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The Salut! Sunderland Haway awards: Peterborough, Wycombe, Rochdale and Bristol Rovers in the running

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Jake: ‘thanks to all who participate’. Click this image to see all of this season’s interviews


It has become a bit of a stuck old gramophone record, Salut! Sunderland‘s pride in a tremendous season of Who are You? interviews with opposing supporters.

Judging is at an advanced stage for our HAWAYs – annual awards for Highly Articulate Who are You?s – and with only a couple of sets of votes still awaited, front-runners are emerging.

League One has been a goldmine for the series (not forgetting our cup-game interviewees from other divisions)

As Monsieur Salut put it when writing to the judges: “I could have put them all in a hat and drawn three at random, so good have so many of the interviews been.”

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Sunderland and Playoffs. Part 6: Problems with Crystal Palace

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John McCormick writes: I have a problem with this game. I was working in Sunderland later in the week and had access to a ticket but had prior unbreakable work commitments in Liverpool on the Monday. It wasn’t until the Wednesday that I arrived at the Roker Hotel, (booked for me but not by me, you understand) parked my gear and went on a tour of the local hostelries. Most were flat, many still had no beer I’d drink, me not being a lager man, but I managed to get enough to keep me numb the next day.

But I don’t really have a problem with Palace. My Balham-born friends were supporters, if they supported anyone, and were not seduced by those fancy clubs across the river. Can’t complain about that.
But  it’s different for Pete Sixsmith

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Sunderland and Playoffs. Part 5: A great night at the Stadium of Light

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Pete Sixsmith

John McCormick writes: I’m trying to remember what I was doing 25 years ago. I think I was looking around for a new job, having been knocked back in my career for being a narky get. I wasn’t really a narky get, I’d just reached the stage of having lost respect for a lot of managerial types and not caring who knew it.  I could have been wrong about the year, though I did get a new job not much later.

No such doubts about what Pete Sixsmith was doing – both his daytime job and his other one as a Sunderland stalwart.

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Sunderland and Playoffs. Part 4: Newcastle and a memory to savour

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What are your best memories as a Sunderland supporter? As an exile I haven’t been to the SOL many times but I did see us win three and six times in a row, and though I was at Wembley in 1973 the semifinal is more lodged in my memory. That’s four games, to which I can add a win against the odds at Goodison when Danny bloody Graham scored.

Pete Sixsmith has been to so many more games he must have so many more good memories. Today he focuses on one game that really mattered:

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Michelle My Umbrella: Ian Mole and memories from the heart of Sunderland

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Michelle front
Michelle back

Not much more than a year ago, Mike Dennison wrote about an utterly fascinating book by the exiled Sunderland supporter and wit Ian Mole on life on Wearside in the 1960s. Treat yourselves and read it, as a companion to what follows, at https://safc.blog/2018/02/the-heart-of-old-sunderland-remembered/.

Yes, there is a follow-up. Ian gets to produce another book barely a year on while Monsieur Salut labours on getting a first one finished. The title’s a gem but Mike – unwell recently so, we hope, fully recovered – signals an explanation rather than providing one, though it’s not hard to guess if you know anything about pop song lyrics. A Love Supreme offers it at this link and Mike suggests eBay for those who use it but I cannot find it on Amazon …

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Portsmouth vs Sunderland: crunch time at Fratton Park with Charlton looking set for the final

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Jake: ´Pompey yet again – but by far the most important of the five times we’ve met this season’


Talk about doing it the hard way.

We knew the playoffs would be tough and that is how it is turning out, at least for us.

To no great surprise, we take a narrow lead to Portsmouth while Charlton grabbed a straightforward 2-1 win at Doncaster – forget the away goals, or absence of them, since these do not count in the EFL playoffs – and the finalists will be known by the end of this week. Our game is first up, on Thursday night, with Charlton completing what ought to be a formality 24 hours later.

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Sixer’s play off Sevens: Sunderland 1 Portsmouth 0, featuring The Return of the King

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A moral victory as well as an actual one, will that single goal be enough? That’s not a question I’m going to answer here as I don’t want to jinx a team that had more than enough bad luck in the first leg. It must be said the first 20 minutes were not good, but then we grew into the game and were dominant until an excellent substitution by Jack Ross was negated by a very poor refereeing deision

Pete Sixsmith will be doing a full report in due course, unless Malcolm subs for him, and will no doubt fulminate at length on that decision. For now he has but seven words with which to describe the game

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Sunderland and playoffs. Part two: Bramall Lane and Sheffield United

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Before the Wembley heartbreak

Monsieur Salut writes: Pete Sixsmith‘s habit of suggesting all manner of Sunderland-related series has been as beneficial to Salut! Sunderland as it has been exhausting for him. This is another rod he made for his own back, a look at playoff joys and sorrows of the past. The first instalment covering the opening act of a dramatic tragedy – when we had to beat Gillingham to avoid dropping to the third tier in 1987 – and the home leg of an exhilarating tussle with the Mags three years later can be found here.

I have patchily vivid memories of both the 1998 semi-final legs against Sheffield United (and, of course, the final). At Bramall Lane, I remember Kevin Ball’s goal putting us ahead to the accompaniment of a short but nasty outbreak of bother up in or near one of the hospitality boxes, United yobs reacting violently to the cheers of a few Sunderland supporters – an incident I was reminded of when I condemned an attack on a Pompey fan in a SoL home section recently.

Pete will now take you back 21 years to the first act in a gripping drama. There’ll be more next week, including video footage of the second leg, one of my own and Pete’s greatest nights at any Sunderland game (I couldn’t locate a clip from the Bramall Lane match though one must exist; Pete’s mention refers to a full review of the Blades’ 1997-98 season which includes highlights of both games; it cannot be embedded but is seen here). Meanwhile, don’t look at this season’s final tables (Championship and League One unless you want an annoying reality check …

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