The clocks went back an hour on Saturday night across the British Isles - except for one godless enclave, where they were apparently reset by 35 years.

Mike Riley's whistle just before 3pm sent the citizens of wearside into a state of delirium unsurpassed since the exploits of Porterfield & Montgomery in 1973 (levels of excitement recorded at the discovery of cheesy chips remain sadly unrecorded). 

The home stands were a scene of unconfined joy, with even Royston Keane looking vaguely pleased. And in keeping with the revivalist tone of the occasion, several home fans emulated Bob Stokoe's 1973 excursion across the Wembley turf - albeit not wearing trilby hats or being pursued by Arthur Cox.

Once the dust(ups) settled though, there were few arguments with the result, as the luck we've enjoyed in this fixture finally ran out. And JFK's side can perhaps reflect that any remaining reservoirs of good fortune were used up last time, when Milner's shot crept in to give us a barely-deserved point.

That made it a dozen undefeated, but unlucky thirteen proved to be a game too far - and a display as forgettable as that overseen by Allardyce a year ago. The names change, but little else it seems.

Unfortunately while we've stagnated and spent much of the intervening period shooting ourselves in the foot, the clowns down the road have progressed. Today they had enough in their starting XI and bench today to get past us and stay there. Hardly pretty, but fairly disciplined and fairly effective.  

The spirit apparently inspired by JFK and exhibited in recent fightbacks against Everton and Man City gave some cause for optimism, but this ultimately proved to be one attempted comeback too many.

Our interim manager can take some of the responsibility for this, allowing the clearly ailing Butt to continue when he was running on empty and needing pain-killing injections mid-game to move at all. That sort of spirit is admirable, but not always the best policy. Besides which, Barton would probably have been safer on the field, rather than warming up on the sidelines and inflaming slack-jawed locals. 

Alongside Butt, Guthrie struggled - an early booking adding to the pressure he was under. And with Geremi's occasional sightings down the right still more than Duff managed to do, we were too often reduced to bypassing the midfield entirely and howking the ball up from defence to attack.

To be honest, there may have been an element of common sense and level-headedness from JFK in holding Spiderman and the madman back, rather than becoming wrapped up in the occasion and throwing them both on earlier - with a less fevered home game to follow just four days later.

Up front there was less to shout about as Martins had another forgettable derby display and stand-in keeper Marton Fulop was rarely tested in what was only the second Premier League game of his life.

The Hungarian made an unexpected appearance after Craig Gordon withdrew through injury, having been beaten twice in his only other senior runout this season against Northampton in the League Cup. It's fair to say that he'll have more testing days than this though, as we largely left him alone.

Shola had missed our best chance at 1-1, blazing high when well-placed after being put in by Martins but other than that we only sporadically threatened before Barton showed some guile in his late cameo but didn't quite produce a chance. Xisco of course wasn't trusted to take off his tracksuit top.

The killer blow came with a deadly free kick from Richardson which surely couldn't have come as a shock to anyone - Match of the Day having highlighted him hitting the woodwork once and seeing another one wrongly ruled out at Fulham last week (the cover of the match programme for today's game also featured a photo of the latter effort).

Enough. A crushing blow but only 1/38th of our season and with the same number of prized points at stake for beating West Brom on home soil this Tuesday night.

Forget dented local pride and bruised egos, failing to improve on a record of one win from nine games will entrench us firmly at the wrong end of the table. A victory now is vital, not least because of Sunday's maiden success for Dirty Harry's new team....