George Forster: ‘if only football’s powers had a shred of Mr Sunderland’s loyalty and integrity’

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George Forster

Pete Sixsmith pays tribute to an early mentor of his football writing, George Forster, a man who exemplifies all that is good about the Sunderland AFC family of supporters and has just collected an appropriate accolade …


In a season of deepest gloom, there was one bright spot – two if you count the reduction in Jolly Jack Rodwell’s salary.

The positive one was the award of EFL Championship Supporter of the Year, won by 91-year-old George Forster, a man who can rightly be called “Mr Sunderland AFC”.

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Fulham Guess the Score as Olivia, three, asks: ‘Will people laugh at my Sunderland top?’

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Olivia in blue

Today, we hand over the penultimate prize Guess the Score* to a three-year-old girl who has embarked, even at such tender an age, on a lifetime of what we all know supporting Sunderland brings.

As Derek Scott points out, we have already heard eloquently from his daughter Natasha, keeping faith from faraway Cornwall. (Re-read her heartwarming contribution from a few years ago, sadly stripped of the photos by the system, here).

Now he introduces us to his granddaughter (who naturally had no idea this would be turned into our regular competition ahead of the game, otherwise meaningless to us save for pride, at Craven Cottage). Monsieur Salut will even enter a scoreline on her behalf – 1-1, which she or grandad is welcome to change …

Sometimes, and admittedly it’s only on the rarest of occasions these days, something happens that makes you realise why you support Sunderland.

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Season End Reviews: (3) wretched management, strip and team (and why I’ve renewed)

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Mick Goulding and son Conor

After the humiliating if inevitable confirmation of another relegation, we all start to clutch at straws, says Monsieur Salut. My straws today have been Nick Donaldson’s fascinating mix of gloat, as a Mag, and sympathy, as a decent man with plenty of Mackem mates, and now Mick Goulding‘s superb contribution to our annual End of Season Reviews series. It requires no more build-up; just read on and see whether you’d quarrel with my assessment of this analysis from a man who’s put in a mighty shift as a Sunderland supporter …

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‘Yes Newcastle are gloating but there but for the grace of Rafa go us’

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Are Sunderland and Newcastle, as our illustrator Jake once put it, ‘like two cheeks of the same a***’?

Nick Donaldson is a smashing bloke in all respects save that he supports Newcastle United. A past winner of the Salut! Sunderland HAWAY award* (for the best interview of the season with an opposing fan; see footnote), Nick admits he cannot deny enjoying our plight at least a little but adds: ‘You have my sympathies’ ….

If a week is a long time in politics, two years is a lifetime in football.

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Sunderland’s headlong fall and the unconditional love that makes us keep faith

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In the commentary box up with Barnes and Benno high up in the West stand

Monsieur Salut, aka Colin Randall, writes: in my brief time in Abu Dhabi, I saw more of Sunderland live than at any time since Pete Sixsmith and I would make our way every other Saturday to home games at Roker Park, and rather less often to away matches. That’s because every Premier League match is shown on TV there. I suspect it would have been hard if not impossible in the season just ending, and will simply be unthinkable once our return to League One gets under way.

But my links with The National newspaper, the launch of which drew me to the UAE in 2007, remain strong and the sports editor, Graham Caygill, a Watford supporter, was happy to indulge my willingness to write about our decline. He has a soft spot for SAFC even though his dad was a Boro man.

See the article at the newspaper’s site – just click on this link – and see it here, with Graham and the editor-in-chief’s consent …

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Sunderland statement: right words, nowhere near good enough

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Change afoot?
Photo courtesy of safc.com

It bears the hallmarks of a statement dictated by Martin Bain (CEO) and tidied up in the press office. It tells us what we know and offers the right buzz words and phrases: demoralising season, devastated, humbling support, deep-rooted passion, rise again and so on.

It even includes a “sorry”. Nay, “truly sorry”. But did Ellis Short have the least input? Was the sorry his? Remember, this is a man who may have tried to do his best for our club but ended up finger-pointing at the media, a classic cause-and-effect scenario since he freely admits he won’t even talk to reporters.

In the words of Oliver Cromwell, Ellis, “depart I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

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Down and down again. A sorry day to be a Sunderland supporter

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A proud heritage trashed by gruesome mismanagement (listening, Ellis?)

Monsieur Salut writes: this is obviously the grimmest evening, in footballing terms, since Salut! Sunderland was created back at the beginning of 2007 (a promotion season under Keano). We’ll all have more to say and we’ll all, by and large, go on supporting our club. Here are some immediate thoughts …

It took me several looks at the bottom of the table, and at the remaining fixtures, before I finally accepted that there was no longer any permutation that could, however remote the thought, keep Sunderland up.

The stark reality is that there can have been few more deserved relegations in the history of English football. Most of the other contenders for that description involved us, too.

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Sixer’s Sevens: Hell, Bent on relegation as Burton come back

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Jake gives Sixer star billing

You could see it coming, couldn’t you. Darren Bent comes on with 15 minutes left and equalises with two minutes to go. Then in injury time they score a second from another cross. Which just goes to show that what we’ve been saying all season – indeed, for a few seasons, is correct: You can create all the midfield play you want but you without a proven goalscorer it will come to nothing. So we’re sunk  and Burton might think they did enough to stay up today. One of the seven word texts Pete Sixsmith sent: “clear why these two are going down” suggests not, but let’s concentrate on ourselves, as Pete sent another at the final whistle:

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