Winners from other sides, and those dreaded end-of-term reports

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When Saturday Comes: ‘Who are You?’ award sponsors

Don’t know about you, but I do not recall with pleasure those occasions when school report cards were due to be issued and taken home. We’ll have to wait and see how the Salut! Sunderland panel dispenses the Well Dones, Not Good Enoughs and Could do Betters. But there’s a prize day coming, too …

Salut! Sunderland will, of course, keep going throughout the close season. The output will not match what you have come to expect when the team is playing, but we will continue to look for ways of informing or entertaining the large army of readers who come here because they support SAFC or because, no matter who they follow, they appreciate at least some of what we try to do.

And there is unfinished business that has become traditional.

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Steve Bruce on victory at West Ham (and the fans): ‘magnificent’

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We are quite sure Steve Bruce is thoroughly fed up with having to send, or have someone send, the weekly e-mail lauding a good performance but more often explaining a bad one. Salut! Sunderland shares his ennui. But we’ve started, so we’ll finish. How often have we had to preface his remarks by negative thoughts? How often has he seemed to be offering the same excuse as last time? And yet after all that, we get the top 10 finish – just, but it counts – that we wanted. It may make some of the end-of-season verdicts look a little different …

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Sixer’s Sevens: West Ham 0 Sunderland 3 – unbeaten in London

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pete2

Starting with the last game of the season, something of a romp at Upton Park to bring smiles to our faces, these are the most recent of Pete Sixsmith‘s incisive seven-word verdicts capturing the essence of just about every game. When, rarely, Pete is absent, a supersub does it for him. Pete’s full analysis will appear tomorrow.

The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – encapsulates the matchday experiences, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, of a fan who is usually there …

May 22 2011 West Ham (0) 0 SAFC (1) 3 take your pick … Unbeaten in London and above the Mags OR Easy win and well done West Brom

May 14 2011 SAFC (1) 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers (1) 3 … We ran out of steam; Wolves didn’t

May 7 2011 Bolton Wanderers (0) 1 SAFC (1) 2 Great result, strong performance and safety assured

April 30 2011 SAFC (0) 0 Fulham (1) 3 No forwards, creaky defence, hurry up summer

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West Ham 0 SAFC 3: above Newcastle, pity Blackpool and Birmingham

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Mrs Logic

Let us hear it for Steve Bruce’s makeshift finishing squad and a storming last game. It meant we not only finished above Newcastle United but somehow met the owner Ellis Short’s target of reaching the top 10. There has been criticism here as well as elsewhere, but we are thrilled to salute a heartening finale …

We called for urgency and resolve in the final game of a season that has at times flattered to deceive, and that is what we got. This was a thoroughly efficient performance and it brought the sort of routine away win we should be able to expect in so many of our games.

And on a matter of immense pride to all supporters of Sunderland AFC, we end the 2010-2011 season UNBEATEN IN LONDON.

But there is something else to be said before any more is offered here in what will be a brief preliminary to all else that follows, from Sixer’s Sevens to Steve Bruce’s e-mail to Sixer’s Soapbox.

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French Fancies: hail Lille and – nearly – Patrice Carteron’s Dijon

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Image: FC Lille

Lille’s 2-2 draw at Paris Saint-Germain last night was enough to bring them the cup-and-league double – they had already beaten PSG in the final of the Coupe de France – and a promise by the club president Michel Seydoux to throw a “huge party in this marvellous city”.

That’s a great achievement for a relatively unfashionable club that will do well to hang on to its better players. It is only their third Ligue 1 title, though their second double (look back to 1946 for the first). I did help a little by predicting a comfy late cruise to the championship for Marseille but the record books are unlikely to acknowledge this contribution.

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The West Ham ‘Who are You?’: Sunderland ‘a bit like us’

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This is it. A season that has been disastrous for one club and disappointing for the other draws to a close with a game that means a lot in pride but nothing in substance. Sunderland supporters are entitled to expect a performance full of passion and desire; as someone said the other day, we’re always entitled to expect it. But think of some of the end-of-season flops of recent seasons, Bolton and Wolves springing excruciatingly to mind, and you see why it seems important to make a special plea today. Niall Quinn has promised an inquest on the season now ending. Salut! Sunderland‘s will begin in the days to come. For now, we offer a second chance to see the interview with the Hammers-supporting writer and broadcaster Iain Dale*, who also runs the West Ham Til I Die blog …

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Salut!’s week: intruding on Hammers grief, honouring Millwall wit

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The season ends tomorrow, a milestone some of us feel cannot be reached a moment too soon. Here, then, is what may be the last weekly digest before the new season (though that will depend on how busy our contributors keep us during the summer break) …

Someone invited to explore a Millwall supporters’ forum might steel himself for a form of expression that struggles to get past four-letter bluster. Let it be said, then, that if Salut! Sunderland were to award a comment-of-the-week prize for humour and even eloquence, this week’s would go to one Lord Kitchener from the House of Fun site.

This is not the start of a Millwall-Mackem love-in. The comment appeared between plenty more that were neither witty not eloquent, though they did at least betray a sensitivity that, perhaps unjustly, we never expected from this source.

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Soapbox: boom or bust – the poverty of football riches

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Pete Sixsmith finds depressing reading in a detailed analysis of football finances …

There was an excellent double page spread in Thursday’s Guardian about football finances. It was written by David Conn, a journalist who has been banned from Elland Road by Ken Bates for asking out loud who the real owners of Leeds United are. So, we Sunderland fans can see a fellow traveller here.

Unfortunately, he is not very positive about the Premier League in general and our beloved club in particular. His assessment is that the total losses of the PL are £484,000,000 and that the total debt of the 20 clubs reaches a staggering £2,500,000,000.

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Bravo Bardo – a winner four times over

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The boot goes in next week when our end-of-term, end-of-season reports start running. Well, that may be putting it harshly since at least one of the contributors we have lined up will be making a strong case for the defence.

But for now, let us hail another man who has been making a compelling case for the defence all season. Step forward Phil Bardsley, winner of the official Player of the Season poll run by the club to add to the similar honour he collected in the SAFC Supporters’ Association awards. And he ends the season a winner on four counts, if you include the internal players’ vote and his debut as a McInternational.

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West Ham v Sunderland: ‘what did Bruce do to our worldbeating McCartney?’

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A meaningless end-of-season match, a pointless edition of “Who are You?”? … Only in the sense that they’re down and we’re safe. Beyond that, Sunderland have masses of pride to play for – we cannot finish lower than 14th but 14th would represent failure – and Steve Bruce’s team should want to preserve their one notable achievement: unbeaten in London. For their part West Ham players have to show their fans they care about restoring the club to the Premier. And we close this season’s series on a high, with the Hammers-supporting writer and broadcaster Iain Dale*, who also runs the West Ham Til I Die blog. He is optimistic about a quick return, sees us as a similar club that will always collapse into dire runs and eulogises the surely departing Scott Parker …

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