Colin Randall

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

Is loyalty dead? Jimmy Armfield 17 years at Blackpool, Arsenal men can’t wait to move

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What does Bobby Gurney have in common with Tony Adams, Jimmy Armfield, Billy Liddell, Matt Le Tissier, Sam Bartram, Packie Bonner, Jamie Carragher and Jack Charlton? All were one-club players, each clocking up hundreds of games without ever leaving for bigger, better, richer or more fashionable teams.

Silksworth-born and starting at Bishop Auckland, Gurney scored 228 goals in league and cup, the highest tally in Sunderland’s history, in 390 games for what was his only professional club in a career stretching from 1926 to 1944. See Stat Cat site for all the fascinating detail.

Will we ever see his like, their likes, again in an age when players and managers seem to regard clubs as mere stepping stones and football owners, in common with most employers, give the impression they would struggle to spell loyalty let alone demonstrate it?

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Sunderland vs Millwall prize Guess the Score: will the wretched run finally end?

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Jake: ‘make our day!’

As the laborious and uninspiringly low-profile search for a new manager goes on, Sunderland return to Championship action with only a month left of the year since we last won at home.

Can we finally get three points at the Stadium of Light without needing three games to do so? Will Ellis Short accuse the media of making it up if we don’t?

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What me, dirty? Get yourself a good lawyer, Lee Cattermole

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Jake: ‘asset or liability?’

Just when you thought being bottom of the Championship made you safe from such things, along comes a website that actually calls itself DirtyPlayers.co.uk and calls into question our fond collective belief that in Lee Cattermole, Sunderland have the most cultured, gentlest and fairest of players without thought of tripping, crunching, nudging or pulling back opponents.

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How to bet on EPL: having a flutter on football explained

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How long before people will be betting again on our Premier League games?

Like shopping, dating and trying to deal with public services, betting has increasingly become an online activity. Salut! Sunderland‘s Monsieur Salut naturally advises against anything other than safe, affordable flutters but has been known to dabble a little in his time – pools, first to score, match scorelines and so on – and would very much have liked to have been that punter who stuck money on Leicester for the Premier League at 5,000-to-one.

Here, someone in the know explains how it works – but would he recommend a bet on Sunderland for promotion? …

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Wolves, Sheffield United, Cardiff and Bristol City keep out Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday and Fulham (and don’t mention Sunderland)

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The last time I reported in, Leeds were the only club from our readers’ pre-season choices to be in the top six positions. The other five – Cardiff, Wolves, Sheffield United, Bristol City and Preston, in that order – had together accumulated only 617 votes, about 7.5% of the total cast, and Wolves had had over half of them.

Four of our choices, it must be said, were queuing up on the boundary, ready to pounce on any slips from the leaders, and only one was languishing (with great languor) in the doldrums. That was just over a month ago, in which time there have been five games, potentially fifteen points, to contest.

With the arrival of another international weekend we have a chance to review the situation and see if the natural order  (as defined by our readership) has been restored in those five games.

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Sunderland, West Ham and Moyes. Sixer takes on Marco

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Jake: ‘could Marco partner Grabban up front?’

It might be an exaggeration to say that pouring over the misfortunes of Sunderland AFC, and its sod-the-press-I-only-do-tame-inhouse-interviews owner, has become an international sport. But it’s certainly keeping the media busy.

BBC Radio Newcastle’s Total Sport programme had the benefit of our Pete Sixsmith’s wisdom last night. He spoke gloomily about our immediate prospects – he fears another relegation – and holds David Moyes to no small extent culpable for our present malaise.

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Wolves star wins player of the month. Grabban far behind BUT …

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They do not come much easier than Leo Bonatini’s first goal of the season, a mighty Sunderland-style defensive blunder by the Boro defender Daniel Ayala setting up his chance, well as he then took it.

But the Wolves striker has been on fire since, his total of nine including five goals in October and that is what made him the PFA Bristol Street Motors Championship player of the month as voted by fans.

Sunderland’s Lewis Grabban was one of five other nominees but came last in the shortlist with just three per cent of the votes cast. In fact, Bonatini polled more than all five rivals combined.

But hang on a second. Bonatini plays for the club currently topping the table and we all know which position Sunderland occupy. If we think about it for, say, half a second, we can probably hazard a guess as to which of them enjoys the more creative, thoughtful and effective service. So Grabban’s eight goals can be seen as an achievement no less than creditable than Bonatini’s nine – and he, too, scored five of them in October.

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West Ham and David Moyes: not the warmest of welcomes from Irons supporters

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‘Not my fault’
 There has been a lot of anger and a fair amount of gallows humour among West Ham  fans at the choice of our old friend David Moyes to replace the sacked Slaven Bilic as manager.
As far as Monsieur Salut can tell, Moyes has not yet announced that the Hammers are in a relegation scrap. Nor has he said the players he needs in January won’t be available to him. Why, he hasn’t even told anyone from LBC Radio she deserves a slap or apologised – yet – for being self-defeatingly dour, honest and ever-so-sure of his ability.
And with supreme faith in their new man, the West Ham board has made the appointment for all of six months, ie to the end of the season. That’s the stuff!

Earlier this week, the West Ham United fan site asked for reciprocal links with Salut! Sunderland, now established. I invited my contact there, Ade, to share anything his site did by way of covering Moyes. And here it is, with some mischief-making along the way drawn from other sources …

 

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Vote Grabban: bottom of the league, player-of-month shortlist

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Image courtesy of https://www.footballfancast.com/pfa-awards


It feels almost surreal. But when you check that sliding green link you see at the foot of each page of Salut! Sunderland, the PFA player-of-the-month awards really do have a Sunderland player among the nominees.

Maybe it is a step too far to contemplate an award for someone playing for a crisis club rooted at the foot of the Championship table.

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Sixer’s Middlesbrough Soapbox: a ‘recipe for disaster’ as Sunderland flop again

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Jake: ‘oh Grabban!’

Time is running out for Sunderland. The latest defeat, coupled with wins for Burton and Bolton, exposes the club horribly at the foot of the table. Time is also running out for Pete Sixsmith‘s attendance at SAFC games – he will soon be pulling on Santa clothes to entertain the children of the North East – and he’s delighted he won’t have to sit through more of this dross.

Sixer’s Sunday took him to the Riverside stadium, more in hope than anticipation he said at Facebook as the Durham SAFCSA branch bus approached Teesside. Short as the journey may have been, those making it were not watching a derby according to Sixer (“of course not, it’s in Yorkshire”) and Bill Harris (who had the bright idea of a Salut! Sunderland poll on the issue). The readers have decided in their favour by a whopping majority* and the poll is now as closed as are Sixer’s ears to excuses for the shambles he witnessed.

Here is his damning report on another wasted afternoon …

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