Colin Randall

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

End of season reviews (6): six charts for a sick season

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John McCormick

I’m glad we can begin to look forward to next season. Although it might seem a grim prospect I’m sure there will be readers thinking it’s a bit less grim than it was, now that Moyes has gone.  As to the thoughts of the Salut team, you’ve had opinions from Lars, Malcolm, Mick Goulding, Wrinkly Pete and myself, and you can look forward to some fine writing to come from, at least, M Salut  and Pete Sixsmith, who will finish off the series.

Here’s something a bit different, though. A series of charts showing  some of the key features of a season to forget:

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Sunderland’s 10 relegations: The Coventry conundrum (part 2)

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Sixer by Jake

John McCormick writes: I was there, at Goodison, that night. For a long time afterwards I felt cheated but I was prepared to accept that Coventry fans would think “tough” – I would have done so in their circumstances. Nevertheless, I always harboured a resentment towards Jimmy Hill and when I heard Coventry fans had clubbed together and paid for a statue, which the man himself was invited to unveil, I couldn’t wish them well.

Pete Sixsmith may offer sympathy. My thoughts are a bit more Karmic: Get rid of the statue, Coventry fans, look what it has brought you.

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Things for fans to do until Sunderland’s football season starts in August

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… through the Championship, we’re on our way?

After a season like that, it may seem a stretch of even the most fevered imagination to suppose Sunderland supporters are currently feeling at a loose end without football. But there are fans and fans; I wouldn’t be surprised if some of ours already cannot wait for the delights of Burton, Barnsley and Brentford …and someone has come up with some suggestions for how to kill time until those mighty football occasions come round. They range from the blindingly obvious to, well, you decide …

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Who ate all the pies? And which club serves the best?

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Monsieur Salut writes: what is it about football and pies? Things many of us rarely eat in normal, civilised settings suddenly become sought after at football grounds. I loved the idea of the Roker Pie Shop and remember popping in sometimes but have no recollection of how good their food was.

I do have faint memories of steaming hot and delicious steak and kidney pies Pete Sixsmith and I would eat in Durham while waiting for the Football Echo to arrive as we made our way home from Roker Park. These days I probably buy pies on only one in 10 or more stadium visits (and no, I don’t order sushi instead). Hardly an end-of-season review, but here you go all the same. It’s a search for the best football pies going and reaches us via a writer from Coral …

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A daughter writes: amid the grief, a good night for Manchester

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1992 and all that: Nathalie in red, her dad in, er, a gruesome away top

Nathalie Randall is Monsieur Salut’s younger daughter. She plays football better than he ever did and tries to make up for supporting Liverpool by liking Sunderland, too. Tonight, she watched Manchester United restore a little joy to a great but grieving city …

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End of season reviews: (4) just hold on, Lads (and Lasses)

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

Peter Lynn is a great asset to Salut! Sunderland, with his eternal optimism and absolute love of the experience of being among fellow-Sunderland fans at matches home and away. And while he declares himself an oldish git, he is no such thing but – as I write – on a demanding walking trip in North Wales.

Bravo Pete. And here is his contribution to the series of end of season reviews …

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Sunderland’s 10 relegations: the Coventry City conundrum (part one)

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Jake: has anyone suffered more pain at football than Sixer, on the right though not remotely so in politics, and Sobs?

Monsieur Salut writes: scroll down on the right of this article and you’ll find him: the perplexed Coventry fan who wonders that a grudge has been held for all this time: ‘my god, you’ve been keeping this bottled up since the 76/77 season!!!! Any football fan who takes pleasure in another team’s (and not even rivals’) downfall to this degree needs some hobbies…’

‘You know what?’ as they say on X Factor. ‘We have.’ It was blatant cheating, a disgraceful episode and ought to have been punished, even if it has to be accepted that a relegated team also needs to look back on its own failings. Even if no one would have scored a winner anyway. Let Pete Sixsmith bring us up to date, in a rather tantalising way, with his series on Sunderland relegations ….

 

Daily Mirror, Nov 2nd, 1972

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End of season reviews: (3) smilin’ like I’m happy, seeking extenuating circumstances

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John McCormick: We're not bottom, so is it a Happy Christmas?
John McCormick: been here before

Colin Randall writes: I commend this epic piece from our associate editor John McCormick, his superbly argued but also entertaining contribution to our series of end-of-season reviews ….

 

You might be telling people

“ it’s a chance to rebuild”.

You might be saying

“Now we can bring the young’ns through”

Or you might just be thinking

“at least we won’t have to watch that rubbish next season”.

And maybe you’re forcing a smile as you say it.

Recent events might even have made it a genuine smile. But are you really happy? How do you really feel?

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