Colin Randall

Johnny Haynes flag
Picture: JonHall

You’ve heard all about Londoners who’ve never seen a cow. Joe Jenkins*, a journalist (specialising in foreign news, not sport), gave every impression of being one who hadn’t encountered snow the day he ventured north to watch his beloved Fulham at the Stadium of Light. He lived to tell the tale of short-lived ecstasy…….

I don’t get to see Fulham play away all that often, so days out following the Cottagers on the road tend to stick in the mind (and not just because we always lose).

Some days stick out more so than others. Take April 8, 2006, for instance. It was my first (and only) visit to Sunderland. I should have seen it as a bad omen when I realised that I had lost my ticket for the first time ever before a game – and when I was just a few hundred yards from the Stadium of Light.

It was the day of the Grand National. And while the horses were sweating up at Aintree I was freezing my nads off. I don’t know if it is a common occurrence in the North East, but Sunderland was in the midst of a snow/ice/hail storm and it was damn cold.

Anyway, we retraced our steps to the metro and to my amazement, amid the slush in the winding road between the station and ground, there it was! My ticket. A minor miracle – and a pass to get into a game that was to last a whole 19 minutes.

We went one up courtesy of Brian McBride. The conditions were ridiculous – there was ice all over the park – but I felt that if the ref had decided to play the game in the first place then it would continue. Sadly not. Match abandoned.

We nipped back to the pub, ordered fish and chips and watched the National like any sensible person would have done in the first place.

You went down, we stayed up. But you beat us in the replay.

And now for your questions…(oh, and that’s me with a very young Claudia Winkleman at about the age I was first taken to Craven Cottage)

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Internationals weekend means two things. Someone like Ashley Cole will be booed by people like, er, Arsenal fans. And Pete Sixsmith will head out into the vast territories of non-League football…and enjoy a grand day out in somewhere like Lancashire…

What a peaceful, tension-free weekend. No game to wrap yourself up in, just a leisurely look at the fixtures and the railway timetable to decide where to go and what to see.

I chose to leave the North East and head for the Manchester area. There were plenty of decent games at home but I felt that a change of scenery was in order so I consulted various websites and came up with a couple of possibilities.

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Salut! Sunderland is never less than scrupulously fair in its dealings with Newcastle United, so you would expect all those connected with it to show the same spirit of even-handedness in their professional lives.

Even so, readers might be interested to see how it is possible to link Joe Kinnear and his outburst aimed at sports hacks and the former French president Jacques Chirac (see, Joe, others get it even worse than you from the tabloids..)

This is how I did it in a column headlined “Never again moments” for The National in Abu Dhabi (I preferred “Pardon their French” for the online version)……..

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Salut! Sunderland finds itself divided on the issue of foul-mouthed Joe. I’ve had my say elsewhere (see The Giles Coren approach to football management); Pete has more sympathy and sees a case for reptile eradication. But when it comes to Arsène Wenger, his understanding of the pressures managers face quickly reaches its limit…

Which piece of manager speak do you find more offensive?

Is it Irish/Cockney Joe with his rather candid four letter observations on the North East press? I must confess that I thoroughly enjoyed the Guardian transcript which printed the offending words in full. I had it photocopied and distributed it to friends and foes alike and much mirth was had, believe me.

I can see Kinnear’s logic; let’s create a siege mentality similar to the Crazy Gang at Wimbledon, “no-one likes us we don’t care”, that kind of thing. A few swear words and an attack on the reptiles of the press might just work.

Or is it the intellectual rubbish spouted by Arsène Whinger? I’ve rarely heard a more offensive press conference than the one he did after Saturday’s game.

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Roy Keane thought we were outstanding against Arsenal yesterday, and Salut! Sunderland is inclined to agree. But first it has something it needs to get off its chest….

At least once a year, a good Friend in the North declares that he’s had enough of the money-drenched, elitist, screw-the-fans game and won’t be renewing his season ticket come summer.

So far he has always succumbed to the pull of lifelong devotion and accepted the creeping nastiness of football as a price he’s still prepared to pay for keeping the faith and maintaining his love affair with Sunderland AFC. This season, he’s said it again, and early enough to make you think his disenchantment may just about be complete.

I leave it to my pal to decide whether to expand on that summary of his position. But in a modest contribution to the debate on whether those involved in running modern clubs are routinely, or increasingly, excluding fans from meaningful engagement – beyond gleefully taking their money, of course – the case of Salut! Sunderland, Birmingham City and Kevin Phillips may be worth considering.

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Salut! Sunderland is always on the cadge, asking fans of other clubs to preview our games against them – there isn’t much point asking the clubs themselves for help, as you’ll see when I get round to telling the dispiriting tale of Salut!, SuperKev and Birmingham City.

Today the boot is on the other foot.

A slick Gooner site called Arsenal Insider asked if we’d do the honours for them, and the results have just been published at this link. Not sure why they thought they were talking to a Hull fan about a match against Sunderland – click on the picture – but there you go.

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