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Dear Roker Report,
I may be wrong but this year is the first time since 1963 — when I first attended matches — that there’s no game over the Easter weekend.
Easter was always the biggest weekend on the football calendar. A game was played on Good Friday afternoon followed by a game on Easter Monday afternoon against the same club — and sandwiched in between was a game on the Saturday afternoon.
The clubs always saw large attendances for these games as the fans loved the holiday atmosphere that went with the occasion.
Today, three games inside four days would be considered impossible, but the players of yesteryear all took it in their stride.
Happy days; never to be repeated but some great memories from those times. Teams would frequently suffer a heavy defeat on the Friday but would get revenge on the Monday with a big win.
It would be nice to have a league game on either the Friday or Monday, if only to fill in a long blank weekend.
Stuart Lathan
Ed’s Note [Phil]: Hi, Stuart. Thank you for your letter.
It’s a strange quirk of this season’s fixture list that Easter is an FA Cup weekend rather than a Premier League weekend, but on the other hand, despite the long gap between Sunderland fixtures post-Newcastle, it does give everyone — fans and players alike — a chance to take a breather ahead of the final swing of league games.
It’s been a long, hard and often stressful season and I think this extended pause in action could be beneficial before we get back to the grind against Tottenham — hopefully with some of our absent players back in the running as well.
Dear Roker Report,
What would be your starting eleven for the Spurs game?
Jack Field (Seaburn lad, forty five years in red and white)
Ed’s Note [Phil]: Hi, Jack. Thank you for getting in touch.
Injuries notwithstanding, I’d go: Roefs, Mukiele, Alderete, Ballard, Reinildo, Xhaka, Sadiki, Le Fée, Talbi, Rigg, and Brobbey.
Let’s hope that our injured lads are back in the frame for next Sunday. It’s a great chance to push on towards our next target of fifty points!
