Much space at Salut! Sunderland has been devoted this week to articles that I am proud to have published on this site but wish had never been written. Naturally, I refer to the impassioned, decent and – yes – angry pieces written by individual Sunderland supporters with voices worth hearing on the Hillsborough disaster and this week’s shamefully late official exoneration of the Liverpool fans who were cynically blamed for its occurrence.
The Hillsborough report has shocked all who have an ounce of compassion and care about decency in public life. Some messengers – notably The Sun – also bear culpability and Kelvin MacKenzie’s ‘profuse apologies’ now do not wash. But always remember it was the public services, or champions of those working within them, that created the message and ensured it was disseminated, focusing blame for 96 deaths – nearly half of them, perhaps, avoidable in any case – on entirely the wrong people. Jeremy Robson has his say; it is a painful but necessary read …
This is Rob Hutchison‘s entertaining account of a memorable stay in Canada that had almost nothing to do with SAFC, beyond the passion he and his his host, Salut! Sunderland’s resident controversialist, Jeremy Robson, share for the club. It was written a few months ago but then went astray in email exchanges. Now it resurfaces with its story of fabulous hospitality, Sunderland-related reminiscence and good music – and it deserves an airing however belatedly. Monsieur Salut could add his own testimony to the fierce and impressive loyalty of Gareth Hall’s daughter – he ought to be proud of the way she sticks up for him – but won’t for now …
Recent events such as the Luarez Suarez ban, the John Terry court case and subsequent FA charge, the Rio Ferdinand tweet, the Clarke Carlisle TV documentary, the successful prosecution of users of social networking sites and the sending home of a Swiss player from the Olympic tournament have highlighted the issue of racism in and around football. An employment tribunal has reached a verdict of unfair dismissal against a football club for sacking one of its players who cited racism as a reason. Gillingham’s chairman, Paul Scally, has vowed to fight the verdict, claiming his club are an equal opportunities employer and would never endorse racist behaviour. Jeremy Robson tackles this sensitive issue and, while approving the verdict, wonders whether business provided the true motivation for the club’s action …
By now, you would think, any football reporter who rushed excitedly up to the sports editor and exclaimed ‘I have a great interview with Steve Bruce about how unfair life is’ would be demoted to covering junior rounders. Not so. Jeremy Robson notes that Bruce’s mantra, ‘how I was sacked for being a Geordie’ with a re-run of that other whopper that ignorance of the world of the web also did for him, is bizarrely still seen as news …
The new Sunderland strips are out and we’ve got off lightly again. As Jeremy Robson put it yesterday, at least we still look like us It wasn’t always thus, but the abomination of the early 80s toothpaste tops is still insignificant compared to what Cardiff City fans have been asked to endure. Jeremy’s look at club tradition also recalls the dramatic makeover that once befell Leeds United …
The flat end of season many of us feared, while outwardly hoping for something special, seemed assured when Wayne Rooney put Manchester United ahead and the only first-half chance for Sunderland was squandered. Would the second half bring that special ingredient, especially with United players knowing Man City were ahead?
Well it got better for us – we pushed forward a little and not only avoided a demoralisingly heavy defeat but might even have snatched an equaliser. And it got initially an awful lot better for United as City contrived to forfeit their lead against 10 men, but then excruciatingly worse as City came back to snatch the title out of their hands. Not the final flourish we craved, nor the humiliation too many of us thought possible after a dismal run. And heartbreak for the winners.
Long experience of coroners’ courts has persuaded Monsieur Salut that depression can afflict the most successful, normally intelligent of people. We do not yet know what drove Gary Speed to suicide. Jeremy Robson offers a little more than the sympathy everyone feels …
Only Ryan Giggs and David James have played more games in the Premier League than Gary Speed who, sadly, was found dead yesterday at the age of 42.
Steve Bruce looked a broken man on Match of the Day. Some of the abuse lobbed at him, Salut! Sunderland believes, was unacceptable, but it had hit home. To a large degree, of course, he is the author of his present misfortune. Jeremy Robson, hardly a born again convert to the Bruce Out cause, discusses this latest calamitous era of Sunderland’s managerial history …
For followers of this fine club of ours there has been a sorry history of underachievement apart from the two seventh placed finishes under Peter Reid and the solitary FA Cup win in 1973. I watched it again last night and for the very first time experienced the realisation that this was a long time ago.
Whenever we remember to do it, Salut! Sunderland likes to offer a summary of the week just gone by. Most readers know by now that there is usually plenty more than is flagged here. Have a look up and down the sidebars for links to other material you may have missed …
Drawing at home to Aston Villa felt like a victory to some, given our late second equaliser, and two dropped points to others, who felt we had been comfortably held by an average side.
After the points squandered against West Brom in the previous home game, it was not the ideal result to set us up for Old Trafford today even if it stretched our very mini unbeaten run to three.
Pete Sixsmith’s magisterial account of the game – click here – was followed by a reminder that cheating in football is by no means restricted, as xenophobes like to believe, to foreigners. Unless you somehow work out that being born in Erdington, Birmingham to Nigerian and Scottish parents makes Gabriel Agbonlahor any more than being called Gabriel makes him angelic.