Colin Randall

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

Eyes down for the new sponsor: two fat ladies, legs eleven, clickety click

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bingo

Bingo, we have new sponsors, and Niall says they’re good news for Sunderland AFC. Salut! Sunderland offers Tombola a useful guide to the numbers on the backs of key members of the squad (but then realises it’s not needed because the firm’s chief executive is a Sunderland nut*, who comes warmly recommended by a good source)…

Salut! Sunderland is not sure it cares too much what name appears on the front of the players’ shirts.

OK, we’d certainly draw the line at seeing the initials BNP or NF emblazoned across the fabric separating thin air from Darren Bent’s chest.

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Man United fixture change: when fans come last

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“Bastards! I have that whole weekend organised already and this will foul things up! It’s a bit late to change isn’t it?”

That was one understandable reaction to the Premier League’s decision, announced only today, to move our last home game of the season from Saturday May 1 to Sunday May 2, kickoff 4pm. To accommodate Sky Sports, needless to say.

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Smelly feet, belly fat and spam

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fat

This article has nothing to do with football. Nor had any of the spam that I spent time clearing out of the comments field of various Salut! Sunderland postings this morning …

Last week, at Salut! Sunderland’s parent site Salut!, I defended news aggregators such as newsnow.co.uk against charges of being web parasites, since they send genuinely interested readers to the homes of original work (newspaper websites, blogs etc). But I haven’t quite finished with the real web parasites.

Whose e-mail address do you reckon is cookforlife34@hotmail.com? What about Tifft23@gmail.com; kurns83@gmail.com; xenithpow@hotmail.com; Blyler10@gmail.com and Bohnker@gmail.com?

What is My Dish? Who runs the wonderfully misnamed http://loose-belly-fat.org (assuming that loose fat, ideal for attaching to the stomach, is not what the service provides at an appropriate price)?

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Soapbox: Hammers wanted it more than we did

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soapboxYet another failure to build on a good home performance as we visit the tackiest stadium in the Premier League – at least until SJP makes an unwelcome return. Pete Sixsmith accepts that Zola’s Boys wanted it more than we did and is entertained by Neil Warnock on a long journey home.

The old maxim goes “After the Lord Mayor’s Show comes the dustcarts”. Presumably the dustcarts are there to pick up the rubbish left – and there was plenty to pick up after this apology of a Premier League game.

Last Saturday, we warmed to two teams who appeared to be able to make passes, create chances and right royally entertain a big crowd.

This Saturday we had to endure two teams who had difficulty in making accurate passes, created a handful of chances and drove a full house at Mockney Castle Park to frustration and boredom.

West Ham deserved to win the game because they wanted it a lot more than we did. Never mind the fact that Sunderland had sold their ticket allocation and that fans had had to make early starts to get there, there was the feeling amongst the travelling support that our players knew they were safe from relegation and that the gravy train would continue to call at their stations next year.

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West Ham 1 (0) Sunderland 0 (0). Lacklustre performance punished

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Colin Randall switches between radio commentary and stuttering streams to follow Sunderland to a disappointing end to our little run …

For 50 minutes, this was a nothing sort of game, despite how much was at stake, especially for West Ham but, we’d argue, for Sunderland too given the need to make up ground lost earlier in the season.

Then Ilan scored for West Ham after a needlessly conceded free kick led to an unconvincing attempt to defend a hopeful long punt into our box.

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HT West Ham 0 Sunderland 0

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Colin Randall listens, watches, hopes from his bunker in France as the Lads go in at half time level after a steady but hardly exceptional first 45 minutes …


Latest: West Ham 1 SAFC – see footnote

Would it be entirely unfair to say that this has so far been a game for fans who find the minute-by-minute growth of grass interesting?

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West Ham v Sunderland: masses to play for

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Does Sunderland’s recent good form suggest a real revival?

Can we really win two games on the trot?

Or was West Ham’s creditable point at Everton, despite claims elsewhere that they didn’t play well (I didn”t see it but would cheerfully take a draw at Goodison most seasons), the start of a run of their own?

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Fish on Friday. And tomorrow night after Upton Park?

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fishandchips

There’s a plaice for us. It is at Wetherby and is therefore, or can be, on the way back from all the clubs we’ve played in the Premier this season, which will tomorrow include West Ham. To hear some people – our Pete Sixsmith among them – drool about it, you might even take a long detour on the way home from St James’ Park next season …

No more fish jokes for cod’s sake. But the mind wanders towards the winter of 2007, and the back and back-but-one rows of a bus in Jaipur, when two people of similar age got talking.

It wasn’t such a huge coincidence that both of us came from the North East because we were part of a tour group on a holiday in India booked through Hays Travel, Sunderland-based with branches all over the region.

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Soapbox: when West Ham should have been one under the eight

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soapbox

Gnome’s had his say – not for the first time. Now it’s the turn of Pete Sixsmith to recall his relief that paper round money didn’t stretch to a particular football outing to London in the year of the Prague Spring, Martin Luther King’s assassination, student and worker revolt in France – and West Ham 8 Sunderland 0 …

Once upon a time, I considered living and working in London. In the 1970s, the leftward leaning ILEA was offering houses, cars and probably caviar and champagne for any teachers brave enough to face the capital’s schools.

I seriously considered it and decided that if I did take the plunge, I would watch West Ham as my “London” team. They were similar to Sunderland – a working class club, although without the history and tradition that attached itself to Roker Park.

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