We didn’t want supporters of any of the shortlisted clubs to feel left out. They were omitted from the heading of today’s earlier announcement of the start of the process for Salut! Sunderland‘s annual HAWAY awards for the opposing fans who gave us the best interviews this season. This second bite at the cherry completes the shortlist: 13 interviews, 12 clubs (there are two Man Utd nominees).
And we have our first prize sponsor lined up: our pals at the half-decent football magazine When Saturday Comes are putting up a year’s subscription, for which we are very grateful as will be its recipient. With just two more ‘Who are You?’ interviews to be published, the final results should be available soon after the season ends – with SAFC, we hope, still in the Premier League…
If you feel you’ve read this already, you are probably right. What follows is a reminder of what appeared here earlier today and is repeated for the benefit of followers of other shortlisted sides whose interviews were not highlighted in the first headline.
So, this is the biy that makes all the effort involved tracking down Who are You? interviewees worthwhile.
The Haway awards – made each season for the best of our Highly Articulate Who are You? features – are back.
The headline above completes our 13-strong shortlist of potential winners. But even that is not exhaustive. The shortlist serves as no more than Monsieur Salut’s guide for the judges which they can choose to ignore if they recall even better instalments in the series that I have overlooked.
“Who are you?” continues somehow to unearth a stream of warm, witty and/or wise fans of other clubs willing to give their time and share their thoughts.
There are famous interviewees and those known only to their friends and families. One shortlist place is taken by a Birmingham supporter man called Kevin Ball, but not our Kevin, and another by someone heavily involved with the SAFC Ladies team but a fan of Leeds.
Their interviews, among others, were crackers. I have mentioned 13 interviews to the judges and am proud of the series and of the contact it brings with supporters of the clubs we face in league and cup. I am also immensely grateful to John McCormick, Malcolm Dawson and Pete Sixmsith for their cheerful help in finding suitable hot seat occupants and sometimes posing the questions.
Among the judges are Malcolm, Sixer, A Love Supreme‘s assistant editor Paul “Sobs” Dobson, M Salut and a regular contributor – so far only to Comments – Eric Bowers. Others have been asked and have not yet said yes or no and I am happy to repeat my earlier invitation that if any other readers fancies to participate, he or she needs only to post a message below, taking care to use their proper e-mail address (which will not appear), o use this link to e-mail me – salutsunderland@gmail.com – and I shall be in touch.
Jake: ‘win, Lads, win’
For the buildup to SAFC vs Leicester City, go to our home pagesalutsunderland.com. Navigation is easy from there.
The nature of the prizes for first, second and third places – with a special editor’s award if we end up with four sponsors – will be announced in due course.
Just to remind you, last year’s outright winner was Raich Carter Junior, son of the late Sunderland and Hull legend of the same name and a lifelong Hull City fan with a fondness, naturally for Sunderland. He kindly donated his prize – five replica 2014 World Cup balls – to a junior team in his dad’s native Hendon area of Sunderland. This tells the story – https://safc.blog/2014/12/safc-vs-hull-city-lastish-words-on-the-match-and-best-wishes-to-raich-carter-junior/ – but also of the accident that befell Raich last summer and from which we hope he is making a steady recovery.
These were among Raich’s comments in his winning interview last season:
Unfortunately I never saw my dad play as he hung up his boots 17 years before I was born, however after attending many footballing functions and meeting many ex-players it is quite evident that he was one of the game’s best…
… Half of our family used to live in Sunderland and Sunderland, the city and the football team, were always close to my day’s heart so that naturally runs in my genes and I would always look out for Sunderland’s result as soon as Hull City had finished.
I visited Roker Park with my dad many times and always enjoyed the warmth of the welcome with which we were received. However now that we are both scrapping over Premier League survival I don’t mind seeing Sunderland lose more games than we do.
Some things don’t change!
Here, then, is the shortlist as it stands, remembering that each judge is entitled to choose his winners from interviews not included – among them of course, whatever we come up with for the Arsenal and Chelsea games still to come:
