At long last, Sunderland are showing signs of being the useful team we thought Steve Bruce had assembled when we were beating Arsenal and Liverpool and getting so close to victory at Old Trafford. Pete Sixsmith awards warm praise where it’s due, but wishes we could have kept those signs evident for 94 minutes, not just 45 …

If you had been a Martian visiting our planet and been told there was a football match taking place between the richest club on Earth and a team struggling at the wrong end of the table, and the person telling you had forgotten to mention which team was which, you would have assumed yesterday that the one in Red and White stripes represented Croesus and the Blues were the strugglers.
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Over the past few days, there have been some good exchanges between Sunderland and Man City supporters, especially – in the case of City – from the Bluemoon fans’ site.

Pete Sixsmith’s reminiscences on the day he took his Dad to see SAFC v City at Roker Park (a treat for a football fan, but Dad didn’t care for football) were rightly admired. City fans may challenge Pete’s observations on the match itself.

Now, Blues fans are, for obvious reasons, voicing their great hopes for Adam Johnson*, who returned to his native Sunderland to score the last-gasp equaliser. It was, in all honesty, deserved but broke our hearts all the same.
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Come back for Pete Sixsmith’s more considered view from the East Stand. This is how it seemed based on a mixture of radio commentary and Sky …

Craig Gordon, John Mensah and, until forced off by injury at half time, Kenwyne Jones did not deserve to be in a non-winning team.
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SAFC v Man City has produced some highly readable material at Salut! Sunderland: do yourself a favour and read, if you haven’t already, Dan Wild’s blue-tinted thoughts and Pete Sixsmith’s charming slice of nostalia. On the eve of the match, Colin Randall remembers the weekend life changed for ever for City …

The last time we played Man City at home was the day after I marked an unwelcome milestone with a party at the Stadium of Light, whose staff – I should say – made it an evening to remember.

My footballing birthday present was one I’d rather forget: a terrible 3-0 defeat, followed by a severe drenching as I made my way back to the station.

I was due next day on a flight back to the job I then had in Abu Dhabi. By then, I knew of the megabucks Abu Dhabi takeover of City. I was returning to an extension of the Blues’ catchment area.
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It was in Tian’anmen Square or on the Great Wall that the seeds of the latest contribution to Who Are You? were sown. The Thomas Cook top sort of gave it away that Dan Wild* was a Manchester City fan. He may be the first classics and ancient history graduate to visit China with a tour group and leave without seeing the terracotta warriors (it was an additional part of the itinerary, not included in the holiday he and his wife, Lesley-Ann, had won). Dan offers a bowdlerised version of Niall Quinn’s Disco Pants, thinks it’ll be 2-1 to City or 4-0 to us on Sunday and welcomes the Eastlands revolution and all those dirhams …

So, are Citeh the truly Manchester club or does everyone overdo the idea that most United fans couldn’t even place it on a map?  

I don’t think people overdo the idea. There are, obviously, a heck of a lot of United fans in Manchester, but (owing, alas, to their success) the vast majority of fans come from far and wide and most of whom without a doubt will never have seen a live game, many of whom probably won’t even have been to England! City lack the global fan base, hence us regarding ourselves as the ‘local club’ where most fans will have been to games live close to the city. 

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