Buy the mug at this linkSo, we get a great crowd, a proper sense of occasion, bags of anticipation, a bright enough start – and then a total flop.
For all our efforts in the first half, which might on another day have produced a goal or two (but also a sending off for us and a goal for Newcastle United), we barely turned up for the second.
Buy the mug at this linkOuch! Mignolet’s desperately poor positioning allows Ryan Taylor’s free kick from the elft to sail over him. One-nil to the Mags and that was how it stayed.
THIS POSTING HAS BEEN SUPERSEDED – by this
Big controversy but no goals in the first half.
The first 45 were busy, niggly and mostly dominated by Sunderland. But arguably neither Seb Larsson nor Yohan Cabaye ought to have finished the half, and Newcastle should have gone ahead, massively against the run of play, with a penalty.
Salut! Sunderland‘s look back on the week just gone may not appear every single Saturday – it is a useful guide for the busy reader but also time-consuming – but resumes with links to much of what has been written here about the Liverpool opener, Joey Barton’s antics at St James’ Park and today’s Derby …
Time for all posturing and pre-match boasting to end. Kickoff is only a few hours away and some of us may be ecstatic, others despondent, come 2pm.
The derby has made it a busy week at Salut! Sunderland. But the flurry of activity here began with the ultimately satisfactory draw at Anfield.
That description came not from a blinkered Sunderland fan but, or so it is said, the Newcastle United dressing room. Salut! Sunderland applauds a straining-to-be-fair-but-honest appraisal of Joey Barton …
No one living outside the strangely mixed mind of the Newcastle United midfielder truly knows the answer to the question posed in the headline.
At long last, the Salut! Sunderland Shop is open at the page you find by clicking here for UK orders or here for overseas orders.
Just about open, I should have said. It may be the only shop in the world with only two products, but it has to start somewhere.
It has been a slow and laborious process but from today, we are offering – as a trial intended to lead to the addition of further products – what we will call the Classic Salut! Sunderland Mugs I and II, chunky red and white tea or coffee mugs using a design conjured up by our old friend, the Charlton-supporting graphics wizard Addick-tedKevin under the guidance of M Salut. The introductory price is £11, and there are discounts for buying two or four.
The countdown begins. But to what? Pete Sixsmith ponders on the big match. Is that a hint of optimism I detect? …
The day is nearly upon us. The day that we look for first in the fixture list when it comes out. The day that usually comes in October or February. And it’s happening tomorrow… August 20, second game of the season, first home game for us, first away game for them.
It was Dolores O’Riordan, lead singer of the Cranberries, who offered the elegant thought the opinions are like a*******s since everyone has one. I am sure others have said the same or similar.
But as we approach the first of this season’s derby games with Newcastle United, here is a selection of opinions I have spotted here, at Blackcats or elsewhere, alternating Mackem and Mag words of wisdom …
A few of the Newcastle United supporters who have come here this week have made the claim, in different ways, that Sunderland fans care that much more about Newcastle United than vice versa.
Mrs Logic
It is debatable whether this is really the case, but when you look at this paragraph from the BBC website, repeating a fact that is hardly unknown to most passionate SAFC or NUFC supporters, you begin to realise why we care an awful lot:
Sunderland have only won on two of the last 21 occasions they’ve hosted their rivals since 1967, with Kieran Richardson’s rocket of a free-kick three years ago bringing their only win in nine played at the Stadium of Light.
The story of Isaac Moore (“Ike”) McGorian, who played for Sunderland AFC in the 1920s, first appeared here earlier this month under the headline Isaac ‘Jack’ McGorian: echoes of Bardsley from the Roaring Twenties
Salut! Sunderland’s article drew a heartwarming response from members of his family, who also provided the photographs and much of the detail that enabled me to prepare it. Bill Richardson, a Sunderland supporter long exiled in Africa, was the spur: his comment on an e-mail forum had set the ball rolling.
But Bill also has something to answer for: what bemused his colleague, Lilian Martin, the player’s younger daughter, about my report was the use of Jack as her father’s nickname. He had never been known as such, she said. A daughter, you may well say, ought to know.
Indeed, the reference book mentioned in my report confirms this, giving the name as Isaac Moore (“Ike”) McGorian. his later career included stints at Notts County – whose supporters might find this item on Les Bradd of interest, too – and Carlisle United (their fans will most certainly wish to avoid this story).
So this is an attempt both to set the record straight and bring to wider attention the responses received to the original posting, which now follows …
Michael Hudson* is the man behind the Accidental Groundhopper blog on non-league football and also our guest Mag ahead of Saturday’s game. And he is already a contributor to Salut! Sunderland. Before his excitable co-supporters cry treason, let it be said that his scholarly but also entertaining piece on the first Wear-Tyne derby – 1644, reputedly a narrow Sunderland win – appeared at our request. Today, he talks of Mike Ashley’s mixture of sense and nonsense, the despair he’d feel if Newcastle were taken over by super-rich owners and his belief that the battle between Cattermole and Tiote could decide the match …
You promised to be a model of politeness unless I asked about Mike Ashley. Sorry, but what do you really think about him?
Firstly, you have to put Ashley into his proper context. Newcastle United have rarely, if ever, been a properly run football club and Ashley’s no worse than Shepherd, McKeag or, back in my dad’s youth, Lord Westwood. I actually think Ashley has some sensible ideas – ending the ruinous expense on the likes of Michael Owen, for instance, or this season’s introduction £100 season tickets for under-16s, but, overall, I don’t think he understands enough about the way football works to run a club effectively. The fact he bought Newcastle without bothering to do due diligence tells you everything you need to know.
Mrs Logic