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For once the fixture gods are kind, as they rearrange the Manchester City match for after Salut! Sunderland’s (i.e. Colin’s) 60th birthday celebration

The Greeks usually have a word that sums everything up and they most certainly have in this case.
The word is “Hubris” and it means pride or arrogance and describes what happens when you slip from the acceptable one (pride) into the unacceptable one (arrogance).

That’s how I see it this morning, 24 hours after witnessing the most disappointing game of Keane’s reign.
A large group of mostly Sunderland fans had gathered at the Stadium on Saturday evening to celebrate Colin’s 60th birthday with much of the talk revolving around how poor the Mags had been earlier, how Mike “Man of the People” Ashley had looked so ridiculous in his ever tightening shirt, and how he had surely broken numerous rules by chugging a pint in his seat on live TV.

The talk turned to how we had brought in players who would move us onward and upward, how the acquisition of Cissé and Diouf gave us a real cutting edge, how the midfield had speeded up and how the defence looked solid. Colin’s Boro supporting relatives were taunted about how we would pass them in the table after we had dealt with Manchester City, while the Spurs and Leeds fans present were patronised and told to watch this club take off.

Off we went into the night confident that Colin and Joelle would be given another birthday treat by our expensively assembled squad and that he would see a win on his first visit to the Stadium for just over a year.

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You’ve got a lot of nerve………..one of the best opening lines from Bob Dylan, who never played for Sunderland so far as is known but did make himself the absolute hero of one son of Sunderland who became a great success story of his own. The line is taken from his favourite Dylan song.
If Salut! Sunderland announced that it had interviewed a cricket captain with strong Sunderland links, most people would start looking out for the Paul Collingwood feature.
Well, consider the first part of that announced. But it’s not Paul.
Approaches have been made, and – who knows? – the ace Durham County Cricket Club all-rounder and SAFC nut, may one day find time in an incredibly busy life to answer a few questions for us.
In the meantime, we are extremely proud to be able to bring to you Sunderland-born Bob Willis, a giant among England cricketers of the modern age, an in-demand sports broadcaster, Dylan fan extraordinaire – changed his name. for heaven’s sake, to read, in full Robert George Dylan Willis.
Born in Sunderland though he was, on May 30 1949, Bob is sadly not one of us. Not, that is, when one of us means being a Sunderland fan. He is a lifelong supporter of Man City, our opponents on Sunday, save for the first few months of life before he was whisked away to what I always call the north-west Midlands. Let’s face it, a baby in Sunderland would surely know all about its duty to be Red and White through and through, so he cannot have been a Blue then.
No matter, Bob readily agreed at desperately short notice to do a Q&A for this week’s Who Are They? feature. For Salut! Sunderland, it’s comparable to getting Alan Price as a Celebrity Supporter interviewee (and that started out as an interview for Wear Down South, magazine of the London and Southern England branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association).

So here – once we get the small matter of eight for 43 against the Aussies at Headingley in 1982 out of the way – are Bob’s answers; we cheated a bit and just asked loads of questions (more than for average Q&A, but reaped dividends with Bob on Bert Trautmann, dodgy Blues ownership and the stick-in-the-mud folkies who called Dylan Judas for going electric (did he perhaps have Salut! Live folkies in mind?)…….

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Pete Sixsmith breaks a vow not to set foot in post-Ken, Boris-led London. And is rewarded for his about-turn by a performance that brought not only promise, but also the points…..

A few months ago, I made the rash statement that I would refuse to visit London if they elected Boris The Cad as Mayor. I was ridiculed for this and was told that if I was to maintain any credibility in the eyes of the world I would have to stick to my guns.

Consider the guns unstuck because on Saturday I ventured into Boris’s domain to witness a performance of considerable skill and promise at White Hart Lane.

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Monty and Keano. Joe Baker. Slim Jim Baxter in his less Slim days. Not forgetting Darren Ward, Andy Cole and, of course, the mighty Clough.
The links between Nottingham Forest, our Carling Cup opponents on Wednesday, and Sunderland are strong indeed (though not, thank heavens, so strong that we ever employed Lee Bowyer, as one Forest fan we came a cross thought).
We found Mark Collar* at a livewire Forest fans’ forum Lost That Loving Feeling, where a request for a volunteer to write at Salut! Sunderland has been read, at the last count, almost 700 times (and produced a few candidates). But Mark was first. He’s an English teacher and, commendably, was willing to toil late into the night preparing not only this lovely essay combining nostalgia, despair and hope rekindled but also, we’re sure, a spot of Shakespeare for 5A and some basic work on colons and apostrophes for first formers…..

I grew up in a family that was so Forest it might as well had been a stick of rock with NFFC written through. We had Forest apprentices living in our attic until about 1975, the most famous of whom were Jimmy McIntosh and Terry Cochrane who went on to play for Middlesbrough and Northern Ireland.

My overwhelming memory of Sunderland at that time was the 1973 FA Cup side. An underdog team we all loved – Bob Stokoe, Bobby Kerr, Ian Porterfield. I think this might still be my favourite FA Cup final of all time; seeing as how we only made it once under Cloughie and that did not go well at all.

Anyway. our apprentices moved out in 1975 and Mr Clough moved into the City Ground. It was relatively quiet until we won a trophy called the Anglo-Scottish Cup. Then suddenly we were promoted, League Champions, European Cup winners (twice) and League cup winners about five times.

It was an amazing time to be a Forest fan. John Robertson, who scored the winner in the European Cup Final, used to stand in our front garden to smoke his fag before going out drinking with our lot. Cloughie described him as our “little fat bloke” or something similar. For me he shows what Cloughie could do: a nothing player who suddenly became the best in the world.

We had 18 years of life with Brian before the drink took hold and destroyed him. He built some great sides. I always felt that the 1991 FA Cup Final with Gazza’s terrible lunging tackle and Spurs fight back was his undoing. He chatted with the police rather than the players at the beginning of extra time. He wanted it more than he could show and losing it hurt too much.

Then there were rumours about Cloughie lying in ditches drunk on the way to work. Then there was Cloughie looking terrible and Forest being relegated. For a while, we bounced up and down into the premiership, then we settled into years of Championship football.

Somewhere along the way, there was a game that became my favourite of all time. We went to Peterborough, needing a win to secure promotion. Stuart “Psycho” Pearce was our captain and Stan Collymore was our leading goal scorer. We went two nil down and then Collymore scored an incredible hat-trick to take us up to the Premiership. It was an amazing day.

Then a succession of underachieving managers with poorer and poorer sides conspired to put us down into League 1. Suddenly, for me, five-hour drives to Nottingham would conclude with defeats to teams like Macclesfield or Chester. We had a succession of awful managers and clueless sides. I remember my older brother looking up at me in one game and saying very simply: “We’re not very good anymore.”

Then Colin Calderwood came to the club. At first, most fans felt that he was tactically inept. He was not particularly popular until May last year when, in spite of ourselves, we were promoted automatically. It was a shock to most Forest fans who had thought the club had already died. In the close season, we began signing players the fans had heard of before – Robert Earnshaw and Andy Cole, whom even you may have heard of.

We have had a torrid time with injuries recently and I suspect you will meet us with half the squad missing. The fans have stayed loyal though and even though the City Ground these days looks like a 1980s monument to our former glory, we’ll still give you a good game.

Now for your questions:

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ACT ONE ………… Capital jitters

London games do bring occasional pleasure but it has been so occasional in my many years as a supporter that I have learnt to expect the worst each time we play in the capital. For each of those moments of ecstasy – 4-2 at Chelsea, 3-2 (League Cup) at Arsenal and 4-1 at Upton Park (v Charlton) come to mind – there have three or four of despair.

So when Steve Luckings predicted 2-1 to his team Spurs, in his Who Are They? feature, I wasn’t able to offer a bold riposte. I said, with what I hoped would be false pessimism: “You’ll win by two or three. Sunderland fans are like that.”

Let’s hope that downbeat outlook is about to be proved ludicrously wrong……Ha’way the Lads.

ACT TWO……….. Glass half full

Some very bright play, Malbranque’s sweet shot against the post, some great Nosworthy headed clearances when in danger, one or two scares in our box after runs down the right…..a dreadful Jenas tackle on Diouf unpunished apart from a free kick……what an encouraging first 45 minutes. Keep it up lads and we might get something here…..

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Spurs at home gave us the perfect start to last season, with Chopra’s rattling winner deep into stoppage time. We’ll have to play at least as well as on that day, and miles better than in last season’s return game (well beaten 2-0), to come away with anything from White Hart Lane on Saturday. Steve Luckings*, online sports editor of The National in Abu Dhabi, is sure we are in for another defeat. But then he’s a Spurs fan, the same one who put a triumphant update on Facebook – repeated at this site – when we were bidding for the half of the Tottenham squad he was happy to see go.
Steve’s answers to Salut! Sunderland‘s questions came thick and fast. We learn of his hero worship of Gazza and Waddle, and the place at his dinner table for Paul Stewart. Speaking of dinner, let’s hope our Spurs imports make Steve eat his words about the likely outcome of the game…..

How do I see Sunderland’s season going? That was Salut! Sunderland‘s question.

Well, they’re the beneficiaries of a lot of Spurs deadwood after snapping up Chimbonda, Tainio and Malbranque (for grossly inflated prices in my view) and survival once again will have to be their priority.

Roy Keane needs last season’s top scorer Kenwyne Jones back as soon as possible leading the line as he causes opposition defences no end of grief.

If he can add a few more goals to his game and forge a strong partnership with El-Hadji Diouf, I think Sunderland are solid enough in all other departments to improve on their 15th place finish last term.

The only game I have seen between Spurs and Sunderland game was on Feb 8, 2003 – a 4-1 romp for Spurs in a very one-sided Premier victory.

It was by no means the best Spurs side we’ve put out down the years but the Black Cats were never a threat.

Less than 15 minutes into the game and the scoreboard at White Hart Lane read 1-0 as the Uruguay midfielder Gus Poyet turned in a clever chip from Darren Anderton for his 50th league goal in English football.

Kevin Phillips – completely against the run of play and with more than a hint of offside – made the scores 1-1 10 minutes later but a Spurs substitute Gary Doherty restored the lead by heading home Anderton’s cross.

The second half was one way traffic and Simon Davies made it 3-1 on 71 minutes with Anderton again involved in the build up.

With the visitors content to do a damage limitation job for the rest of the game, it was particularly pleasing to see Teddy Sheringham seal the rout with his 300th career goal five minutes from the end.

I have been to the Stadium of Light on one occasion but not to see Spurs play. It was a Division One (Championship) game between Sunderland and Coventry in 2003. I don’t remember the score, but I do remember being impressed with the new stadium. I had heard horror stories about Roker Park and thought the club had at least done well by building one of the more impressive newer stadiums in the country. Much better than the likes of Pride Park, the Riverside etc.

As for Saturday, I expect Berbatov to sign off with a farewell goal: 2-1 the Spurs.

Which leaves the following questions:

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.…in which Pete Sixsmith welcome attempts to turn the Stadium of Light dressing room into a new League of Nations….

The news from the Stadium just gets better.

I nearly drove the car into a lorry when I heard that we had signed Djibril Cissé, albeit on a year’s loan. He is another player who has touch, pace and a pedigree that would go down well at Crufts. Compare this signing with what we brought in three years ago – let’s face it, they were more suited to the Leeholme and District Lurcher Show.

This morning’s paper says that Roy is hoping to bring in at least two more new players before the weekend. We could end up with a staggering seven new faces when we turn out at White Hart Lane, all speaking foreign languages like Finnish, French and Cockney (if Ferdinand signs).

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To find out the connection between SAFC and Joseph Stalin, read on, as Pete Sixsmith delivers his first match report of the season proper.

There’s a poignant bit in Blackadder IV, when the ace pen pusher Captain Darling is sent to the front by crazy General Melchett. As befits a mild-mannered man who wanted to work at Pratt and Sons and keep wicket for the Croydon Gentlemen, the strongest epithet he can come up with is “bugger”.

That’s exactly how I felt when Torres crashed the ball into the bottom corner of Gordon’s net on Saturday.

I can get upset when we concede. I have been known to shout a lot more than “bugger” at goalkeepers, defenders, referees and linesmen as we have conceded a crucial goal.

But not this time.

In fact, for a split second I considered putting my hands together and applauding a superb strike from a player who I (and many others) picked out as a star when we first saw him at New Ferens Park, Durham playing for Spain in a UEFA Under 17 Championship. I resisted the temptation.

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