Colin Randall

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

Who are you? We’re Blackburn (1)

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Vinjay is a devoted Blackburn Rovers fan, owner of the Rovers fan site www.brfcattitude.com, and just a little shy (“just refer to me as Vinjay”). He is also a man with very little time for Roy Keane. Whatever we think about it, he is entitled to his view – from which I have omitted only a potentially libellous reference (along with an equally actionable snipe at Wayne Rooney).

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But what of this week’s two games against Rovers? Our present predicament, next to the bottom of the Premier League after a miserable run, is just the sort of thing we hoped was a thing of the past. Just as Blackburn at home (Carling Cup) on Wednesday, then away in the Premier League on Saturday, are the sort of games about which we should no longer be thinking: “I’d settle for a defeat in the league cup provided we can get three points at the weekend.” We ought to regard both as eminently winnable. But I wonder how many Sunderland fans are thinking just that.
We wanted a Rovers fan to preview each of the two games and eventually found the second one, who promises to deliver after the Carling Cup game. In the meantime, Vinjay’s response has been turned into into a two-parter, with the follow-up likely to be published tomorrow (Tues) or Wednesday. Here’s the first….

When I think of Sunderland, the prominent memory would be the outstanding 4-4 draw against Charlton.

Unlike the cowardly Nicolas Anelka in last season’s European Cup Final, Michael Gray (who later played for Rovers and is pictured courtesy of A Love Supreme) has never been labelled as a world class European striker.

I recall watching him step up and correctly predicting he would fail with the kick and subsequently that happened. I felt sorry for Sunderland and neither club deserved to lose that game. I have a mental image right now of Alan Curbishley celebrating their win. I think that’s the only notable thing the overrated Curbishley has ever won. I’m sure older BRFC fans felt more sympathy having experienced great trauma in the playoffs prior to the birth of the “new Blackburn Rovers” and Jack Walker’s funding.40_micky_gray_landscape1

In the same season BRFC had an outstanding start with brilliant football being played and were in the top three up until around February.

Then a combination of training methods tiredness and Alan Fettis (absolutely dreadful goalkeeper who put in several disastrous performances in the second half of 97-98 saw a downturn into sixth place. Even so, it is still my favourite season as well as my first.

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Own goals

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It is all my fault. At half time, I wrote: “Could be four up. Don’t blow it!”

And all too soon, passing became poorer and, over and again, we surrendered possession cheaply and dangerously.

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Swearing loyalty

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Fans
There are few occasions when I have been embarrassed to be a Sunderland supporter.

I am not talking about performances on the field. Though it matters a great deal to me how we play, it doesn’t affect my passion for the club or the pride I take in having followed them since the days of Clough and Hurley.

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Lesley Douglas: in case you need cheering up

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One of the perks of living a long way from the UK is that you become detached from the media-driven storms that occasionally swamp daily life. Even in Abu Dhabi, I was aware of the row over dodgy calls from Russell Brand, on his BBC Radio 2 show, to the Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs. I knew Brand had resigned in the subsequent furore, and that Jonathan Ross had been suspended. Until a friend alerted me yesterday, I had missed the news that Lesley Douglas – a star of Salut! Sunderland – had also resigned, leaving her job as controller of the station ( a job she had done very successfully) on noble and, these days, rare grounds: “The events of the last two weeks happened on my watch. I believe it is right that I take responsibility for what has happened.”

Lesley was not only, as one report I have now seen notes, “enormously popular with her employees” to the extent that “her departure will have a disastrous effect on morale at the BBC”. She is also a Sunderland supporter, and – five years ago – gave a terrific interview to me for the London SAFCSA branch newsletter Wear Down South.
This was reproduced at Salut! Sunderland soon after this site was launched. And in tribute to Lesley’s fine efforts to transform a bland radio station into something worth hearing, and to her wise choice of football team, I repeat it here in the hope that, together with these words, it cheers her up as much as she once cheered us…..

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Soapbox: that was the week that was

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Soapbox

When Pete Sixsmith says we now need 10 points from the next four games, and even then only if we cannot quite manage 12, images of porcine creatures in flight might occur to many of those who were at the Britannia and Stamford Bridge. But hey, it cannot get any worse, can it?

Harold Wilson, Labour Prime Minister in the 60s and 70s (and the man who opened Shildon Civic Hall), famously said “a week is a long time in politics”. As a football man who could recite Huddersfield Town’s 1938 FA Cup Final team by heart, he might have added that the aforementioned seven days is a bloody lifetime in football.

There we were, last Sunday, basking in a derby victory and looking to a golden future under Keane, with Cisse rattling the goals in and Collins stopping the opposition from bothering our goalkeeper with a header here and a tackle there.

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One off

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Keane No shame in being thrashed?*

As the minutes ticked away, the question was: would we do it?

Five-nil down, humiliated by the elegance and power of Chelsea, so many streets ahead of us in every department, including passion and desire, that two of Martin Atkinson’s key decisions – to wear a blue shirt throughout the first half and order one of his linesmen to do likewise – seemed entirely unnecessary.

But would we do it?

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