Melanie Hill: flirting on the Fulwell

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When I thank you for the stream of visits to Salut! Sunderland that has sent us rocketing up the Soccerlinks hit parade to the dizzy heights of the mid-40s, “you” includes the away fans attracted by the Who Are You? feature and such controversies as the Ilunga/Jones affair. While I stand by for an invasion by Spurs fans later in the week, ahead of Saturday’s game at White Hart Lane, I will give another airing to an interview from the Celebrity Supporters series that began with 5573 (later renamed Wear Down South), the magazine of the Sunderland supporters’ association London branch, and continued at the old site.

Melanie Hill, whom I described as a “smashing actress known from Bread, Brassed Off and much more” was easily one of the nicest interviewees in the series. She agreed to an interview two days before the fateful Arsenal match in Oct 2002, Peter Reid’s last in charge, and rang again just before kick-off to fix a time. The interview took place the day after Reid’s sacking. As I said at the time, it felt like a whirlwind telephone romance.

Here, for those who missed the interview when it first appeared (and apologies to those for whom it is just a repeat), is one of the stars of our wider support base …

This starts as a tale of two celebrities with strong Sunderland links, of one door opening while the echo of another slamming shut is ringing in the ears.

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Salut! Sunderland AFC (Against Football Cheats)

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“Old bald headed bloke” * – see comments – considers the response from Wearside, the East End and beyond to the Jones/Ilunga incident during the 2-2 draw between SAFC and West Ham …

West Ham supporters have rallied gamely to the cause of their side following events at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.

They have done it with a mixture of solid defensive work and aggressive counter-attack (there have also been a couple of more cretinous offerings, but the ratio of joined-up thinking to no thinking at all has been high).

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Soapbox: losing face

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The Herita Ilunga soap opera continues. Pete Sixsmith could hardly let it go unremarked in his report of a grim start by Sunderland followed by stirring fightback and lingering controversy …

Well, where to start after a fairly eventful afternoon at The Stadium of Thugs – according to weeping and wailing West Ham fans.

Let’s start with a moderate first half performance that began quite well and then faded badly as the Happy Hammers took what could and should have been a commanding lead.

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So how is Herita Ilunga’s face? (2)

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And another thing. Shouldn’t a player – any player, West Ham or Sunderland or whoever – be subject to an automatic substitution if he writhes in agony, Illunga-style, on the ground?

It just doesn’t seem safe for them to get up and resume play, once the penalty/card has been duly awarded, as if nothing had happened. Who knows what damage they are storing up for themselves in later life?

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October 1968: hammered, but the injustice still Hurst

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Colin Randallremembers highs and lows from 40+ years of games between Sunderland and West Ham …

On the face of it, this does not look the worst line-up the English top flight has seen:

Montgomery; Irwin, Hurley, Palmer, Harvey; Suggett, Porterfield, Herd; Harris, Brand, Hughes

Nor, necessarily, does this have the appearance of a world-beating XI:

Ferguson; Bonds, Stephenson, Moore, Charles; Redknapp, Boyce, Peter; Brooking, Hurst, Sissons

King Charlie & co clearly had an offday.

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Who are you? We’re West Ham

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Sam Haseltine* is one of the brains behind Football United, new host for Salut! Sunderland and other sites. He has been solid as a rock in the process of transferring our archive across from its old home at Typepad to WordPress (and cannot be blamed if some text arrived in garbled form and a few pictures don’t look quite right!). He’s also a passionate Hammers fan, runs the fans’ site West Ham Process and is deaf to my request that his club delays its revival until after we play them on Saturday …


Not a great start to the season. Are you beginning to get worried?

You’re right, not the best of starts. I take confidence in knowing we have a whole three more points than Spurs did at this same point last year! I’m not getting worried just yet, feeling a little down as it wasn’t quite what we expected going into the season. After our run of form at the tail end of last year, we were confident that it would continue into this year, hopefully making us serious Europa League place contenders. I would still put my neck on the line and say we will be there or there abouts this year.

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Soapbox: damn Yankees

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No apologies for banging on about the Carling Cup defeat. It was a big night for us and we blew it, our own self-destruct tendencies combining in critical fashion with the accomplished versatility of a keeper from overseas. Pete Sixsmith feels he has been there before and is so cross he even has second thoughts about liking Villa and their fans …

Sixteen years ago, almost to the day, Aston Villa won a League Cup tie at Roker Park, thanks to a fantastic goalkeeping performance by Mark Bosnich.

A Sunderland side containing such luminaries as Martin Gray, Alec Chamberlain and David Rush battered the allegedly superior visitors, before falling to a couple of late and thoroughly undeserved goals. I remember talking to Gordon Armstrong the next day at Sedgefield Races and he was still shaking his head in disbelief at what had happened.

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Handing it to Villa

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Plenty to say about a needless exit from a competition in which we had the chance to make a serious attempt at winning a trophy. First, Mick Goulding, a regular supplier of astute analysis of SAFC matters at the Blackcats list, explains why he is so angry …

I’m still seething over this. We were the better team, had most of the game, even towards the end of normal time when Villa put us under pressure a bit we never looked in danger.

But we couldn’t score and it had 0-0 written all over it. Then we get a massive break.

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Sunderland and Hednesford Town: bubbling under together

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It’s a long way from the top half of the Premier League to a similar place in the UniBond Northern Premier League (oops, that is no longer the case; I should have said the Zamaretto Premier League). That, the Zamaretto, is where Hednesford play their football.
But if that seems lowly league stuff, look at how many people visit the unofficial Hednesford fan site The Price is Right.. For days, as Salut! Sunderland rose through the ranks of football sites listed by Soccerlinks, we were neck and neck with them. Not exactly soaraway stuff: bubbling under the top 50 more like, but each site receiving hundreds of visits daily (a gap has now opened up; we were 52nd when I last looked, they had slipped to 61st).

It’s great for football, as it happens, that such a club can generate so much interest – and even better to see the site ranked ahead of, say, Geordies.net

When I asked whether anyone supporting “The Pitmen” might like to write for Salut! Sunderland, preferably finding some link between our clubs, it was just a throwaway line and I was not sure whether I’d see a single response (unless they’d spotted Pete Sixsmith on one of his non-league forays).

But this is what came back, roughly in order …

* terrymc:

Hello salut,
Just thought you might be interested to know that we have a former Sunderland player in our current ranks.
Sam Aiston was at Sunderland from 1995 to 2000 according to Wikipedia.

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