Smith seals Gray day

Sunderland 1 Smith 43 Swindon Town 0 Attendance: 16,874

ONLY A year ago Swindon Town were losing games but winning friends in the Premiership. They were poor but they were pretty. They remain poor, the prettiness is a thing of the past.

At Roker Park they all but condemned themselves to their second successive relegation and for most of the match demonstrated that they thoroughly merited it. There was scant indication that they were fighting for their First Division lives against a Sunderland side also up against it. Sunderland were not much better in terms of skill or organisation and it was clear why they, too, have been involved in a desperate struggle at the bottom.

But their fervour at least remained undiminished. Not much at Roker is what it was in the halcyon days and the ground is shabby and unwelcoming. Sunderland have been left well behind in football's glitzy new world but the legendary Roker roar still gets paraded occasionally at least. It was on display yesterday and the players, albeit fitfully, responded.

It was probably appropriate that on such a grey day it proved to be a Gray day. All three players of that name in the Sunderland ranks beavered away for the entire afternoon, and perhaps Phil should have scored. The best of his clear chances came with 10 minutes left when Fraser Digby, with the finest of his several good saves, blocked a shot and poked away the ricochet from an almost prone position.

Sunderland's largest difficulty all season has been a woeful lack of goals. This was the 18th time they had scored a solitary goal, the seventh on which they had won with it. Martin Smith was the scorer on this occasion when he managed to get on the end of a free-kick, which he buried in the corner two minutes before the break.

Sunderland rarely looked likely to add another, though there were several half-chances. Their centre-forward Brett Angell has been booked twice in six games since being signed from Everton, in which time he has failed to score.

There is every sign that his yellow cards will continue to outstrip his goals. He chases everything but he has the knack of ensuring that every cause turns out to be a lost one.