 Tuesday, 29th May 2012 23:25 by Awaydays As ever at the end of the season LFW has a backlog of these scarcely read Awaydays to catch up on and shall be publishing four this week, starting with the trip to Sunderland. On the pitchThe idea with the Awardays is to write them a couple of days after the game by way of drawing a line under the whole experience and moving on. Dredging things up weeks and, in this case, months down the line is never healthy and not what people want to read. However we do get e-mails - and Neil - nagging constantly about publishing them when I’d happily let them slide and so here we are reflecting on a result and performance that I believed at the time had the look and feel of a coffin nail. Riding the crest of a wave of optimism following a miraculous midweek win against Liverpool, Rangers travelled to a Sunderland side firmly focussed on a midweek cup quarter final with Everton hopeful of adding more points to their survival total. Sunderland were indeed a team playing in third gear, and versed in little more than the basics of the sport, but sadly that was good enough to comprehensively defeat Mark Hughes’ side here. A goal from Nicklas Bendtner in the first half that was embarrassingly easy to score set the tone for an insipid QPR display in the first half. Straight after half time the frustration was all too much for Djibril Cisse who lunged in wildly on Frazier Campbell and saw red for the second time in his fledgling QPR career as a result. Playing with ten men the R’s swiftly conceded a second to the impressive James McClean and then, having infuriatingly hoofed the ball long to an isolated Bobby Zamora all afternoon, decided suddenly to play kamikaze passing football in their own penalty area and ultimately presented a simple third goal to the man of the match Stephane Sessegnon. A late, spectacular, free kick from Taye Taiwo reduced the arrears but QPR were dreadful here and looked bound for the Championship at this point. Scores >>> QPR performance 4/10 >>> Opposition performance 6/10 >>> Referee performance 5/10 In the standJust to the north of the Stadium of Light there is a long, straight street called Sandringham Terrace that says so much about the history of this city. As you walk down that road you’d think things a little odd, but you’d be forgiven for failing to recognise why. On the one side of the road runs a traditional row of terraced houses with front doors opening out onto the pavement, small back yards that would once have contained an outside toilet and coal bunker, and then an alleyway behind separating it from the next street of identical terraced housing. It is Sunderland, and Britain, as it once was: basic housing accommodation for people earning basic livings in manual labour. On the opposite side of the street is a collection of new-builds. Some two storey, some three; some three bedrooms, some four; but all with gardens, and driveways, and double glazing, and a porch. People who work in Sunderland’s modern industries that are all circuit boards and power steering rather than coal faces and metalwork are no doubt happy to have them. The reason Sandringham Terrace is split like this is up until 15 years ago the old terraced housing on one side looked onto the back of the side stand at Roker Park, home of the city’s football club. Long since bulldozed and built on, the only clue you’d ever have that Roker Park was ever here comes when you turn onto the new estate and find yourself driving down Goalmouth Close and Midfield Drive. Sunderland’s football team now plays a mile away on the banks of the River Wear in a new stadium that couldn’t be less like Roker Park if it tried. Our first visit here came on Good Friday in 1998 when QPR - Vinnie Jones, Neil Ruddock and all – were staring relegation in the face and seen as lambs to the slaughter for the Sky audience against Peter Reid’s Mackems who were apparently Premiership bound. Losing 2-0 with 15 minutes to go it seemed Rangers had read the script perfectly but two late goals from Mike Sheron rescued an unlikely point and sparked a panic in the Sunderland dressing room that then saw them miss out on automatic promotion and subsequently lose the greatest play off final of all time to Charlton. It is also worth saying, as it’s the main thing I remember from the evening, that it was the coldest night ever recorded anywhere in the world ever since the planet was formed. Our first experience of the away end at the Stadium of Light was taking it in turns penguin-style to watch the game and commentate for the rest of the group while they turned their backs to the action, and the rain that was freezing into inch long shards of ice and blowing directly into the QPR supporters’ faces on a gale force wind. The other abiding memory of this place came years later when QPR, newly promoted from the third tier, faced newly relegated Sunderland in the second away match of the season and fought out another creditable 2-2 draw that could so easily have been a win but for a last minute equaliser. Paul Furlong’s awesome opening goal remains one of the best I’ve ever seen QPR score. On that occasion the ground was about a third full, with the best part of 20,000 Sunderland fans making a mockery of Richard Keys’ constant assertion the greatest football fans in the world come from the north east by deserting their team immediately after a one league demotion. That, and my usual moan about the distance from touchline to first row of seats that applies to all new grounds, not withstanding it was impossible not to be impressed on our latest visit. A programme written passionately and, bizarrely, in the local accent was a good start but the noise created by the Sunderland fans inside the stadium was really something else. They sang constantly, although not anything that could easily be deciphered, and showed that if this club can actually get a competitive side on the pitch that they will back it. It was probably the best home support we’ve heard all season on our travels. The Metro took us directly to the stadium before the game but as this is Britain and forward planning is something we tend to leave to the Japanese we had to walk into the town centre to catch it back afterwards because the stations next to the stadium close after the final whistle for fear of overcrowding. Right thinking nationalities may have thought that a station built to serve a stadium should probably be open on the days the stadium is in use and built them big enough to cope with demand but, hey, we’ve come to expect nothing less over the years in the UK. Points added for the QPR fan presumably on a stag party who attended in a blue and white hooped wedding dress, and for the Sunderland fans who backed their team so well throughout and also gave the three ex-Mackems in the QPR team a fantastic reception. Points off for the stewards who spent so much needless time and energy wading into the QPR fans at the back and trying to throw people out for no reason whatsoever. Scores >>> QPR support 6/10 >>> Home support 8/10 >>> Overall atmosphere 7/10 >>>> Stadium 8/10 >>>> Police and stewards 5/10 On the roadIt’s important, I believe, to keep freshening the LoftforWords travelling party up with some new faces whenever we possibly can. Admittedly this is because the strenuous demands on time, bank accounts and livers that the group puts on you has killed off three previous members and seen a further two move abroad to escape, but it’s nice to make occasional new friends all the same. At last season’s Player of the Year dinner Neil and I finally bumped into Andy Hillman - one of the non-salaried members of staff that this website demands copy from once a week for no return - and his better half Jas. They were immediately co-opted into the 30 or so people I can actually stand to be around and you could tell be the looks on both their faces that night – Andy very concerned, Jas slightly intrigued – that they knew firstly there would be no escape and secondly that this may not end well for them. Goodbye free time. Goodbye disposable income. Jas said they were only using their money to swim around in Scrooge McDuck style anyway but I think she was probably just trying to allay my guilt for spending it all for them. Fast forward the best part of a year to Jas’ twenty eighth birthday and the affects of co-option into the group were there for all to see. Nice meal out? Weekend away? Nah. How does the 0900 service from London Kings Cross to Sunderland via Newcastle grab you instead? Apparently it grabbed her rather well and once Neil had finished chatting up/threatening (it’s often difficult to tell with him) the new staff on Kings Cross’ swanky concourse and commandeered a free poached egg in a pot there we all sat, expectantly, in the buffet car. Madness. As I often say though, it could always be worse. Roughly 50 miles north of Neil’s free poached egg and Jas’ brave face was our friend and colleague Colin Speller, motoring north in the first class cabin of the semi-fast service to Peterborough where he intended to join us. Motoring, that is, until the electrical arm on the top of the train detached itself at Biggleswade in spectacular fashion, taking a nice big thick slice of the overhead power cables with it and sending the good people of the Home Counties scattering across the platform trying to avoid the blue sparks and thrashing cable. This posed us a problem back in the capital because come half nine our train still hadn’t left while it waited to see whether the damage could be repaired. Alternative options to circumnavigate the problem were discussed, possibly going from St Pancras up to Sheffield and across for instance, but as a decision drew close it was taken out of hands by East Coast who elected to move our train, at half speed, up to Stevenage and park it there for another hour basically reducing our options down to zero and imprisoning us in the middle of the Stevenage Leisure Park. We amused ourselves with the gerbil felching video on YouTube among other things, partly to pass the time and partly to stop me throttling the downtrodden guard. When we did eventually move, albeit amid the disconcerting faint smell of burning, we were then involved in a Top Gear style race to Peterborough with Mr Speller busy commandeering eight fellow passengers from his train of death into a taxi pool from Biggleswade and then trying to find a road vehicle that would take them all up to Peterborough before we got there. There’s something about Biggleswade. I once nearly missed a 2-2 draw at home to Coventry City because a very large fat man decided his life had reached the point of pointlessness where he believed it was a good idea to walk out in front of an express train. My express train on that occasion to be precise, with rather gory consequences for those of us sitting in the front carriage. That, incidentally, took my tally to three suicides (two in front of my train, one in front of my eyes) and a cow in my years of rail travel. Fun times. We eventually met up successfully, arrived in Newcastle an hour and 20 minutes late, and have since been told that we had provided “insufficient detail” in our request for a refund on the tickets. That dialogue - needless to say - is full, frank and ongoing. Scores >>> Journey 3/10 >>> Cost 3/10 In the pubOne of the places I’m most looking forward to returning to next season is Newcastle. Temperatures so cold it felt like the world might be ending and an early Sunday lunchtime kick off in January for our game at St James’ Park caused one or two problems with pubs on our first visit. We ended up the in The Strawberry before the game that day, a pub with 3,000 Geordies crammed into a space about as big as big as your living room, and a weird dentist’s reception room called Bannatynes afterwards. Admittedly the poor post match choice was made through shock that the first place we’d gone in had topless pole dancers on each table in the middle of the afternoon while people sat around and ate their Sunday dinners but then it’s that sort of city. We decided to have another shot at the city this time, partly because the direct train to Sunderland left stupidly early and got in at silly o’clock even by LFW standards but also because, and I’m battening down the hatches as I type this, Newcastle just seems like a bit of a superior place to Sunderland. There’s nothing quite like the sweeping approach across the bridges as the train arrives in Newcastle and we’ve never had a bad day out there, whereas Sunderland just seems a bit desolate. This time, through laziness and lack of time after the Biggleswade incident, we stayed in the station bar at Newcastle for some half decent food and the lunchtime match. It should be said that the people are just as friendly in both locations, and we had a Mackem keen to talk football with us on the way to the match on the rickety Metro service that links the two places. But visiting these two cities just always feels like being mates with two brothers, one who made something of himself and one who now clears drains for the council for a living. It would be unfair to lump Sunderland in with some of the other places you find along the East Coast of our country that were once heavily reliant on some sort of heavy industry (coal exports and shipbuilding in Sunderland’s case) but have just descended into self pity and mass unemployment since the Chinese started doing those things cheaper. They make Nissan Micras in Sunderland these days and while we can debate the merits of those evil little things at length it is at least something for the people to do with their time rather than beating up women and drinking spirits in the park while moaning about the decline of the fishing industry – looking at you Grimsby. Nissan, and other techi industry, has helped the city recover from a position 20 years ago where one in five people there was unemployed. It’s making an effort basically. But we’re still not keen to drink there. Scores >>> Pubs 6/10 >>> Atmosphere 6/10 >>> Food 7/10 >>>> Cost 9/10 Total 83/140Tweet @loftforwords Pictures – Action Images Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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