Colin Randall

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

Sixer’s Sevens. Wolves 0-0 SAFC. Point made – and a good one

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Jake: ‘it’s not always pretty’

Pete Sixsmith

Monsieur Salut writes: Bob Chapman, standing in for Pete Sixsmith (absent on Santa duties), has the sort of home-and-away record of attendance at SAFC games that cries out for a gong in the New Year’s honours list. Today, he saw a valiant backs-to-the-wall display by Sunderland that won an unlikely point at the league leaders Wolves. I had only Nick Barnes and, as another stand-in, Marco Gabbiadini to go by but they seemed as impressed by the resistance as they were appalled by the inconsistency of the referee Jeremy Simpson, sending off Catts as much for being Catts as anything else and missing a number of Wolves challenges of at least equal culpability to the two that earned Catts’s yellows. Look at our Who are You? series: so many of this season’s interviewees say refereeing is poor at Championship level

Marco rated the shifts put in by O’Shea and Wilson. Both he and Nick Barnes saluted an overall performance that, taken on its own, offers modest hope … as Bob’s verdict shows …

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Wolves Who are You?: ‘fond of Sunderland but you’ll suffer a mauling’

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Not a photo of Andy, but his sentiments

Andy Nicholls* , moderator at the Wolves fan site Molineux Mix, is another old friend to this site. Seven years ago, he appeared here for a joint interview with a Sunderland-mad Silksworth lass, then his partner. They are no longer together but still speak.

Andy is naturally as thrilled by the football he is currently seeing as we are dejected by what has befallen SAFC. He lived on Wearside for a time and retains happy memories, which are described below, leaving a mark strong enough to make him look for our score once he knows what has happened to his own team, though he feels we’re in for a pasting on Saturday (as Wolves bounce back from winning only 1-0 away in midweek!)

PS Jody Craddock is aware of – and appreciates – Andy’s kind words …

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Wolves vs SAFC prize Guess the Score: a mountain to climb

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Jake: ‘As long as you’re prepared for a wait until Monsieur Salut gets his finger out, there will indeed by a prize for the winner’

The way hope was brushed aside as if no more than a slow, low-flying insect hardly inspires great confidence as Sunderland travel to Molineux, where Wolves are top, 10 points ahead of third place and winning games for fun, the last five of them on the trot.

Come back tomorrow and you’ll see why our Wolves “Who are You?” interviewee predicts an emphatic home win despite having a soft spot for Sunderland, having once lived on Wearside and been a Roker Park regular.

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Through a child’s eyes: end Sunderland gloom to make Abigail’s party swing

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Abigail with Martin at Boro

Ten years ago this Christmas, Salut! Sunderland welcomed into the world little Abigail Emmerson, the daughter of Monsieur Salut’s confrère and consoeur, the BBC’s Martin Emmerson and his wife, Julia from Tyne Tees.

All was going well, two lovely sisters coming along to join the family, until Abigail, bless her soul, started going to see the team supported by successive Emmerson generations. For some weeks, the pain of Sunderland’s decline has been eased a little for some of us by a series of entertaining little Facebook clips showing Abigail and her dad chatting on matchdays. It’s been enough to make Barnes and Benno sharpen up their act.

Memo to Chris Coleman and the team: Abigail is 10 on Christmas Eve. We bet she’ll have a great birthday party anyway but think how much more fun it might if Sunderland had won a couple of games, three even, by then (quick, handy definition of ‘win’ in football terms: score at least one more goal than the other lot).

NB: do not report Martin to the social services department. Abigail’s ordeal is of her own making. Let her take up the story …

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Sixer’s sub’s sevens: Reading take the points as McManaman takes a walk

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Jake: ‘it’s not always pretty’

Pete Sixsmith  has been given leave of absence in order to carry out his duties with the fair elves of County Durham and the pixies of Jesmond. In his stead we have a little helper – at least littler than he was at the start of the season.

Malcolm Dawson, for it is he,  will step up soon with a full match report. Here he is with the seven word instant verdict that follows the final toot of the referee’s whistle, and no doubt the boos of the crowd after we shot ourselves in the foot:

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The First Time Ever I Saw Your Team: Reading

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Sixer leaves something special before assuming other duties

John McCormick writes: I hitched the 120 miles home on the Friday, saw an average game, then hitched back down to Uni on the Monday (or it could have been the Sunday) as usual. It was as uneventful a weekend as I remember and I picked up no air of anticipation from the crowd, nor any indication that the club was on the verge of something special.

Pete Sixsmith was living a lot nearer to Roker Park than me, however, and was no doubt more tuned in to the events and the atmosphere surrounding the club. He seems to think there was a bit more going on, and maybe he was right…

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SAFC vs Reading Who are You?: Vito’s ‘incredible professionalism’, McShane’s steel

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Anthony Smith: a boy from the Welsh Valleys with a soft spot for Reading. Photo: Chris Forsey

Monsieur Salut writes: what’s the betting on Chris Coleman making his home debut as Sunderland manager with a win against Reading (and football accumulator pages may well be the place to find the answer)? After the relief of the win last Saturday – our first league victory since mid-August and only the second of the season – there is pressure to make it two-in-a-row but also a degree of momentum and the confidence winning brings to any team. To Newcastle fans, that translates as thinking beating Burton is roughly the same as winning the World Cup.

 

Our Reading Who are You? interviewee, Anthony Smith, warmly recommended by Terry Pattinson, a New*as*le supporter who has previously done the honours and may well do so again unless we go up or down), covers Reading for Berkshire newspapers. He’s grown to like the Royals despite roots in South Wales – his club is Swansea – and an inexlicable fondness for Spurs. He overcame a formidable workload to find time to answer our questions. I couldn’t have taken it solely on the word of Terry, a Mag let’s face it, but Anthony comes across as the top bloke he said he was – and he clearly knows his stuff …

 

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Sunderland vs Reading prize Guess the Score: ensure Burton was no freak result

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Jake is far too doubting

Far too early for Guess the Score, of course. But let’s build on the modest excitement of a win and get the ball rolling again (who knows? Monsieur Salut may even get round to sending out some overdue prizes to previous winners) …


It is a time to be positive. On no account should any Sunderland supporter allow himself or herself to think back to that 4-0 win at Crystal Palace that we all took to be the turning point of last season. The past, as has been said by others, is another country.

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Abused referees, dirty players and research that leaves too much to be desired

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John McCormick writes: news of a couple of surveys was e-mailed to the Salut! Sunderland team recently. The first e-mail was more or less a repeat of something we had a little while ago, from a website calling itself Dirtyplayers.co.uk. The second was new to me. We’re happy to share their findings but if I am honest, I’m not impressed by either survey and feel one, and only one, could have value. 

The dirtyplayers.org wesbite originally reported, among other things, that Gareth Barry had accumulated the most ‘Dirty Points’ in the history of the Premier League and that Lee Cattermole was the dirtiest player based on number of appearances. The e-mail we got this week followed this up by telling us that Gareth Barry had picked up his 121st yellow card in the Spurs – West Brom game, and that he’d played 131 games for Everton, who had recently been branded the dirtiest team in Premier League history.

The second, from ticketgum via journalistic.org reported that (up to) 94 per cent of refs surveyed by ticketgum reported being abused during games …

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Sixer’s Burton Albion Soapbox: Sunderland at last show their Pedigree in Burton

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Jake: ‘did I hear the score right?’

Malcolm Dawson writes…..jings it’s cold up in the North East of England this morning.  Occupied as he is at this time of year, with sacks of various types, distributing news to the good folk of Shildon and gifts to the children of the populace who flock to see the great man in Weardale and Tyneside at this pre-festive time, Lord Peter Sixsmith, has today delegated the task of reporting on yesterday’s rare, but welcome events in a place where proper pubs survive, where Marstons brew the Burton Union way, where buns are cobs and “arrrl reet marra” is translated as “ay up duck” to one of the underlings who ensure that all goes well at Sixsmith Towers on such a rare occasion. So don your quilted maroon smoking jacket and read on as you tuck into the kedgeree and devilled kidneys …

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