A lot has happened since Jeremy Robson, a long way from his native Murton, took this clinical retrospective look at a season that, at the time his thoughts were flowing, still held ample scope for disaster for Sunderland AFC and its passionate followers. A day that had not quite begun in his Canadian exile was to end happily. But Jeremy – that’s his lad, Dave, aged seven, a future SAFC keeper, after a tournament at the Riverside (a Championship ground near Hartlepool) – sees no reason to change his analysis of where the club found itself at 4pm on Sunday. There is sharp criticism of Roy Keane, harsh questikons about our rightly revered chairman’s role in the way the season developed – and evidence of a surprisingly intimate knowledge of the work of Barry Manilow …

Judgement day, as I write, has already arrived in Sunderland.

Here in Elora, Ontario it’s 13 minutes away, so still tomorrow. One more day left at least as a Premier League side. I must confess to stalling on writing this.Salut! Sunderland asked me to do it weeks ago, and pestered me all week to remind me that I hadn’t.

I’ve been stalling, not because there’s nothing to say. The problem is that there’s too much to say, so bugger it here we go.

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Some of us remember only too well the feeling at the end of another wasted school term/year. It was time for the report.

Well, it’s certainly time for Sunderland’s.

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