Ken Gambles: ‘would a Gooner rhyme my surname with stumbles?’
One minor regret of our 10 seasons in the Premier League is that this spell ends without the authorities taking up the ingenious suggestions from our own Ken Gambles of making shirt-pullers wear bright pink knitted mittens and divers pull on goggles. Undeterred, Ken has come up with other thoughts on rule changes, this time proposing sanctions designed to punish offending teams, not humiliate individuals …
After a season devoid of impact or excitement, Sunderland are in the relatively unusual position of having a major say in who else goes down – and a glance at the odds at 10bet homepage suggests the bookies don’t expect us to stand in Swansea’s way on Saturday.
Our rare win at the weekend, with goals from Billy Jones and Jermain Defoe to beat Hull, did the Swans a power of good. But they were also doing what we used to do when we took survival battles more seriously: they won an important game of their own.
NB: the fourth and fifth answers were added by readers. I cannot cast the vote those readers gave themselves so they – plus others if in agreement – should tick the relevant box now
We’re down and demoralised. Yes, we beat Hull. We may even win another game to salvage more pride, but probably not a place higher than 20th.
Some will put a gloss on relegation – “at least we’ll see some wins and some goals” – but we all know where we’d rather be next season.
Monsieur Salut writes: hard for us, hard for him to make too much of a song and dance out of a win that carries no meaning beyond some hope of not finishing bottom. But here, all the same, is what David Moyes had to say after we beat Hull City 2-0, a deserved victory though it took a great display by Jordan Pickford to keep a clean sheet …
Pete Sixsmith decided after all to go to the Hull game and you’ll see his seven-word verdict below. I imagine thousands of Sunderland supporters not even bothering how it went. At half-time, Sixer’s verdict was that we looked better organised (not a huge leap) in a poor game. Then, all of a sudden, Billy Jones came good with a great diving header. To be followed by a deserved 15th goal for Defoe, albeit offside, to produce the sort of win we could have done with a lot more often. Honeyman was good, so were Anchibe and O’Shea but Pickford had to be outstanding – and was …
Monsieur Salut writes: Pete Sixsmith won’t mind Michael Goulding, a more occasional contributor, intruding on his new series about Sunderland’s 10 relegations. After Sixer’s priceless if detached reminiscences of the time our club lost its proud record of having played only in the top flight, Mick posted this as a comment. It cried out to be elevated to a proper part of the series even though he, like Sixer, has no direct memories of that first experience of dropping a division.In fact, Mick’s story is about supporting the club rather than seeing it suffer the humiliation of relegation …
Sixer’s was a good piece full of engaging memories (even if they aren’t all mine). I was too young, aged five, to remember that first relegation.
Five-year-olds then were very different from five-year-olds now. We lived in blissful ignorance. Nothing was on the telly, which was just as well cos we didn’t have one, and the only other media outlet that I engaged with was in comic form (Dandy, Beano, Topper etc).
Ian Wilson* is the warm-hearted Hull City fan who recently chipped in with £50 for the Bradley Lowery fund. He turns out to be exiled in Sri Lanka and to have spent a lot of time at Roker Park while working in the North East. Ian expresses obviously sincere sympathy on our relegation, muses over the players he’d take from our squad, offers cautious optimism on Hull’s survival prospects – and says David Moyes is not the man to revive Sunderland’s fortunes …
We will know soon whether David Moyes is to stay on for the massive job of reviving Sunderland after his wretched season in charge. If he goes, we would need swift, decisive action on a replacement to avoid the problems caused last summer by the FA’s dithering over Big Sam and England. Here, a guest writer weighs up the options …
Art of Football commemorates a happier day for Sunderland supporters
Before we reach this week’s business of guessing the score at Hull City on Saturday, Salut! Sunderland is delighted to be able to say that our friends at Art of Football are the first confirmed sponsors of this season’s farewell-to-the-Premier-League edition of the HAWAY (highly articulate Who are You?) awards.
These, as most readers will know, are made each season to the best interviewees among opposing fans. Monsieur Salut is roping in the usual suspects to serve as judges but if you like the series and want to have a say, drop me a line at mailto:salutsunderland@gmail.com.
Next year brings the 45th anniversary of May 5 1973, a day of which we as Sunderland supporters were – if we were already alive then – delirious as opposed to despondent. We had, of course, won the FA Cup, beating much-fancied but dirty old Leeds.
Colin Randall 
