Championship

SAFC vs Hull City prize Guess the Score: the annual relegation scrap

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Jake: ‘have a go and just hope M Salut’s feeling generous if you win’

Oh dear, muses Monsieur Salut. The piece below was prepared before the Cardiff debacle. Will anyone be left to predict a Sunderland win? Will my absence on hols in Cuba coincide with the first entry-free Guess the Score (save for the Hull fan’s automatic one)? Or will blind faith triumph yet again? …

 


The first entry in this week’s edition of Guess the Score is, as a consequence of the rule introduced this season, taken. Kathryn Townsley is our Hull City interviewee for Who are You? and reckons her lot will win 2-1.

She also thinks, as you shall read tomorrow, that we may well go down but that Hull will not. That is the basis on which she feels confident that this is not going to the second of three fixtures between the same sides played in different divisions in successive seasons.

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Hutch’s one-word ratings from Cardiff: hang your heads in shame Sunderland

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Olivia
Olivia Hutchison has done nothing to deserve the pain inflicted on her by Sunderland AFC when she goes with her dad, Rob, to games, mostly away since they live in the south. Last year, you’ll recall, she even jumped out of a plane to raise funds for the Bradley Lowery fund. Yet today she was obliged to watch in horror as SAFC produced a classic second-half surrender. ‘This might be a long journey back,’ said the text. ‘As bad as it gets? Certainly since Southampton.’ Her words? His words? Jointly composed? What followed were Rob’s one-word ratings .. not for the squeamish!

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Cardiff vs Sunderland Guess the Score: are things going to get better?

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Jake: ‘try to think Norwich, Burton or Forest, Lads – not Barnsley, Ipswich, Sheff Utd’

Everyone knows we can do it. Sadly, everyone also knows what seems to happen each time we say as much.

So straight over to the Salut! Sunderland jury. Does the fight to scramble away from the bottom of the Championship start with a good result at Cardiff or is our plight about to get even worse?

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A warm welcome to Jake Clarke-Salter. A slightly sour farewell to Lewis Grabban

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Jake Clarke-Salter. Welcome and good luck. Image: by @cfcunofficial (Chelsea Debs) London (Aston Villa 0 Chelsea 4) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

We have been this way before. Early activity in a transfer window seems positive and our hopes rise accordingly, only to be dashed by a combination of factors: the questionable SAFC managerial merry-go-round, an imbalance of expectation and delivery and the air of thick gloom hanging over the club.

But Chris Coleman’s first move really does look like a sound one. Jake Clarke-Salter, a ball-playing central defender brought on loan from Chelsea, “is supposed to be rather good”, says a Chelsea-supporting friend.

Lewis Grabban and SAFC: hardly a passionate love affair

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Middlesbrough Who are You?: ‘Newcastle’s fans are noisy, Sunderland’s are noisier’

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That’s our Boro interviewee Alex Gunn in the middle

Monsieur Salut writes: just as well I have Boro-supporting relatives. Another Boro fan, exiled down south and writing about another Championship side for a living, had instantly agreed to sit in the Who are You? hot seat only to let us down a few days later (no names as he may have a good excuse). But my nephew Andy Falconer, who did a good job of answering the questions back in November, came up with a pal, Alex Gunn*, who readily stepped into the defector’s shoes … he thinks Boro will win but offers us two consolation prizes: nominating Sunderland for an imaginary ‘loudest away support’ award and saying we’ll scrape 21st place, ie survive …

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A View from the Avenue: a fan’s Post-it note to Ellis Short

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Paul Summerside offers Ellis Short some advice the chairman may find has a familiar look

For Paul Summerside, the time is right to wish a happy 2018 to all at Salut! Sunderland and its Facebook page – and to reflect on “Groundhog Day. 2017 revisited”. It’s hardly an open letter to Ellis Short, more a quick reminder that if we set aside changes in personnel, what is needed now if Sunderland are to avoid a humiliating drop into the third tier is pretty much what was needed a year ago …

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The SAFC vs Barnsley Who are You? and prize Guess the Score combined

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The JPT final: look out for the Bowie-shirt, blue jeans and thumbs up: that’s our Craig

Monsieur Salut writes: a very happy new year to all Salut! Sunderland readers, editors, contributors and advertisers/sponsors. As well as featuring the thoughts of a Barnsley supporter, this is the place for entries in Guess the Score. There’ll be a prize as usual – a book or mug, to be sent to a UK delivery address – and Barnsley supporters are very welcome to have a go.

Thank heavens – though not always – for Twitter. It is, or at least can be, a fruitful place to find supporters of other teams. I was fearing a  blank Sunderland -Barnsley ‘Who are You?’ until I found Craig Robinson*.

Craig’s replies, like those of the fan who sat in the same hot seat for the game at their game at Oakwell, are realistic and to the point …

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Sheffield United Soapbox (another Sixer substitute): a shamefully feeble surrender

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Sixer’s soapbox has yet another temporary occupant. The suffering’s the same


Monsieur Salut writes: Pete Sixsmith is making his return to post-Santa duties in a gradual sort of way, a Sixer’s Seven here, that smashing series on The First Time Ever I Saw Ground/Team there. I could hardly decline his invitation to step in with the Soapbox from Bramall Lane, painful as it is to write anything about what happened there on Boxing Day …

Anyone who has supported Sunderland home and away, even if their opportunities are limited, knows the wretched feelings of embarrassment inflicted by truly awful displays. When it’s away from home, the embarrassment is made all the more acute if snatched conversations between opposing supporters are overheard.

“Just coming away from the match,” said one man into his mobile phone as people made their way back towards Sheffield city centre. He added almost as an afterthought: “We won 3-0 but mind, the other team were absolute rubbish.”

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