John McCormick writes: in 1956 John Christopher wrote a post-apocalyptic novel called The Death of Grass. It featured a virus that killed all grass-type plants (monocotyledons, in the trade) and thus wiped out many of the planet’s food sources. If I remember correctly, the hero and heroine ended up pushing a pram from London to the Lake District, where someone they knew was growing cabbages in a hidden valley. Jeremy Robson takes this a little bit further and gives us another doomsday scenario, one that some of you may think is even scarier:
If you came here for hard-hitting analysis, fanciful transfer speculation or earth-shattering news, you may have been led astray. There’s no football as we know it for another nine days or so and there hasn’t been a word from Salut! Sunderland’s huge army of pundits, essayists and wits. So we’re plundering the past (and, if you’re into the North East’s tragi-glorious history of coalmining and the music it inspired, take a peek at http://www.salutlive.com/2014/10/men-of-the-north-johnny-handle-and-a-classic-song-from-ed-pickford.html …
Salut! Sunderland‘s unashamed dip into the deep reservoir of past work has taken on a life of its own.
The lads at BBC Newcastle seem to have liked it, a number of readers have given thumbs-up approval (here and on social media) and, after yesterday’s reappearance of an affectionate look at Darren Williams’s Sunderland career, Darren has today “favourited” and retweeted it), electronic contact was renewed with its author, the Peterlee-born actor Joe Simpson, who famously adopted his hero Joe Bolton’s Christian name when told by Equity they couldn’t have two John Simpsons on their books.
I tweeted Joe with news that his piece had been re-posted:
@salutsunderland Hi Colin – an actors life is full of repeats and re-runs ! Good to hear from you – how’s life treating you ?
But Joe first came to Monsieur Salut’s attention when Joan Dawson, then co-ordinator of 5573, later Wear Down South, newsletter of the London and SE branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association, asked for a series of celebrity supporter interviews. he was one of those I tracked down. Read an account of this series, its hits and misses, at https://safc.blog/2009/09/a-list-or-z-list-the-celebs-who-support-sunderland/
But here is the interview, now 13 years on from original publication but one of the best the series produced, with Joe:
This nostalgia drug is addictive. Take away football for a fortnight, replace it with international yawns and the mind starts wandering back through the years.
Joe Simpson, Sunderland fan and actor (Coronation Street, the Syndicate, Emmerdale, OverBlood, Blood Warriors and much more), was born John. When the time came to join Equity, they already had one John Simpson. So he partly renamed himself in honour of one of his favourite players, Joe Bolton*. Another Sunderland man who caught the eye of John/Joe was Darren Williams.
This is a piece he wrote for us back in our earlier days, 2007 …
There’s no meaningful football to write about so let’s stick to nostalgia.
Years after those glorious days of Johnny Crossan, there was the team of Peter Reid that stormed to a record-breaking promotion, goals and points, and then finished seventh two years running. Whatever later went wrong, Reid got something right for several seasons and we were treated to the most exciting time to be a Sunderland supporter, 1973 aside, in living memory.
Eric Roy was, for a very short time, part of that excitement. It was perhaps a little late in his career to make a greater impact on the Premier League but his time at the Stadium of Light is remembered with real fondness by many. The opening goal in that 4-1 rout of Chelsea in 1999, snippets seen in the above clip, came from his superb run and then the pass to Niall Quinn. It was as heartwarming a game as I have attended in half a century of supporting Sunderland, all the more so because they’d walloped us 4-0 on the opening day, our first back in the Premier, and everyone said we were doomed.
Once again for those who missed it the first time round, when Salut! Sunderland‘s readership was much smaller, here is the result of an interview he readily gave in 2010, when manager of Nice* …
Only tiny glimpses of Johnny Crossan, from after his SAFC days, in this clip of a 4-1 home defeat of Man City by Chelsea. In one of them he acts as peacemaker after Mike Summerbee appears to stamp on Eddie McCreadie. But it has been a privilege to run the interview with him, not least because although Johnny played with Colin Bell, Mike Doyle, Summerbee and other City stars, it is his time at Sunderland that he remembers most fondly …
Just about time to wrap up the three-part interview with Johnny Crossan, reproduced from four years ago for the benefit of readers of Salut! Sunderland who missed it back then.
My thanks to the many people, including those too young to have seen him play, who have visited the site – or revisited it – to read about him. This was the final instalment as published in 2011.
Monsieur Salut writes: John McCormick, back from a holiday in Spain, finally made it to a game and made a better choice for his debut (mine having been QPR away). He offers an entertainingly whimsical account of getting up to the North East from his Liverpool exile and struggling to acquaint himself with new faces in red and white stripes, but seeing a decent win and – not fully recognised elsewhere – a good substitute’s shift from Adam Johnson …
No question, for Pete Sixsmith, of straight home for pipe, slippers and tea in front of Saturday evening telly after the welcome home win against Stoke City. Instead, he joined more than 1,000 others willing Sunderland Ladies* to a victory that would have clinched an outstanding achievement, promotion to the top tier of the Women’s Super League. It was not to be, but glory may well be delayed, not denied …
Photo courtesy of the Sunderland Women’s Football Club*
Spot and click to magnify Roker Park. And then read on for the next part of a SAFC story from just a few years before that photograph was taken (1970).
The reproduction, with barely any updating, of the first part of Salut! Sunderland‘s 2011 interview with a charismatic Roker Park hero, Johnny Crossan, was well received, with positive comments here and on social media. Nick Barnes, who does such a good job with Gary Bennett of bringing matchdays to absentees and exiles with his BBC Radio Newcastle commentary – available everywhere via safc.com – liked it and so did one of his predecessors, the same station’s expert on all matters Durham County Cricket (and more besides), Martin Emmerson.
So here is Part Two (of three); remember the interview was conducted – from Ramside Hall before a retirement shindig for the Northern Echo’s Mike Amos – at the back end of Steve Bruce’s reign, before James McClean had been given his first taste of action by Martin O’Neill. There is a third, which will come soon, and I have written to Johnny in the hope of bringing the story bang up to date.
The amount of time Johnny was willing to give up for a piddling little fan site was quite astonishing. But before we resume the full sequence of questions and answers, I have something that needs a special mention.
Towards the end of a long telephone conversation from Sedgefield to Derry, I said:
I have a boyhood memory of playing in the park after school and stopping outside my own penalty box to turn and shoot a spectacular own goal high past our goalie (maybe Pete Sixsmith was there, too). At the time I imagined it as my Johnny Crossan moment. Can you see why a young boy would identify you with rebelliousness?
Johnny’s response was to laugh. And continue to laugh for some seconds before giving the answer you find below. For an old codger able to look back on a few decades, it was priceless …
