Colin Randall

Salut! Sunderland was edited by Colin Randall up until December 2019 - read more

Sunderland’s controversial new strip: your chance to counter my politically incorrect view

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Didn’t we once look a little the same?

Monsieur Salut writes: each close-season, we see a new set of SAFC kits. Each season, they divide opinion. I am clearly in a minority in liking, at least a little, the new home top. You may well disagree with me. Read on and have your say …

What you see above is not the new Sunderland home kit, the one generating such strong protests, but a markedly similar one from the days when our team was a force in the land, the Team of All the Talents no less. Check out a great description of historic strips at http://ryehillfootball.co.uk/art/the-art-of-sunderland-afc/.

Whenever we remind brand supporters – Man U and C, Chelsea, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs etc – that we’ve won six top flight titles, we must remember also that half of the titles were secured in the century before last. And what you see above is how we looked back then …

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Ten Years After: when Carlos Edwards and Keano warmed Sunderland hearts

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Monsieur Salut writes: it seems an awful long time ago. Then, BBC Radio Newcastle’s brilliantly excitable Simon Crabtree had produced the Mother of all Goal Commentaries with his description of Carlos Edwards’s scintillating winner against Burnley to push us closer to promotion (achieved as champions with the 5-0 away win at Luton in the final game). It’s in the superb YouTube clip you see above.

But Ten Years After – OK, a little more than 10, since the Burnley  match was on April 27 and the Luton game on May 6 – we all need to have our spirits lifted. Then, we were in the hands of the Drumaville consortium, a group of Irish businessmen led by Niall Quinn as chairman and Seaham-born John Hays as vice chairman. I have seen the message Niall sent Drumaville’s surviving veterans after our relegation was confirmed this season; it was a model of dignity and pride.

Can the memory of that astonishing bottom-to-top transformation inspire whoever, ultimately, accepts the job of managing Sunderland and whoever is subsequently the club’s owner(s). We shall see. But here is how we reported on promotion 10 years ago …

 

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Sunderland’s 10 relegations: down with a Wembley twist

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Pete Sixsmith

Pete’s going to be busy for a while, so there’s a good chance we’ll have a new manager – maybe a new owner (not to mention the possibility of a new prime minister) – before he gets back to this series. In the meantime, here’s his take on relegation number 4.

Like the first three, and like his other musings, it’s excellent stuff

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West Ham just pip Manchester(s) as hooligans of the season

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Jake on a whim

John McCormick writes: It has been a strange day. First, an e-mail from Pete Sixsmith asking if I’d voted and including and article. I had, but closer examination revealed the article was his report from the Hull game and the e-mail was dated 7th May.

Then came an e-mail from Oddbins telling me time was running out – what do they know about our search for a manager?

It wasn’t until 5pm that normal service was resumed, with a request from Colin asking if I could post this short article, from one of our occasional guests, Abby Chinery, of journalistic.org.

Happy to oblige, Abby:

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Salut! Sunderland’s Watford star and his HAWAY-winning ‘Who are You?’

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Del Day: ‘hey love, was thinking we could name our daughters Blissett’

This is the prize-winning interview with Del Day, a Watford supporter, in Salut! Sunderland annual HAWAY awards. Del took first place – as you can read here – and has expressed a preference for the £50 voucher from Classic Football Shirts (‘I’ll get that ’89 away shirt for my wife – only kidding, it’s the kit she hates most!’) … bravo Del, and here’s your interview all over again …

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Salut! Sunderland’s HAWAYs: Watford finish top ahead of Chelsea and Bournemouth

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The deed is done. Another series of Who are You? interviews with opposing supporters has produced winners. Read on to see who the judges chose, and why ….

 

The judges have spoken. This year’s winners of the HAWAYs – awards for the Highly Articulate Who are You? interviews conducted through each season with fans of Sunderland’s opposing clubs – are announced today.

And in clear top place is Watford-supporting Del Day, followed by Chelsea’s Ray Knight and Bournemouth’s Tom Latchem.

Salut! Sunderland is, as ever, enormously grateful to the prize sponsors – Classic Football Shirts, When Saturday Comeshttps://shop.wsc.co.uk and Art of Football, and the gallery shows appropriate products each offers – and will simply offer Del his choice of the three. Ray gets second choice, leaving Tom with the remaining prize.

If the mood holds until the end of this article, there will be a special award from Salut! Sunderland funds for another deserving contender. But the truth is, as Jake’s caption makes clear, that the strength of the Who are You? series – see the full season’s entries here – is the quality of the responses we receive from the supporters who agree to participate.

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HAWAY awards: Bournemouth, Chelsea, Shrewsbury and Watford fight for Salut! SAFC honours

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Jake: ‘with thanks to all opposing fans who participate’


See how we introduced this year’s awards at https://safc.blog/2017/05/haway-its-awards-time-again-with-bournemouth-middlesbrough-swansea-making-early-running/

The suspense mounts.

Early next week, Salut! Sunderland will announce the winners of the HAWAYS, our annual Who are You? awards for the best interviews with opposing supporters.

The prizes shall be:

* a year’s subscription to the ever-brilliant magazine When Saturday Comes

* a voucher for £50 to spend with Classic Football Shirts

* a print from Art of Football. You’ll recall their highly individual depictions of Jermain Defoe’s winning volley against Newcastle United, Kevin Phillips and the heroes of 1973. A winner choosing this prize would naturally look more widely around Art of football’s range

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My groundhopping stunners (especially Spennymoor-Blyth Spartans) and stinkers (most Sunderland games)

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Pete Sixsmith as author (a chapter in Tales from the Red and Whites) : ‘can’t stop. Once I’ve signed these, I have to work out travel to hundreds of more games’

Pete Sixsmith has seen 180 games since the season began. The ones he regrets most involve the Lads in red and white, or whatever away strip in which they were purporting to play. But along the way, he’s seen some great football as well as the duds …

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End of season reviews: (7) A Sunderland sequence … 6-6-3-5-5-2-2-1

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Jake: ‘I did think a pile of manure might be the right image’

Ken Gambles has paid the price of being too conscientious. Ken’s end-of-season review arrived so quickly that by the time we got round to publishing the series, Monsieur Salut had completely forgotten it. Apologies to Ken. But now sit back and appreciate, later than intended, his thoughts – and a heartening conclusion even if one that has Ken questioning his mental health …

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