Penrith and Sunderland RCA pre-season round up ... and football and the soul !

Not long to go now until the FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round tie between Penrith and Sunderland RCA. Yesterday I thought I would check with both clubs to see if this will be their first competitive match of the season. For both teams it will be. I understand that for the majority of the 368 teams competing in the EP round this will be their first competitive game of 2016-17. This is apparently unusual as most years the EP round takes place after a couple of league games. However, the FA Cup kicking off the domestic season does seem to provide a beautiful symmetry as the last domestic competitive match of 2016-17 will be the FA Cup final at Wembley in May 2017. The FA Cup will bookend the entire season. Another bit of nice symmetry is provided by ‘The Road to Wembley from Scotland’ opening match. As stated, for both Penrith and Sunderland RCA this will be their first competitive match of 2016-17. The final competitive match for both teams in 2015-16 was their meeting at Frenchfields Stadium Penrith on the 8^th May 2016 when the men from Wearside went home with three points and a 2-0 victory tucked away. A pic from this game is shown below - with thanks and acknowledgement to the Sunderland RCA web site.

Sunderland RCA player auditions for the 'Ministry of Funny Walks'

It seems to have been almost a game too far for the visitors as they completed their 4^th match in the final week of the season. The manager and the assistant manager were unable to attend due to prior commitments so the trainer Colin Larkin took over for one game only. With the on loan keeper Michael Wood from Sunderland AFC called up by New Zealand for international duty the stand in manager had to play in goal. With other knocks and bruises in the RCA camp they only named one fit substitute. Despite all this they still headed back over the Pennines victorious. Hopefully they will have a full complement of players available for the big match on Saturday week.

Both Penrith and Sunderland RCA have been involved in pre-season friendly action. As previously reported Penrith maintained their Scottish links by entertaining the ‘Doonhamers’ of Queen of the South and lost a close match by the odd goal in seven. They have also thrashed both Milnthorpe Corinthians 4-0 at home and Carlisle City 6-0 away. The other pre-season friendly match played by ‘The Bonny Blues’ was a poignant fixture for the Scottish Physio Susan Pollock when Penrith entertained her previous club Workington in a Cumbrian Derby a couple of weeks ago. The match finished 1-1, a great showing by Penrith against a team from two tiers above them in the pyramid.

As far as I can gather Sunderland RCA have not been quite as active. Last midweek they entertained HMS Bulwark and ran out comfortable 9-0 winners. Prior to that they had travelled to North Yorkshire and won 3-1 against a decent Richmond Town side. The photo below from the match is also taken from the excellent Sunderland RCA web site.

 

Who ate all the pies? The Richmond player has had a great close season!!

Both the Penrith and Sunderland RCA teams are in fine fettle as the big day approaches !

I also take part in a music based e-forum for people of a certain age and background. One of the contributors is my good friend Kevin Higgins (or Big Hig the Slovenly Pig as I like to call him) and he has no interest or indeed knowledge of football. Despite this he gave an analysis of the Penrith v Sunderland RCA game identifying what it would take to win such a match. He wrote: “You've got to have the Passion, the Commitment, the skills and the force of will to win. That and artistic interpretation, the ability to express yourself with the ball, the communicative skill to empower a team , the philosophical background to understand the meaning of a ball crossing the line and its ontological significance, the understanding that of all possible engagements with the physical world the movement forward of the leg from the hip to connect the foot  with the ball is the one which embodies the true nature of existence and brings into being that occluded and nascent part of the human spirit--the Soul”. Another contributor, Dougie Ritchie, responded: “Nope, you’ve got to be able to punt the ball up the field in a haphazard manner and hope that someone from your team gets near it, after which it becomes their problem not yours.” Hopefully there will be slightly more skill on show when the two Northern League clubs meet on August the 6^th. Not long to go now until I head down the M74 for the match.