We know the feeling, the one Brentford had before beating Millwall 1-0 at Griffin Park, and we know it all too well. Sunderland have been waiting 10 months for a home win; they had to wait only six.
Billy Grant, our excellent Brentford “Who are You?” interviewee, has already said he feels the Bees are playing very good football and that someone – no names – is due a “bashing”.
Monsieur Salut writes: Billy Grant* talks about his beloved Brentford the way we all wish we could talk about our beloved Sunderland. They’re a joy to watch, he says, and he really does believe they’re on the point of walloping someone (to be fair, he didn’t actually say it would necessarily be us, but given the sorry state of our confidence … ).
I have a soft spot for the Bees since I live only a mile away from Griffin Park when not in France and my younger daughter’s first senior game was for their ladies’ team. I see huge posters for the club on the back of local buses. At least one neighbour gets to most home games.
Read on for another fine, authoritative interview from another fine supporter of proper football. Saw our decline a mile off, considers Terry Butcher maybe the worst manager he’s seen, says Sunderland away is Brentford’s ‘big game’. Brentford away, meanwhile, offers a great awayday/away-weekend and if you are among those likely to be there (I get home from France two days too late) you can follow the links below to see where friendly pubs, plenty of them, are located …
Another of Salut! Sunderland‘s services to the football-loving community, in this case that part of the community that likes an occasional flutter.
Hands up anyone who wishes they’d put a tenner on Leicester City to win the Premier League title when they were 5,000-to-one (heaven knows what odds you’d get now on Leicester keeping a manager or Sunderland not only winning but with a clean sheet). Tony Stone would probably know as he describes himself as a ‘lover of betting and winning’. The nature of placing bets has changed; online betting is now king and here Tony reflects on the reviews options open to punters …
It is rare though not unheard of.
Without needing to post an entry, Clive Whittingham – a supporter of QPR not SAFC – won the Guess the Score competition , correctly predicting a 1-1 draw in our most recent 90 minutes of disappointment.
Observant readers will know of the new rule that the scoreline forecast by our Who are You? interviewee is automatically deemed the first entry in each competition.
How many of the 26,000 fans who turned up for another rotten Sunderland display will be back for the Bristol City and Bolton matches at the end of the month? A good win at Brentford would do wonders for everyone’s morale. Would it placate Paul Summerside? Sorry to be negative but what reason do we have to be otherwise, however improbably it is to think Paul’s wish for four new players in January will be fulfilled, except by spreading very thinly the crumbs Grayson might be allowed from the cut-price sales of Kone and/or Ndong? What follows is short and not very sweet … …
Pete Sixsmith longs for the day he can write something upbeat about a Sunderland first-team performance. The visit of QPR offered no such opportunity. That he can muster the enthusiasm to write at all is remarkable; that he does it so well, and with a nice line in gallows humour, too – must be a marvel of the modern age …
In the end, I probably made the right choice. I witnessed what, in the words of Simon Grayson, was a small step to success with a lot of positives and where we didn’t get the breaks, rather than watching Shildon crash out of the FA Cup 6-0 at Guiseley. To be honest, an afternoon in a laundrette watching the machines whirl round would have been preferable to either.
Monsieur Salut writes: for much of the match against QPR at the Stadium of Light, the Sunderland nightmare seemed be getting darker and darker. Pete Sixsmith reported that the defending was getting worse by the game as we went one down yet again.
Until the McGeady equaliser, QPR seemed more likely to score again. Gary Bennett was deeply unimpressed, too, describing a side ‘all over the place’, without pattern and devoid of confidence with a number of seriously poor personal displays with Matthews especially culpable. Sixer’s other instant verdict was ‘Another poor performance. Very little encouragement here’. Come back for his full report tomorrow or Monday … …
Monsieur Salut writes: Clive Whittingham, the editor of the QPR fan site Loft For Words, did the honours in our Who are You? hot seat. He asked for a reciprocal gesture which we were naturally happy to make. He also asked Roker Report and we are fine with that, too (I have to cast the net wide in my search for Who are You? interviewees and sometimes end up with more than one and use both).
The result? Salut! Sunderland had another superb Who are You? – and Clive was able to run replies to his own questions put to our Pete Sixsmith and Roker Report’s Rory Fallow.
And by the by, Sixer’s latest edition of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Team is once again a must-read joy in which he recalls seeing QPR for the first time, not at Roker Park but Feethams. The Rodney Marsh story – a chance meeting with a bruising opponent in a Darlington night club after that match – is worth a visit in itself. And here is what Loft For Words (please note the clickable link, Clive!) made of the Salut! and RR interviews (but also check the caption above if you want to win a mug) …
Pete Sixsmith‘s first encounter with QPR was not against Sunderland but Darlington shortly after Rodney Marsh had scored one of the three goals that won a side then in the Third Division the league cup final against top flight opponents, WBA, despite having been two down at half time. The game at Feethams is largely forgettable, but Sixer recalls with a grumpy harrumph the din made by Hoops fans with a drum and shares a delightful anecdote about Marsh’s post-match evening out.
This is the latest instalment in our Memory Man’s entertaining and rightly acclaimed twin series on Sunderland opponents: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Team (for SAFC home games)/The First Time Ever I saw Your Ground (when we’re away) …
Monsieur Salut says: stand by for a sharp, literate analysis of all that is wrong and the bits that are right about Saturday’s opponents, QPR, and what has gone awry for Sunderland. At least half a dozen headline-worthy phrases leap from Clive Whittingham‘s* answers. Clive, a business and sports journalist, is the editor of a QPR fan site, Loft For Words. I loved his one-line assessment of his club: ‘not big, or that good, but we’ve had some lovely players’.
Of players linked to both clubs, he admires the current but injured captain, Nedum Onuaha – remembered fondly for his wonder goal vs Chelsea for us but not, apparently, a favourite of all Hoops fans – but came close to adding Anton Ferdinand to his ‘worst players’ answer. As for us, he likes Simon Grayson but suspects we’ll end up firing him as the season progresses. Perhaps the kindest way of interpreting his remarks is that he thinks we’re a basket case …