Podcasting, mending crooked fingers and giving gloryseeking a bad name

From David Schiavone, one of the Red Cafe Man Utd podcast people, came this understatement: “Well done, your team were quite impressive”. Along with a belated signpost to my pre-match interview for them (a bit past its use-by date but you’ll find it at this link if you really want; the interview is along way in). But meanwhile, Salut! Sunderland’s need for the treatment table is growing …

Thanks to the continuing technical problems that are beyond our control, it has sometimes seemed hardly worth the effort to post items at Salut! Sunderland of late.

Footballunited.com hopes things are about to settle down; indeed it hoped this would happen over the weekend.

I’ll believe it when it happens, as will Jeremy and Martin in Canada, Manchester United fans trying to follow a link from the Republik of Mancunia site and various people I’ve heard of in the North East who have been unable to see what we’ve been doing here.

It seems totally hit and miss: I cannot access the site or behind the scenes from time to time, but that tends to be when the whole network is down (annoyingly often, but on a decreasing basis). At other times, when Jeremy is tearing his hair out on Ontario, I am still able to see what is there and work on new postings.

All I can do is keep apologising, and keep nagging footballunited.

Maybe it’s a good time, then, for me to hand myself over to the mercies of the NHS. The operation mentioned here recently is scheduled for tomorrow and is on my right hand. I will be unable to write normally for some time and how well Salut! Sunderland is able to keep ticking over will depend on the willingness of my faithful contributors to send a steady stream of articles – and the time Joan Dawson can spare to post them.

If I find my hand allows me to tinker, or recovers more quickly than expected, that will naturally help. But for those of you who can get to the site unimpeded by footballunited’s gremlins, please bear with us. There really is a mountain of archived material to explore from links down the sidebars columns.

And may I hope that Pete Sixsmith doesn’t join me in the crooked finger rehab unit (it’s a tough job at this coalface and we’re going down like flies with the same complaint, Dupuytren’s contracture; happily his is nowhere near in need of immediate treatment).

And one thing from today’s papers that amused me: the naturalist Bill Oddie’s explanation of why he hopped from one gloryseeking fotball allegiance to another.

In the This Much I know column in The Observer magazine, he says: “I was a Chelsea fan in the 70s. I used to go with Eric Idle. When they got rid of Charli8e Cooker and Alan Hudson, we gave away our season tickets in protest. Now I support Manchester United.”

But who, Bill, was it in the 60s or the 50s? I mean, you’re a man of 69 so there must have been someone then, too. Wolves in the 50s, maybe, and Spurs in the 60s. And who is next in line for your “support” when Man Utd’s decline is complete? Not us, I hope.

Colin Randall