Hull City (0) 0 Sunderland (1) 1: when winning’s not pretty

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Colin Randall descended into the matchday bunker to listen to commentary via the official club site (with occasional silences), watch here-one-second-gone-the-next streams and wait for those much more reliable text updates from Pete Sixsmith …

Georges, the fishmonger, told me after our great France-England badminton clash (I won), that during a six-month stint as a trawlerman in the UK, he caught a boat to Kingston. It soon became clear that he hadn’t sailed up the Thames but into what most people called Hull.

The way this game started, Hull City might as well have been Kingstonian FC, given the ease with which Sunderland created chances.

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Who are you? Calling all Premier League clubs

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Wigan wh hires

Before each Sunderland game, a fan of the opposing side previews the match. Sometimes it is an uphill struggle to find one supporter willing to do it; other weeks we end up with two or three and feel dutybound to use them all. Now for the limited payback: our annual awards for the best of them (and read on if you want to take part in the 2010-11 season) …

Salut! Sunderland announces its second annual Who Are You? competition, in which we honour fans of other clubs who have contributed the best answers to the questions we set ahead of each game.

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Rooting for Marseille and Le Mans amid French football scandals

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om

Whatever Franck Ribery, Karim Benzema and Sidney Govou did or did not get up to after tiring of all those discussions on Molière, Voltaire and Baudelaire with young Zahia Dehar, there are still football issues to decide in France …

Forget (for a moment) the sex scandal. Forget Thierry Henri’s outrageous handball against Ireland (and at least Ribery & & co have taken the heat off him ahead of South Africa).

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We’re safe, but do we want West Ham relegated?

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boleyn


Bolton 35 -25 -35
Wigan 35 -33 -35
Wolves 35 -23 34
West Ham 35 -19 31
Hull 35 -40 28
Burnley 35 -37 27
DOWN Portsmouth 35 -33 15

Safe by April 17. It doesn’t have quite the same ring as Safe by Christmas, which we were more or less able to say during those two remarkable seasons under Peter Reid, finishing seventh each time before the familiar rot set in.

But for Sunderland fans accustomed to end-of-season trauma of one kind or another, it was still a relief to know we could complete the run-in without the least worry about how things would end up as we leave Molineux on May 9.

We can naturally hope Steve Bruce and his squad will make up for the wretched time we endured during the winless run from November to March. Nine points from the last three games would be delicious, seven pretty tasty and even six a decent appetiser for what we hope will be significantly better things next season.

But we are all human and naturally have preferences about how we want the next three weekends to go for others. Who do we want to see go down with poor old Pompey?

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The sinking of Grimsby Town: Poojah’s polemic

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fishy

Beneath the sublime headline World, f*** off, this post appeared at the admirable Grimsby fan site The Fishy. Salut! Sunderland‘s attention was drawn by Jeremy Robson, one of our Canada-based stalwarts, in these terms: “It’s so funny and tragic at the same time. Grimsby Town are just about to fall out of the league. Some strong language … it’s a great article that lad’s written. I really feel for them. Grimsby Town is a proper old football club. They’ve been in the league for 100 years. It’s a real shame. We’ve had a lot of encounters with them over the years when we were in the second tier and I’m sorry to see this happen.”

21 Lincoln City 43 8 6 7 24 26 4 4 14 16 36 -22 46
22 Barnet 42 7 10 4 29 17 4 2 15 17 42 -13 45
23 Grimsby 43 3 9 10 23 36 4 8 9 18 32 -27 38
24 Darlington 42 3 3 14 14 31 4 3 15 17 47 -47 27

Over – with apologies to the squeamish (ie strong language left intact as there’d otherwise be no point) – to The Fishy’s occasional star contributor “Poojah” for what one Sunderland fan hails as a contender for “greatest rant of all time”…

Now I’m as optimistic as anyone when it comes to this twát of a football club, but after this afternoon’s latest capitulation it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee – we’re fúcked. Down. Goners. Non-league. To be honest I didn’t know how it would affect me, it’s not like it hasn’t been coming, but tonight I just feel absolutely deflated. Absolutely fúcking devastated.

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Hull City: an optimist’s survival plan

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hullartPhoto: K G Stone

Alan Fulcher* is a Wearside-based Hull City fan whose belief that the Tigers can stay up was shaken but not destroyed by what he calls a “bugger of a result” in Wigan v Arsenal. Salut! Sunderland‘s links with Alan began when we ran a piece (after Phil Brown’s sacking) that was essentially affectionate towards the club but which he found condescending, not least since we had little to shout about ourselves at the time. Alan was promptly invited back to preview this weekend’s game in our Who Are You? series: it’s a big match for us as we seek to put earlier woes behind us with a storming finish, but even bigger for City as they fight desperately against relegation …


Let’s start with the obvious one: what’s a bloke in Sunderland doing supporting Hull City?

Dead easy, I have lived in Washington since 1992, but was born in Kingston-Upon-Hull and lived there until 1973. Always support the team where you were born; there’s more than enough ‘Glory Hunters’ around football!

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Soapbox: Blackburn’s Rovers return empty-handed

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soapbox


Pete Sixsmith worries about the lack of a Spurs angle (yesterday’s throwaway on the Hon Alan Hutton inexplicably drew in readers in their thousands, albeit mostly from Tottenham’s tower blocks). But he still manages to capture the essence – and the fight for half-time chips – of a satisfying night with the reserves …

Monday night reserve games always bring back waves of nostalgia for the Reidy days when it looked like we had made the breakthrough as a serious contender in the Premier League.

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Manchester United: a questionable stand

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manu fans


Salut! Sunderland‘s spot of innocent fun on how to keep Alan Hutton at the Stadium of Light attracted nearly three times as many people to the site as will be allowed into the away end when we play Man Utd on May 9. All because United fans like to stand. Let us weigh up the arguments …

One thing needs to be clear. I’d prefer Manchester United to win the title. But success for Chelsea is a price I will happily pay for seeing Sunderland beat United as convincingly as we are able in our final home game.

Unlike many football supporters, I do not dislike Man Utd.

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Alan Hutton: tell Spurs he’s rubbish

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alanhutton

Our brightest hope at full back since Mickey Gray? But can we hang on to him? Salut! Sunderland ponders the chances of securing Alan Hutton permanently …

Most Sunderland supporters who have seen anything of Alan Hutton are likely to agree that he is just the sort of player we need at the club on a permanent basis.

It has been like a breath of fresh air to see a full back so capable of getting forward and causing serious concern to opposing defences.

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