While Sunderland supporters generally await, with some impatience and not a little concern, significant developments on the transfer front, the pre-season build-up goes on. Stuttering is the adjective that springs to mind when reflecting on the results so far. Last night, at Derby County, Pete Sixsmith saw Martin O’Neill’s team get close, but not close enough, to clocking up another morale-boosting win …
Pete Sixsmith‘s bulky but now gym-honed frame has graced just about every ground known to football. Here’s his response to a highly personal survey naming the Stadium of Light as the best you’ll find …
Just after posting Robert Simmons’s noble thoughts on Claudio Reyna, with the necessary reminder of Claudio’s recent appalling family tragedy (young son’s death from cancer), Monsieur Salut received dreadful news from Belfast, the death of an old friend. He was also, once, a friend of Salut! Sunderland’s, providing grand answers as a Blackpool fan ahead of the game at Bloomfield Road in Jan 2011. This is a slightly adapted version of what appears at Salut! …
Salut! Sunderland regulars are used to hearing about Blackcats, an e-mail group that acts almost as our parallel universe, inhabited in no small measure by witty, often wise SAFC supporters (most of whom, curiously, seem rarely to visit these shores). It was a message there that inspired the idea that Robert Simmons‘s second Voice of America column should be devoted to Claudio Reyna. The Blackcats subscriber was mentioning the tragic death from cancer of Claudio’s 13-year-old son Jack and was unaware that a small tribute had already appeared here. He had an additional reason for sadness: a friend’s daughter had worked for the Reynas as a childminder, living as part of the family both in UK & USA and playing a big part in Jack’s early years. Now Robert Simmons adds his own personal reminiscence …
John McCormick again raises Salut! Sunderland to levels of erudition George Dixon and Monsier Salut’s other hapless teachers would have thought impossible. But it all boils down to Everton romping past us in the FA cup replay thanks not to one of those Leon Osman ‘fall over own feet and wait for Howard Webb to see the invisible foul’ routines but to crafty subsidisation of away support. Unless, of course, they were just miles better than us …
Pete Sixsmith enjoys a day of great achievement for British athletes – except those, with foreign teammates, playing in Sunderland’s deeply unpromising pre-season programme…
Yesterday, we had Rob Hutchison telling of a wonderful trip to Canada to stay with our own Jeremy Robson, a man he’d only met electronically though both are from the North East and support Sunderland. Today we cross the Atlantic again for the first column by Robert Simmons**, an American who describes how he acquired a passion for a far-off club. Once on these pages I told the story of my encounters in different parts of the world with people who, for a variety of reasons, stood out for me because they were wearing Sunderland tops. I look forward to being able to add a photo of Robert in his ….
This is Rob Hutchison‘s entertaining account of a memorable stay in Canada that had almost nothing to do with SAFC, beyond the passion he and his his host, Salut! Sunderland’s resident controversialist, Jeremy Robson, share for the club. It was written a few months ago but then went astray in email exchanges. Now it resurfaces with its story of fabulous hospitality, Sunderland-related reminiscence and good music – and it deserves an airing however belatedly. Monsieur Salut could add his own testimony to the fierce and impressive loyalty of Gareth Hall’s daughter – he ought to be proud of the way she sticks up for him – but won’t for now …
Something I had no reason to expect plopped on the doormat during my fleeting visit to London to visit my brother Phil (much, much better; even out of hospital since the weekend). It was a copy of that lesser spotted creature Wear Down South, newsletter of the London and SE branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association. Ian Todd’s review of events during the many months that had passed since the last edition made the wait worthwhile. Ian, co-founder and mainstay of the branch, tells the story of an important year in SAFC’s recent history with exemplary attention to detail …
A last word, from Stephen Goldsmith, on Tigers ungaggable new boss and a suggestion that calling Wolverhampton Wanderers’ bluff may …
Image: Don Kennedy