League One - SAFC Blog

SAFC vs Norwich City Who are You?: on Grabban, Delia … and Ricky van Wolfswinkel

April 10, 2018April 8, 2018 by Colin Randall

Monsieur Salut writes: the curtain seems almost down on as bad a season as most Sunderland fans have experienced. Thanks Ellis Short – near the top of the Championship table for money spent of agents’ fees, near the bottom for investment on players and next to bottom of the league when not actually bottom.

Martin Penney is our Norwich City interviewee. He has missed all of five of the Canaries’ home games in 30 years. He’s from the Norwich MyFootballWriter site and the dog you see above, poised to bark loudly at the Black Cats, is ‘a Patterdale called Geezer after the best bassist in the entire world – Geezer Butler from Black Sabbath’. There you have it, and here are his excellent responses to Salut! Sunderland‘s questions …

Birmingham pull clear. Anyone for 0-1 in Leeds-SAFC Guess the Score?

April 4, 2018April 3, 2018 by Colin Randall

From an old birthday card sent to M Salut by his mother

We have got used to fantasy entries in Guess the Score. You know, the ones that predict a Sunderland win (especially if there’s already been one in living memory).

The Chapman Report from QPR: Out Demons Out deserves a Sunderland verse

March 12, 2018March 12, 2018 by Colin Randall

Checking unfamiliar away grounds for next season

A harsh reader would say Bob Chapman brings it on himself. A drive up from the Home Counties for the Villa game weould have been enough to put off most people but four days later, he was enduring more dross from the worst Sunderland team he has seen in 54 years of following the club home and away. If only the team could play football as well as the likes of Bob and Pete Sixsmith write, we’d be out of sight at the top of the Championship. But how both of them would love to be able to report on a day out with old friends, supping good ale and recalling bands from the 1960s and 70s, without having to describe how it was all spoilt by SAFC …

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

January 13, 2018 by Colin Randall

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!

Bolton Wanderers Who are You?: SAFC ‘a huge club – hope you don’t go our way’

October 31, 2017October 30, 2017 by Colin Randall

Gabe John is our young Bolton Wanderers supporter in the Who are You? interview suite (aka an e-mail exchange). He writes for Burnden Aces, with which fan site we are happy to make re-acquaintance though unhappy for the reason why … and like all supporters of teams we face at the Stadium of Light, he expects Bolton to win on Tuesday night …

Summerside Blues: a clock ticking to League One

October 16, 2017 by Colin Randall

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 … …