Corpse Exchange Programme, I spent Christmas and New Year down under watching the cricket. A tough life, or death, I know.
Good sport though, there’s little to beat the pleasure of thrashing the Aussies on their own soil. But by far the best bit is listening to the insane Aussie commentators, who all subscribe to the Japanese emperor school of mindless optimism, as in “the war hasn’t turned out necessarily to our advantage’. Well, you don’t say so sunshine!
With the Aussies it's, “We might be two hundred behind on the first innings, and those lucky pommy bastards might be 200 for three second time around, but six quick wickets and I still think we will win”….. Tremendous entertainment!
The only people over here who share this attitude are our good friends up the road, convinced they support the biggest club in England, just about on par with Barca, and inexplicably denied their rightful place every year in the Champions League only by the trickery of the Premier League, ridiculously insisting on taking results into account. And after coming back from four down against the Arsenal who is to say they are wrong? Well, me obviously but otherwise…
Mind old tatie face in charge of Sunderland needs to have a think as well, a decent goalie would be a good start. A Scotsman who does a reasonable impression of Corporal “Don’t Panic” Jones is all right for keeping the fans amused, but I like to see a keeper who can catch a cross occasionally.
But what of the local scene? How is the Ryhope Machine? Rumours of multi million pound investments are going around, or at least they are now, with a couple of well tanned lads seen at the Whitley Bay match definitely identified as Arab princes. Probably.
Never mind, a club transformed I hear you say. Going like trains, and crowds going up too. Usually the opposition fans but lets not quibble over details. Nice woolly hats I hear as well, come in handy on a cold night, but some have been pinched, now who could that be?