Monsieur Salut writes: in a 46-match season plus cup ties, it is a distinct possibility that there will be gaps …
It’s a frantic time for Salut! Sunderland over Christmas, with games on Saturday and again on Boxing Day followed by the visit to Forest next Saturday.
Everything that should appear on these pages will appear, so please keep coming back and checking for updates.
Christmas greetings to all Salut! Sunderland readers, contributors and editors. You’ll see the seasonal compliments more fully when you pop into the site on Christmas morning.
With Sixer still on duty it fell to Malcolm Dawson to make the trek to the Stadium of Light on our behalf, and then to report on the last home game of a very trying year. Did he see any harbingers of a better 2018?
It would appear that he did:
Malcolm Dawson was back in the East stand seat of Pete Sixsmith, absent again on Santa duties, to see Sunderland drop back into the bottom three after a disappointing draw against the bottom club, with Bolton and Burton both winning. The instant verdict is therefore his, as will be the substitute Sixer’s Soapbox in due course. Gary Bennett, analysing with Nick Barnes, thought it a poor game where poor defending again cost us a goal. He questioned the decision-making by, in particular, Lewis Grabban in chances before and after his (Grabban’s) equaliser and cited a glaring creativity gap that perhaps Aiden McGeady might have filled …
John McCormick writes: I’ve just had my card declined when trying to make a donation to the Whitechapel Centre, which helps homeless/rough sleepers in Liverpool. There were no problems when giving to MIND, where I donated in order to support my niece, Ski, who’s running for them every day in January. (Just letting you know, should last week have left you in a generous mood). Fifty years ago such things wouldn’t have concerned me. In contrast, the lineup for this match might have. Now I can’t remember anything about the game.
Luckily, Pete Sixsmith can:
Colin Randall writes: Just as our Kevin Ball deserves a free season ticket for life at the Stadium of Light, their – Birmingham City’s – Kevin Ball* has earned one to Salut! Sunderland after all his visit to this illustrious series. But think about it: who would you turn to, if looking for candidates, other than someone bearing that name? So Kev’s back for the much-copied Who are You? (I always imagine our confreres at other sites making a painstaking note of all our interviewees before flattering us by imitation). Enough of that: from deepest Devon, the Bluenose version of Kev answers out questions once again …
No sooner had we said the bookies may have to think again about Sunderland as relegation fodder than we begin to see signs that the odds might soon start lengthening. One win is not enough to get pulses racing too fast but there’s no denying the massive fillip that would result if we could add a win against Birmingham City to Chris Coleman’s highly encouraging start as manager. Daniel Webb, who knows about such matters, analyses the prospects …
After claims that the club was “rotten to the core”, Sunderland were all of the best bookmakers’ favourites for a second relegation in a row – up until recently.
However, a lot of us got our hopes up when Chris Coleman was appointed manager. After all, who better to take charge of a struggling team than the man who led Wales – WALES! – to the semi-finals of Euro 2016? If anyone can help us, it’s Coleman, right?
Yet while our results have improved, we’re not out of the woods yet. So can the Welshman actually pull us out of trouble, or are we just fooling ourselves?
Abigail Emmerson is a special girl. How many other nine-year-olds – OK, only a few days to go before she hits 10 – willingly turn up to watch SAFC home and often enough away, make videos about it and write for Salut! Sunderland? You met her here after the Burton away win, she was mentioned again in Monsieur Salut’s account of his winning trip to the SoL and now she offers her own thoughts on that breakthrough …
I can’t believe I have eventually seen my first home win. I thought it would never happen. But then again I picked the worst time to start watching them last season. We had been doing OK before I turned up, but then to go a year without a win? Wow.
It’s Christmas and Little Drummer Boy is one of those songs you cannot always escape from.
But into the stocking of a Salut! Sunderland stalwart who signs his comments here as Drummer will go a t-shirt depicting two heroic figures of Sunderland’s not-so-distant past, Niall Quinn and SuperKev.
The only other clue I shall give is that he wants it in large. It is for Drummer to reveal his true identity if he wishes.
And now on to even more serious matters. Sunderland vs Birmingham City and your chance to get the Niall/SKP print on your wall or the t-shirt on your chest.
Monsieur Salut, only an occasional presence at games, offers some thoughts on a satisfying first pilgrimage to the Stadium of Light since, well, we were a Premier League side ….
With apologies to all the people I would also have liked to meet but couldn’t, let it be recorded that even a punishing drive south in rotten conditions failed to dampen the spirits after a weekend back in the north, capped by that heartening first home win for a horrifying period, just one day short of a year.
“I must have aged 10 years in the last five minutes,” someone said in the concourse as people left the Stadium of Light with rare smiles on their faces.
One of the most exuberant of those smiles belonged to nine-year-old Abigail Emmerson, who recently wrote a charming account of her early experiences as a Sunderland supporter.