As it is internationals weekend, a large chunk of Salut! Sunderland is off to Istanbul to celebrate his wedding anniversary. Whether much new appears here over the weekend is up to another large chunk, and the IT and editing skills of a smaller chunk, left behind. But before I tuck into the kebabs, let me give a quick kicking to Giovanni Trapattoni for his continued exclusion of Andy Reid from the Irish squad …
Q: “What do you call a banjo at the bottom of the sea?”
A: “A start?”
Forget Ngog (pictured courtesy of Christoper_tng) who tells me he’s a Liverpool fan), forget the beach ball that saved us from having to score one of the four sitters that followed. When it comes to Liverpool and luck – good or bad, depending on your allegiance – we’ve seen crazier things …Poor Peter Walton seems to have paid a swift, harsh price for his calamitous award of a penalty for Liverpool when David Ngog launched into the sort of takeoff that has one football site asking this morning which Olympic sport France might consider entering him for.
According to the Daily Mirror, he will be relegated to the Football League or at best fourth official duties (if, indeed, that is seen as a punishment) when real football resumes after the international break.
It’s the sort of rough justice that comes after the most serious of refereeing blunders these days. But Peter should take heart (and feel aggrieved): Salut! Sunderland can assure him that it’s happened before (and that the culprit on that occasion escaped any sort of sanction that we know of).
The issue of cheating in football won’t go away. Is it a price worth paying for the cut and thrust of post-match debate? Colin Randall gets stuck in traffic long enough to hear a range of views …
If we are honest, most of us love the controversy that football provokes.
In which the Spurs keeper is invited to thank his lucky stars and pipe down … There’s an awful lot …
Salut! Sunderland, while not caring enormously about international football, congratulates Darren Bent on his England call-up. Good for him, brings a little reflected glory to the club and may yet prove more meaningful than SuperKev’s inclusion in unSuperKev’s Euro 2000 squad. But there is unfinished Bent-related business. What was that about eating our words? Colin Randall prepares the dish, chooses the wine and sets the table …
Salut! is now officially split on the issue. In his excellent review of Saturday’s events at White Hart Lane, Pete Sixsmith said the penalty was right and so was the yellow, since red would have been harsh.
I finally saw the footage late last night. I still believe Gomes made a rash dive at Bent’s feet and that it was therefore a penalty waiting to happen. Except that Darren didn’t wait, and it – the foul – didn’t happen.
Fair’s fair. With the hindsight not available to most fans – or any referees – when controversial incidents actually occur, Salut! Sunderland accepts that Kevin Friend got the penalty about right. A slightly reckless challenge, but not one that merited a red card. Some SAFC fans go further and echo Spurs supporters (not all) by calling it a dive, even if they also feel it was a penalty “about to happen”. Friends again, Kevin? More on all this later but first Pete Sixsmith delivers his own considered post-match verdict …
A six hour coach journey after a scarcely deserved defeat does an awful lot to concentrate the mind. Somewhere in the middle of the old Great North Road, probably between Newark and Retford, I suffered a terrible attack of fairness, not something usually associated with disappointed Sunderland fans.
It is unlikely that the excellent Carole King had a refereeing performance decades into the future in mind when she wrote the song. But
Colin Randall wonders whether Heurelho Gomes enjoyed a huge slice of luck today, courtesy of the man in black, Kevin Friend, as Sunderland slumped to a barely deserved defeat …
IN the objective, sportsmanlike opinion of those in the south stand corner of White Hart Lane, it was clear that the turning point of today’s game came immediately after Heurelho Gomes charged out of goal to challenge Darren Bent, who was clean through.
He’d got away with it in the first half but Kevin Friend had no choice this time but to award a penalty. And a red card surely? No, Mr Friend deemed a yellow to be sufficient and a man who arguably should not even have been in a position to watch the kick being taken made a good save. Followed by two or three other crucial saves as Sunderland pressed for an equaliser to the first half goal.
There are exceptions to the rule, central to the British approach to law, that everyone is innocent until proved guilty.
Countless generations of children would tell you parents and teachers have not always observed the principle. Even in courts of law, there is one glaring anomaly: newspapers, magazines, TV etc have to prove their innocence if sued for libel.
Now there is another category of exceptions: supporters of Sunderland football club suspected of being involved in violence in Newcastle while returning from the pre-season friendly at Hearts. Season tickets have been suspended, individuals removed from the crowd having gained admission to a match.
What’s all this? A civil view of Arsenal, no sniping at Darren Bent and his tweets (though to be fair, we didn’t ask). But Jamie Currie* is Spurs daft all the same, and runs the White Hart Pain fans’ site to prove it. We found the site in the top 50 or 60 of the Soccerlinks chart, among a cluster that included Salut! Sunderland but also sales of football wallpaper and blogs promising Cristiano Ronaldo pictures, a “history of soccer shoes” and “soccer drills and soccer practices” (none of which we’ve yet got round to checking out). Let Jamie deal with the questions we did think of …
Is this the big year – at last – for Spurs? What had the wait been like?
Spurs fans think it’s the big year every year but yes in theory we should have a very good chance of a top 6 finish with a very slim chance of a top 4 finish!
Sam Haseltine, our Hammers previewer and Football United techie wizard, cornered our own Pete Sixsmith last night for a telephone …
