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Forgive me for being happy enough to be here instead of Wembley*

Isn’t it relaxing to have a weekend with no game to worry about?

This is what I wrote for the Guardian‘s Comment is Free web pages last time England played Israel. They gave it the headline: Cry God for Niall, Sunderland and St Roy! I’d have stuck to Niall as Saint, but nothing much has changed for England, or indeed for me in the Club vs Country debate:

Cry God for St Niall, Sunderland and Roy!
The sports writers are already building up England’s game in Israel this weekend as a great footballing calamity waiting to happen: lose, we are told, and our hopes of qualification for next year’s European Championships will be in ruins.

So why – daft and English though I may be – will I probably forget to even check on the score? My lack of concern has little to do with living in France, where most people will, naturally, be more bothered about events in Lithuania. When I eventually find out what happened, I will be disappointed if England have lost or drawn, and quite pleased if they have won. But that’s it.

The result from Tel Aviv will have no lasting impact to match the joy of hearing Sunderland have won, or the injured feelings I suffer when they are beaten in a game on which absolutely nothing depends. Come to think of it, Israel 2, England 0 on Saturday evening would be a great deal less disappointing than Leeds Reserves 2, Sunderland Reserves 0 – a score line that denied us the 2001 Premiership Reserve League title.

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Reading at home on Saturday week (I’d forgotten about the internationals, since they mean so little to me – sorry). Then Boro away a week later and Blackburn at the SoL on Sept 29.

What is the least number of points we need from these games? I remember going through the same mental arithmetic during our two most recent relegation seasons, and of course we know how badly they went.

But let us be positive. A one-nil defeat at Old Trafford depresses us only because it was preceeded by those utterly dreadful performances at Wigan and Luton, and the honourable men-against-boys encounter with Liverpool.

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Thoughts of another piece reflecting on our transfer activity vanished into nothing as I read the latest news on Clive Clarke, who collapsed on suffering a heart attack in the dressing room at Notts Forest on Tuesday night. The Irish defender, 27 years old, is at present out on loan from SAFC to Leicester City.

Of course Roy Keane is right to suggest that our bitter disappointment the same evening at Luton pales into insignificance when you hear that one of your players – any player, to be honest – “is lucky to be alive”.

Only at the weekend, the Seville defender Antonio Puerta collapsed during a game against Getafe. A series of heart attacks led within three days to his death at just 22 from mulitple organ failure.

And let us not forget Marc-Vivien Foe, 28, who played on loan for Man City in the season before he died four years ago after collapsing during a Confederations Cup semi-final for his country, Cameroon, against Colombia in Lyon.

Clive, I am relieved to say, is sitting up and chatting in his Nottingham hosptial bed pending the results of tests. An imminent visit from Niall Quinn, and a telephone pep talk from the manager, may cheer him up a little.

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Do we know which way we’re going?
Picture:dkodigital

Roy Keane has just over three days to persuade us that he has won the transfers debate.

His supposed targets – they include the Stoke City defender Danny Higginbotham and Southampton’s striker Kenwyne Jones – do not amount to the “names to excite the fans” billing Keano himself came up with when worries first surfaced about our activity in the market.

Both may, if they come, prove excellent assets. That isn’t the point.

What we have all more or less been saying From Word Go is that we need established Premiership level quality. And on the evidence to date, we may still need it in three out of four areas: back four, midfield, attack.

Leaving aside Higginbotham’s experience in the lower reaches of the division, Andy Cole is the only answer offered to us by this late stage. And he’s not even properly fit.

As I write, we are 3-0 down at Luton, and Greg Halford has added to his unimpressive start as a SAFC player by managing to get himself sent off. I couldn’t care less about the Carling Cup, but I care very much indeed about a performance as desperate as this just a few days ahead of Man Utd away.

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Two good reasons exist for having no cause to feel overwhelmed by the threat from tomorrow’s visitors Liverpool.

Gary McCallister has long since retired as a player and Graham Barber, for the same reason, won’t be refereeing.

At the Stadium of Light on Saturday Feb 10, 2001, the two men combined to turn a one-nil home win into a draw.

The ease with which Barber allowed himself to be conned by a spectacular piece of theatrics by McAllister will never leave the minds of those who witnessed one of the worst penalty decisions made at the ground.

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Tasmin: keeping faith

A warm welcome to anyone arriving in one of those periodic waves of fellow fans following a link from Ready To Go’s SMB forum.

The topic is famous fans of Sunderland AFC, familiar territory for Salut! Sunderland, where I have added to the work I previously did for 5573 (then Wear Down South), the newsletter of the London and Southern England branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association.

Of course, I could add that if some of the people posting to that SMB thread had already been here, and read the abundant material on Celebrity Supporters that I have built up, they would not make the mistakes evident in, for example, this comment by “Roughy”:

I think there’s a difference between supporting us and just being born near Sunderland. I knew Dave Stewart in the early days and he never expressed an interest in football, Kate Adie was born here but has never said she’s a supporter.
Heather Mills says quite often that she was a Sunderland fan in her youth (and as people who’ve seen my act will know I’m know fan of the monoped witch!)
Mensi is and always has a been a supporter
Tamsin Archer despite coming from Bradford is a fan as her boyfriend/husband John Hughes (?) who wrote Sleeping Sattallite can often be seen at away games
The Tim Rice and Peter O’Toole stuff has been done to death I think they just “chose” us as their team but haven’t really been fans.

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Sit down lad, I can’t see. On second thoughts, stay put*
Picture: dkodigital

How did you spend the day after Wigan?

Since I have always regarded Sunderland as the Durham county football team, I hope as many as possible of you were following Durham County Cricket Club’s excellent victory in the Friends Provident Trophy final at Lord’s.

Some SAFC nuts, Pete Sixsmith included (hence my stand-in role on Sixer’s Sevens) were glad to have been there yesterday too, instead of at Wigan. And who can blame them?

I could not follow the cricket, but I did devote a few minutes to filling in my renewal form for the London and South Eastern branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association. It was a necessary act of faith after the dismal events of the day before.

Passion for your club does not depend on results, nice as it is when results go well. The passion is unconditional.

Our new Irish – and any other – fans have to realise that while supporting the Lads is never boring, it also brings no certainties of success. Plenty of us have experienced those play-off blues, relegation sickeners, thwarted promotion bids and the rest.

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Scourge of the WAGS
Picture: Kieran’sPhotos.

Either the heart or the head cheered wildly for Roy Keane when he made his remarks about weak players under the thumbs of their shopaholic, London-obsessed WAGS.

But not, from where I’m sitting, both head and heart at the same time.

I was ecstatic to be back in Sunderland on Saturday to see a winning return to the Premiership. And where was I not much more than 48 hours after the final whistle? On a Ryanair flight’s final approach to Toulon airport. To Mme Salut, St Tropez – or near enough for us to be able to afford it – has the edge on Shildon.

Keano’s remarks, which I imagine will have been warmly applauded throughout the North East, hark back to another age for anyone married to a remotely modern woman.

It doesn’t matter whether she wants to shop in Bond Street, Milan or the Metro Centre. She just insists on being consulted, not being treated as part of the furniture. And being a woman, she’ll take all that consultation and attention and still complain that she’s being treated like part of the furniture.

The good old days may well have been when you could, with a straight face, recite the little verse:

A woman, a child, a dog all three. The more you beat them, they better they be.

But each component of that recipe for betterment would land you in court these days.

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