Colin Randall

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

Soapbox: Mourinho’s Inter Milan – just like watching Blackpool

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soapbox

Almost a blank Saturday? Pete Sixsmith found no football to tempt him to a ground yesterday, but was so taken with what he heard and saw from Wembley and the Santiago Bernabeu that he became quite confused. Was that Ormerod or Milito who scored Blackpool’s playoff winner? See if you spotted the same similarities between yesterday’s triumphant sides …

Well that was my first blank Saturday for a while. I resisted the temptation of Newcastle University v Shankhouse in the Northern Alliance and spent a non football ground-attending day doing other things.

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Clough or SuperKev or Marco?

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Must be something to do with watching Diego Milito’s sublime finishing for Inter Milan last night and wondering whether he’s had time to consider a move to Sunderland, where he and Darren Bent could strike up a useful partnership – and challenge for places in our parade of best-ever strikers …


There are things that happened last week that I barely remember. The memory of Brian Clough’s ultimately career-ending injury, colliding with Bury’s goalkeeper Chris Harker in the light snow of Roker Park, is so clear that it might have happened earlier today, rather than Boxing Day 1962.

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Arsenal, cheating and a looming World Cup divefest

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Denilson And Eduardo
Image: wonker

That’s it as far as Salut! Sunderland and Eduardo are concerned. He dived, won his penalty, got pilloried, had a question named after him at this site. But it is time to move on, pray – without great expectation – for a cheating-free World Cup and also remember that Arsenal fans were divided on the incident and what it said about the game …

All responses, even those confusing argument with abuse, will be posted but spam threat makes moderation unavoidable …

Words written, prize awarded. You might have hoped there’d be no more about diving. No such luck.

Salut! Sunderland confidently predicts yet another divefest at the 2010 World Cup. We won’t even be arrogant enough to claim England and our honorary second team Paraguay – an exception to the “no second team” rule for this summer only – will rise at all times above the temptation to cheat, much as we hope they do.

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Soapbox: come on England – I’m the man for the FA

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Seen enough manifestos to last a liftetime, or at least until Cameron is forced to call another election? Well, here’s another all the same. “Gizza job, I can do that,” says Pete Sixsmith, putting on Yosser Hughes’s best suit to be interviewed for the vacancies left by Lord Triesman’s tumble from grace …

Once again, the Football Association is plunged into turmoil as fearless hacks from the Mail On Sunday uncover Chairman Triesman as a xenophobic ranter, accusing Russia and Spain/Portugal as being in cahoots over the 2018 World Cup bid.

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The Birmingham City fan topping our Pretend Fair Play league

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Arsenal fans will pounce on the irony of a Birmingham fan winning something to do with fair play and inspired by Eduardo. But the issues are separate, and Kevin Ball is a deserving winner …

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We’re open to accusations of cheating ourselves, that we manipulated the result to ensure yet another Mackem connection to Salut! Sunderland competition prizewinners, if only in name.

But look at the replies people gave and Kevin Ball, who runs the Birmingham fan site Joys and Sorrows fully merits his selection as winner of our Pretend Fair Play league, inspired by rival fans’ responses to the Eduardo question: would you take – gladly or guiltily – or almost wish you could decline a trophy/title/survival won by a penalty scored after a blatant dive?

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The Eduardo survey, without apology to Arsenal

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One last pop at Eduardo for that extraordinary dive against Celtic and then all will be forgiven. The unfinished business is that we have one more prize to award, for the winner of our Pretend Fair Play league. The prize itself falls below Euromillions levels …

All season long, since Mr Eduardo’s bid for Olympic glory, but in a sport other than football, against Celtic in the Champions’ League, Salut! Sunderland has posed the same question to virtually every fan of a rival club who has taken part in our Who Are You? series.

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The report card: (5) Pete Sixsmith measures the progress

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The team has been ordered to Mr Sixsmith’s study. They fear the worst after that dire mid-season run, the unfulfilled promise, the indiscipline and the damp squib of a season’s ending. But no, Sir is in a good mood. He sees really encouraging signs. Here, in our final review of the season, those signs are assessed by a man who has provided exemplary analysis of Sunderland AFC week after week …

We would all agree, I think, that the season just gone has been an improvement on the last two. I think that we would all agree the dip in mid season was worrying. I think we would all agree that the disciplinary record has been poor and needs to improve.

So, let’s try to put a different slant on 2009-10. Let’s look at where we were four years ago and let’s look at where we are now in the overall context of the Premier League.

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