NICKED FROM SALUT SUNDERLAND, A GOOD PLACE TO DO YOUR READING, AND A VERY GOOD SITE. IMO. Pete Sixsmith set out his stall with his âsorry guys, youâre being a bit harsh on Kyrgiakosâ message after Man City. Here, he reinforces his cry for rather more fairness and a greater sense of proportion ⦠There was a heavy fall of April snow last night, leaving parts of County Durham looking like a very late Christmas card. Local games were off and the Chester-le-Street Town v Whitehaven game was abandoned in blizzard conditions. No doubt, training at Cleadon will be interesting this morning, seeing as we donât yet have the indoor training barn. Tomorrow, the County Cricket season starts. Durham donât play until next week although the fixture planners seem to think that Headingley and Derbyâs Racecourse Ground will be ideal places to sit with your thermos and sandwiches for four days, as players struggle with umpteen sweaters and Thinsulate sales go through the roof. It takes me back to Tuesday 13th. April 1999 when I was looking for a notable double; the opening of the cricket season at The Riverside and a promotion party at Gigg Lane. I got 50% of it. The cricket was snowed off after a heavy fall the night before. Durham were due to take on Worcestershire and welcomed hard drinking Aussie, David Boon as captain. He was the man who held the record for the most tinnies on a flight from Oz to the UK and had been tempted over to Durham by the promise of good cricket, excellent ale and fine weather. He may have got one of them. I drove up to the ground on that morning just to say that I had been to a game where it said; No play today due to snow. Not quite as bleak as Buxton in June 1975, where the Derbyshire v Lancashire game was called off due to a blizzard and Farokh Engineer and Clive Lloyd had a snowball fight, but still pretty impressive for collectors of sporting oddities. Then, after a quick dash home to warm up, it was back in the car and over the M62 to Gigg Lane, Bury, to celebrate a well deserved promotion. I got that part right, as we won 5-2, with Kevin Phillips banging in four and Quinny getting the other on one of the most enjoyable evenings I have had following Sunderland. That was a night where congas were danced on the terracing, the Paint Your Wagon song surfaced and there was a feeling that we would never again suffer the ignominies of relegation. The future looked bright. The team that clinched promotion that night was Sorenson; Makin, Butler, Melville, Gray; Summerbee, Ball, Clark, Johnson; Phillips, Quinn. Subs; Dichio, Williams, Holloway Not a bad line up and one that, with the exceptions of Clark (for wearing an idiotic Tshirt) and Johnson (for being badly advised by idiotic agent) went on to do very well in the Premier League. However, there were players in that line up who incurred the wrath of some of our support and were hardly given the lickings of a dog. Danny Dichio was one; never the most graceful of players, but one who always gave of his best and if his best wasnât good enough, that was hardly his fault. Another was Paul Butler, a limited central defender, but one who never went out there to lose a game on purpose and who tightened up our back four and stopped us giving away daft goals. Unfortunately, we have some fans that are never happy unless they can find one of our players to slag off. It spreads like a virus and I am sure that there are folks who read it and take it as fact. Kyrgiakos comes on at Eastlands when we are 3-1 up, we concede two late goals, ergo Kyrgiakos is to blame. The RTG message board, which sometimes resembles a home for the terminally insane, had a far too high number of correspondents who made this assumption. Quite simply, it wasnât true, but because Kyrgiakos was on the pitch, it must be his fault. So far he has been blamed for defeat at Blackburn, our exit from the FA Cup, losing two goals to the leagues highest scorers, failing to have the Elgin Marbles returned, the collapse of the Greek economy and the failure of Leonidas to hold out long enough against the bloody Persians. In short, he is the perfect scapegoat. The fact that he looks a wee bit like Andy Carrol canât help him, but to listen to some people, you would think that he would struggle to play a part in The Dog and Duck Team in the Chipping Camden Sunday League. He is not the best player I have ever seen, but he surely does not deserve the opprobrium that is thrown at him. And remember, he doesnât pick himself and nor did he sign himself â that is down to Martin OâNeill. He is entirely responsible for signing him on loan, picking him against Everton and sending him on to replace an utterly exhausted Kilgallon on Saturday. Surely it is the manager who should be criticised and not the player. Many years ago, stood in the Clock Stand Paddock, I was giving a young Colin West some stick for not yet being a mature centre forward. A wise old head stood behind tapped me on the shoulder and said, âHe didnât ask to play you know. The manager picked him. If Durban sees something in him that you donât, I would back Durbanâs judgement against yours. Keep off his back, it wonât make him a better playerâ. Since then, I have seen Sunderland fans take against the likes of Kevin Kilbane, Darryl Murphy, Gareth Hall and Carl Robinson and more or less force them out of the club. I would not expect to see Sotirios Kyrgiakos in a Sunderland shirt next season, but I would hope that some of our support would be a little less quick to condemn and a little more quick to support. Good looking game on Saturday and it would be grand to roll over Good olâ âArry. Haâway The Lads!!! 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Having seen the game NO ONE in their right minds can possibly blame the greek for drawing at Man city. In reality he probably isn't fity enough or ready to be playing at this level, O'Neill really should have played Kilgallon before him. Yes there is a section of Sunderland fans who need a scape goat, I remember at one stage it was Niall Quinn!! I do though look back with fond memories of my Dad hating Butler. He made his mind up early that he didn't rate him and basically blamed the world and it's faults on Butler! At no point could my Dad give Butler credit for anything - he never saw him do anything well at all! Spotted every mistake he ever made. I would just chuckle! I guess my point is we all have our favourites and players we don't fancy. Now my dad was never one to follow the crowd, he just hated Butler (as a footballer) He could never be persuaded of any virtue! We are all to a more or lesser degree like that. Those who can never find a fault with a player or the manager blame the ref!
Tony , Richardson gets loadsa ****, for why? because succesive managers ask him to play out of position. yet the fools that we have castigate him, instead of the manager. now how daft is that?
Spot on Bill, I think sometimes certain fans can't accept we were out played or out thought. They need to blame someone. I would be surprised if one bad result this year could be put down to Richardson.
Yes some people are never happy unless they have someone to moan about. Ricco is a prime example. We have had people in the saying he will never be a left back but first Bruce and now O'Neill have played him in that position so maybe they see something others don't. Anyway i would back the judgement of the manager of our club against any of the so called experts in here. Okay we all have our favourites and players we aren't so keen on but why do people have to go about guys like Ricco and Kyrgiakos time after time after time after time. It just gets boring.
