Before Sunderland there was Shildon. Tonight, at Bedlington Terriers, there’s Shildon again

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Ernie and Sadie Randall on holiday in the Isle of Man (Sadie's sister, Jean, to dad's right. My sister Sandra to her left)
M Salut’s parents, Ernie and Sadie Randall, on holiday in Scarborough. Sadie’s sister, Jean, to Dad’s right. My sister, Sandra, to their left


Rather fancifully, I had hoped to interest my old newspaper, The Northern Echo, in this slice of nostalgia brought bang up to date by Shildon’s night of potential glory. A win at Bedlington Terriers tomorrow evening (Wednesday) is all that stands between them and a first championship since 1940 in the Northern League, 126 years old and the world’s longest surviving league after the Football League.

The Echo declined, alternatively offering a little space for a retrospective that I fear I may have no time to provide. So I must keep my Echoes of the past, at greater length than I would have sent to the newspaper, for Salut! Sunderland (and Salut! readers at a couple of other places: francesalut.com and salutnorth.com ) …

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The ‘still optimistic’ Chapman Report from Stoke: Messi no match for this

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Robert Chapman: 'ever the optimist'
Robert Chapman: ‘ever the optimist’, oddly enough a caption already used this season

Pete Sixmsith once again steps down from the Soapbox to make way for Bob Chapman, whose pre-match pint was taken with a man who’d willingly forked out £30 for Stoke versus Sunderland after baulking at nearly six times more for a Barcelona game a few days earlier. Bob considered it a decent point even if results at Palace and Burnley dumped us in the bottom three …

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Sixer’s Sevens: Stoke City 1 SAFC 1. Good but not good enough

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Jake pins Sixer to the wall
Jake pins Sixer to the wall

Monsieur Salut writes: a draw at Stoke would normally seem acceptable. But wins for Hull and Leicester – also away – dumped us in the bottom three, so it felt more like losing. The next three games – Southampton and Leicester at home, Everton away – will decide our fate. Pete Sixsmith gave the game at Stoke a miss, opting to follow events at the Britannia on the radio while watching Shildon, his home town as it is mine, keep Northern League title hopes firmly alive with a 3-1 win against Durham City. So the seven-word verdict is not his but a supersubs’s. Listening from afar, I imagined my fellow-SAFC supporters all over the world mixing jubilation and trepidation as Wickham punished Bergavic’s first-minute mistake. Adam’s equaliser was probably the most predictable goal of our season. We had chances to regain the lead but a draw was probably a fair outcome …

Jake: 'a proper nerve-jangler'
Jake: ‘a proper nerve-jangler’

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Sixer assesses survival chances and sees another away side score four in Sunderland

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petesixsmith2

Pete Sixsmith was at both of those games affecting SAFC and stayed to the bitter end, along with a few hundred others (or so it seemed). This time a scoreline with four goals for the away team left him smiling …

Two more wins, two more wins……….

That would almost certainly keep Sunderland in the Premier League for another season of looking over our shoulders at the bottom 3. For Shildon, it would guarantee their first Northern League Championship since 1937 – the year that Raich Carter, Bobby Gurney and Eddie Birbanks brought the FA Cup back to Wearside for the first time.

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Stoke City Who are You?: Denis Smith ‘proud to have managed SAFC’

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Denis Smith: two Sunderland promotions cannot be bad
Denis Smith: two Sunderland promotions cannot be bad

Salut! Sunderland likes occasionally to pull an unexpected gem from the ‘Who are You?’ hat. The ‘ordinary’ fans are just as good, often better, but it’s heartening from time to time to have celeb supporters, former players, noted authors, church leaders, broadcasters and, of course, former managers. Denis Smith never played for Sunderland but he can look back with pride on his achievements as our manager. He’s also Stoke City through and through; we must thank John Ruggiero, secretary of SCOBA, the Stoke City former players’ association (find it at Twitter: https://twitter.com/SCOBA1863), for persuading him to enter so gamely into the spirit of the series. Let’s hope his prediction of points plural for SAFC comes true. Pete Sixsmith joined M Salut in conjuring the questions …

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Burnley, Leicester, QPR, Hull, Aston Villa, Newcastle – and us. Who is doomed?

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[polldaddy poll=8818549]

It’s fair to say the headline was designed to attract supporters of all the relegation-threatened clubs, not just ours, so be aware that they may well be influencing the early No vote on SAFC’s chances of survival (whatever our own feelings!) …

Not everyone who supports our favourite club – I nearly wrote “only club” but retain a very soft spot indeed for Shildon AFC – lives in Sunderland or the North East.

Happy days
Happier days

Even those who do may not see the Sunderland Echo or Shields Gazette as often as they should. And we do not all, always, follow what the local press is saying online.

So every now and then, it seems a good idea to draw Salut! Sunderland readers’ attention to a piece that seems to capture our thoughts or put present circumstances in some reasonable order.

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Stoke City vs Sunderland Guess the Score and our mini-Guess the Star

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Jake: 'can this be true?'
Jake: ‘can this be true?’

Despite the air of resignation that has drifted into the tone of comments posted by Salut! Sunderland perceptive band of readers, the overwhelming majority of us fervently want one outcome to the season, safety for SAFC.

Actually, quite a few would quite like another outcome, too, the relegation of Newcastle United, but the 35 points Toon won before they decided winning and drawing are not really much fun will probably be enough assuming they don’t get hammered in each remaining game and pick up another point or two.

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