Colin Randall

We all need cheering up just now…..so forget, for a moment, the current predicament of our club, the exit of Roy Keane and our logical fears about tomorrow’s prospects at Old Trafford. Instead, let us transport ourselves back to the St James’ Park of exactly 100 years ago today. On Dec 5 1908, as every schoolboy ought to know, Sunderland thrashed the Mags 9-1. And it was all Steve Bennett or Rob Styles’s doing, firing up the Lads for a second-half blitz by giving Newcastle a dodgy penalty on half-time. This is how I have reported it for The National in Abu Dhabi (it appeared yesterday so I have changed “tomorrow” to “today”)……

Famous win is still tale of the century

No member of the Toon Army, as supporters of Newcastle United like to be called, will thank me for drawing wider attention to the centenary of one of the most momentous league games in English football history.

But then, since I follow their north-eastern rivals Sunderland, Newcastle fans would probably feel disinclined to thank me for anything.

All the same, duty obliges me to record that 100 years ago today, having made the short journey to Newcastle, Sunderland did not so much beat the Magpies as pulverise them.

Newcastle 1 Sunderland 9. That was how it finished, in front of 56,000 fans with many more locked out. And it remains the joint biggest away victory in the English top flight, what we now call the Premier League (Cardiff City were walloped by the same score at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1955).

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Are Man United fans football’s equivalent of Cheddar cheese? For years, it seemed you could buy Cheddar made just about anywhere – New Zealand, Canada, Australia, even France for heaven’s sake – except Cheddar. And if I remember correctly, there was a bit of a local fuss when someone decided to resume cheesemaking in Cheddar itself.
And so it is, we are routinely led to believe, with supporters of Brand ManU. Wander round any housing estate from East Belfast to East Cheam, look around you in John o’Groats or Land’s End, study the replica tops of choice in Bangkok and Bangalore, and what do you see? Fervent followers of the Red Devils, who have never set foot in Manchester, let alone been inside Old Trafford.
Where does Matt Slater fit into this global jigsaw of support? If Dubai, his current home, seems to confirm the stereotype, think again. Matt* is of impeccable Manc stock. He even hates Liverpool more than Citeh (which may have something to do with his passion for Oasis; why, he even looks like some lost brother of the Gallaghers). For Salut! Sunderland, he previews our game at Old Trafford, describes his adulation of Keano ad Eric Cantona and admits to a soft spot for our own success-starved club. Saturday’s result? Brand followers expect to win every game and Matt – who, as news editor of The National in Abu Dhabi, plays an emphatically straight bat on Man City stories – duly predicts another day at the office for his men…

Games between United and Sunderland always conjure great memories for me, especially when they are playing at Old Trafford.

It was the first match I ever went to – a 2-2 draw in the 1984/85 season. The events of that day come back to me in small snatches but I remember that, as with many United contests in the 80s, we were only saved by a rampaging display in the middle of the park from Bryan Robson.

Other than that I can only really recall feeling intimidated as we navigated our way past huge police horses whilst trying to avoid their muck, struggling to cope with a man-size meat and potato pie and jumping on my dad’s shoulders when Robbo netted for the Reds.

United are a vastly different club these days, in some good ways and in some bad, but for me a home game against Sunderland will always take me back to being a seven-year-old lad and because of that I hope we don’t hammer you too badly on Saturday and that you stay up this year.

The other reason I hope you hang around the top flight for a bit longer is Roy Keane. One of the very few United players who will never, under any circumstances, get anything less than total support on a return to Old Trafford, it has been a real pity to see him struggle with his self-belief this season.

Hopefully, he will turn it around and manage to find a razor blade to get rid of that ridiculous beard. It is also a credit to the Sunderland faithful they embraced a United star who was at one time the most hated player in the country. That certainly would not have happened at your North East rivals Newcastle who, for a couple of seasons, saw us as long standing bitter enemies who were competing at the top of the English game. Ridiculous.

That said, Sunderland fans I know do have one big fault: the regularity with which they trot out the accusation that United fans are from anywhere other than Manchester.

It is true that we have gathered a following from around the world but this suggestion that that City is the team of the people is a load of old twaddle. The school I went to was split almost down the middle but the truth is that United is more popular in Manchester than our rivals in blue.

The reason this myth has spread is two-fold – City need some form of honour to cling on to and they have celebrity supporters who love shouting their mouths off. I am a big fan of Oasis but Liam and Noel Gallagher are the chief protagonists.

Often pictured wearing City shirts, they use interviews to run down United and have need known to let it be known on many an occasion that “real Mancs support City”.

But the real truth is the sharpest Mancs – Ian Brown, Morrissey, Tony Wilson – are all Reds, but don’t feel the need to let the world know about it every five seconds.

…and Manchester Matt got so carried away that he mislaid our actual questions and answered those he could remember plus a few of his own…..

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On this day 37 years ago, the United Arab Emirates – the country I call home – was born.

Arriving back, in the early hours of this morning, from a holiday on the Nile, I could hardly miss the scores of 37 signs that brilliantly illuminated all roads through Abu Dhabi.

Things have been so gloomy in my absence – no points from two home games that ought to have produced six; rumours that Keano has “lost” the dressing room (though, to be fair, that is said about every manager in crisis) and a recurrence of serious relegation concerns – that I felt entitled to look for anything that might bring brightness into a Sunderland supporter’s heart.

And come to think of it, 37 – whichever way you look at the number – isn’t a bad place to start……

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Unlike three-quarters of the crowd, Pete Sixsmith manages to stay to the end of the match with Bolton Wanderers, even if he spends a large part of the game with his eyes shut. As gloom envelops Wearside, he reflects on what is going wrong and what the future may hold for Sunderland….

I had plenty of time to think about this weeks Sixer’s Sevens, as I spent the last half hour of the game with my head retreating further and further into my coat and my body sliding further and further down my seat in reaction to the car crash taking place in front of me.

Without a doubt, it was the most embarrassing and humiliating afternoon I have spent there since Portsmouth did us by the same score three years ago and we came out of that one knowing that relegation was a certainty.

Any repeat of this fiasco in the next home game will write the club off yet again and will lead (in no particular order), to the manager leaving, the fans deserting the club yet again and the Irish investors looking for a quick way out, as the value of the Sunderland brand slips beneath that of Woolworths and MFI.

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Today Bolton Wanderers supporter Chris Mann previews Saturday’s match. Chris runs the website Burnden Aces. Like many of us, Chris has to pick and choose his away matches these days, though I find it hard to believe Sunderland wasn’t top of his list. Maybe next season Chris?

(And for more from the Wanderers’ point of view, scroll down)

My name is Chris Mann (aka Manny from Burnden Aces), I’m a 19-year-old student at The University of Bolton and was born and bred in the town. So I’m one of the proper fans who supports their hometown club and not one of the glory hunters.

The first Bolton game I went to was on my 8th birthday, a 2-1 win over Queens Park Rangers at the old Burnden Park thanks to goals from Chris Fairclough and ‘Super’ John McGinlay.

I went to about half a dozen games a season for the next few years, including our heartbreaking Wembley defeats in 1999 against Watford and against Aston Villa in 2000.

In May 2001 we beat Preston North End 3-0 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff to regain our place amongst the elite of English football and that summer I got my first season ticket. In the 8 seasons that have passed, I have not missed a single home game (league, cup or friendly) and average around 6 or 7 away games on top.

There have been some incredible highs and disappointing lows during these years, from seeing my side lose to your friends Middlesbrough in the 2004 Carling Cup final, to seeing us qualify for Europe for the first time in our history. I didn’t make it to any games first time round, but after qualifying again, I was lucky enough to see Wanderers playing the likes of Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid and Sporting Lisbon in some unforgettable European trips.

I won’t be in attendance at the Stadium of Light next weekend due to a hectic schedule and lack of money because of Christmas means I have to pick and choose my games, but hopefully we’ll take a good following.

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Bolton Wanderers supporters prove they are a generous lot, providing us with not one but two excellent match previews. Here’s the first, with another to follow tomorrow.

Think Fleet Street photographers and you probably conjure mental images of oily scruffs crawling through the undergrowth towards some troubled star’s secluded country pad. Ian Jones makes you think again. Always impeccably dressed and on Sunday best behaviour, so much so that the royals found him quite bearable during his Daily Telegraph career, he looked more like a country solicitor than the stereotypical paparazzo when he turned out on assignments. Ian is also a lifelong Bolton Wanderers fan, often to be found charging up the M6 from London to catch a game. For our clash at the Stadium of Light on Saturday, he’s resorting to prayer for a win but suspects we’ll share the spoils……

It was the penultimate game of last season. On May 3, when the three points from the 2-0 win over Sunderland secured our place in the top flight for this season.

Sunderland were already safe thanks to the goal scored by Daryl Murphy, a last minute header against Middlesborough the week before, and I remember the relief when I knew we faced a side who had their future secure. It was a battling performance that was needed though against a side who weren’t ready to roll over and hand us the desperately needed points on a plate and ironically it was El-Hadj Diouf playing his last game for the Trotters who opened the scoring.

Little did we know that it would be to Sunderland that he would go only a few weeks later. The relief of the Bolton faithful at the end was evident, a turbulent season and survival at the 11th hour.

All the faithful at the Reebok hoped that this season would be different, but without our recent wins bouncing us up the table, things would be looking rather grim. Yet with only a handful of points separating the drop zone from a place in Europe, every point counts.

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A day in the posh Brummie suburb of Solihull, an evening with Leonard Cohen and a brush with militant Cliff Richard fans prepare Pete Sixsmith for another worrying home defeat at the hands of cheerful cockney sparrer Emile (sorry, Gianfranco) Zola.

I have a confession to make; it was the ever reliable and thoughtful Joan Dawson who came up with this week’s Seven, as the Seven that I came up with was not printable, even in an Irvine Welsh novel.

Part of my frustration came from the fact that the shambles on Sunday spoilt what had been a cracking weekend, and my simple mind could not get round the fact that if two thirds of the weekend go well, why can’t the final part of the fraction?

Saturday saw me tick off a new ground (Solihull Moors), see an excellent win at the aforementioned Damson Parkway by Durham City in the FA Trophy and then witness a performance of such quality and integrity by Leonard Cohen at the NEC that I thought my head would burst.

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