Colin Randall

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

Au revoir Arsenal, now for West Ham …

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Playing Arsenal is tiring. For Salut! Sunderland, that is. We always seem to get a couple of (very welcome) “Who Are You?” previews to deal with, each game manages to end in controversy of one kind or another and then there’s endless debate afterwards. But a lot of the post-Saturday discussion here has been of a very high standard, so thank to the many Gooners who contributed …

Now on to the Carling Cup and London opponents again. Sam the Hammer (aka Sam H) is a regular enough visitor to these shores. He’s a techie wizard, genial company over a pint and lord of the manor over at the West Ham Process, one our constant rivals for top spot among the FootballUnited.com hit parade of footie sites. Sam is also one of life optimists, a condition that helps when you support certain clubs (don’t we know it?), but feels this is one Sunderland will win. So, Sam, Who Are You? …

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Marriner all at sea as Newcastle sink Everton

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Mackem favours Toon shock! As if our own game hadn’t produced sufficient controversy – however contrived – Malcolm Dawson found reason for disgruntlement elsewhere in the Premier programme. In particular, he berates Andre Marriner for failing to take decisions that would have made the Mags’ task at Goodison even comfier …

There has been much debate on Salut! Sunderland and elsewhere about the circumstances surrounding Lee Cattermole’s sending off at Wigan.

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Arsenal Soapbox: same old Arsène, always moaning

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Pete Sixsmith was right at half time to text about Sunderland being well on top despite the fluke Fabregas goal. But maintaining our good cop/bad cop routine, he is less understanding than a certain other Salut! Sunderland writer of Arsène Wenger’s autowhinge mode …


The Wenger Whingometer usually goes to the top of the scale when the Metropolitan darlings have to visit the frozen north. Bolton, Blackburn, Stoke, Sunderland – Wenger hates them, with their gritty approach to football, their baying crowds and their pragmatic managers.

His post match interviews are a mixture of apoplexy and that superior look he can adopt, making him look like an incredibly snobbish llama.

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When Arsenal own up: cheers to Highbury House

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In the past 18 hours or so, I have heard Gooners admit they were second best for large chunks of yesterday’s game, that Arsenal players were more physical than ours, that Song’s serial offending brought him stern but hardly unfair punishment and that Marouane Chamakh dived shamelessly for a penalty (though not the one that was given; Collymore has confused everyone – see comments).

Great minds thinking alike, a regular Salut! Sunderland reader
Yiannis Skindilias draws our attention to a decent, reasonable account of the game from a Gooner with a platform just as prepare to reproduce it here with admiration:

It’s from Highbury House, one Gooners’ blog I hadn’t encountered before, And I join Yiannis in saluting the author.

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Sunderland v Arsenal: beauty and the beasts?

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Image: addick-tedKevin


Saturday morning and several hours to go before the later kickoff.

The papers are full of how wonderful Jack Wilshere is, how best he and the rest of Arsenal’s cultured but fragile elite should be protected from Premier League thugs (today’s equivalent of Keown, Adams, Bould, Winterburn, Dixon, Petit and Vieira? ‘appy ‘arry didn’t put it quite like that, but got pretty close).

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Prejudice and all that: coming to Lee Cattermole’s defence

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Image (from Munster v SAFC): L09C


Salut! Sunderland makes no apology for rebuking Lee Cattermole for his failure, for a second time in only three games this season, to stay on the pitch for all of one half. But we like a good argument. As if in quick response to my appeal for help when a forthcoming operation restricts my ability to post, Geoff Bethell pops up from New Zealand with a refreshingly different analysis …


I haven’t lived in Sunderland since 1961. I haven’t been there since 1968. I haven’t lived in the UK since 1970.

But out here in the glorious rugby-playing nation of NZ it’s still the case that to be a whole human being you can no more give up your love of Sunderland AFC than you can your brain.

Since the advent of the internet, keeping in touch has become so much easier. So it was on Sunday morning (we’re 11 hours ahead of UK) that I went on to SportingLife.com as usual for the results.

One-one away to Wigan. I’d hoped for better, feared for worse, but appreciated that 1-1 was acceptable. Was it a point well won or two points thrown away? The match reports and comments were the next things to check up on. It was then I lost it.

“Oh for eff’s sake.”

“What a complete and utter cretin.”

“Why do we persist with this twerp?”

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Brushed-up images of Steed and Kieran, noble words from Bent

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More graphic design wizardry from addick-tedKevin, but also a few words of appreciation for the efforts so far from two of our players – plus unqualified admiration for Darren Bent’s outstanding response to a worthy honour…

First of all, on the eve of Sunderland v Arsenal, let us hear it for two stars of our (slowly) improving season.

Steed Malbranque’s performances have oozed class, and even a level of stamina we didn’t know he possessed.

And Kieran Richardson, not always as convincing a member of our first team squad as discerning SAFC fans would like, has surely confounded critics with a string of excellent displays in a left-back position he was asked to fill in the first place because there was no one else good enough.

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Arsenal: ‘go on – would you rather watch us, or Stoke?’

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Our second Gooner to preview SAFC v Arsenal, Jon Ryan*, had an enviable journalistic career, mixing business and pleasure by becoming sports editor of the Mail on Sunday and The Sunday Telegraph. A racing man, too, he rounded it off by cantering into a top job at the British Horseracing Authority, which oddly enough brought him into contact with Niall Quinn. No hardship for a big Quinny fan. Jon is pictured with his daughter Jemma “on a disastrous night in Munich – we lost 3-1 in a snowstorm but at least witnessed the world’s biggest snowball fight in the Olympic stadium and had a mean knuckle of ham”. Bet he was happier last night …

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