Check out the Classic Football Shirts Sunderland AFC collection at http://bit.ly/1MEMc5Z
Ken Gambles was admirably prompt in his response to requests for contributions to the Beauties and Beasts series on Sunderland kits past and present. But Salut! Sunderland proceeded to lose or at least overlook his affectionate reminiscences on a special away strip from his youth. The search party has now reported back and we can make amends. What we cannot do is direct you to our friends at Classic Football Shirts to buy the shirt; they have 300,000 in stock but the SAFC range starts in 1981. And the YouTube clip below is in black and white …
Ken Gambles: ‘would a Gooner rhyme my surname with crumbles?’
Our regular correspondent Ken Gambles goes off-piste to get poetry, football and Leeds United into the same story. Already mystified? Wondering what might rhyme with Dirty Leeds? Let Ken take up the story …
With hours to kill before we either stop up to catch coverage of Toronto vs SAFC, or just go to bed, here’s another bout of Summer Madness. Long ago, Salut! Sunderland ran a series of celebrity supporter interviews. Even longer ago, most of these had appeared in 5573, later – and still – Wear Down South, the magazine of the London & SE branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association. Monsieur Salut was the interviewer, Joan Dawson – sister of our esteemed deputy editor, Malcolm – the instigator, from when she was the magazine’s “co-ordinator”, which meant she did the lion’s share of the work.
One of the best articles to result was based on the story of avid Sunderland supporter Melanie Hill, a terrific actress who played the wife of Coco the Scab in Brassed Off and also had starring roles in Bread, When Saturday Comes and much more besides.
Now Melanie is the new love – if it’s reached that stage yet – of strange old Roy Cropper in Coronation Street. I do watch when in England despite finding many of the storylines preposterous – has any street in the land ever had so many murders, kidnappings, adulterers, disasters and road accidents? – and from what little I have read, this one is nearly as implausible. But I bet Melanie is playing “Cathy” superbly and, in honour of her success in obtaining a role I know she really wanted, here is a re-run of her Celeb interview which – as the names and events suggest – first appeared a long time ago. Apologies to anyone who has seen it before; it’s worth a read if you haven’t …
Salut! Sunderland announces the annual HAWAY awards for the opposing fans who gave us the best interviews this season. Only two to publish, so results should be available soon after the season ends. The first sponsorship comes from our old friends at the half-decent football magazine When Saturday Comes – a year’s subscription – for which we are very grateful …
It’s the bit that makes all the effort involved tracking down Who are You? interviewees worthwhile.
The Haway awards – made each season for the best of our Highly Articulate Who are You? features – are back.
As the new year got under way I began speculatively looking at ticket prices. I didn’t get as far as train timetables before a virus crept up on me and knocked me sideways. Today, I went out for the first time in over a week. I’m back now, obviously, and feeling the better for it, but any lingering thoughts of Burnley, or even Southport-Gateshead are gone.
If I lived in the North East I’d be going to the Burnley game, and I’d have been there against Leeds and Fulham, but that’s easy for me to spout. To paraphrase the late Mandy Rice-Davies, I would say that wouldn’t I.
Even at half time, Pete Sixsmith felt Sunderland had been OK, no more … he had seen little to inspire him. Gus Poyet, Lee Congerton and Ellis Short should take heed of how Sixer, a loyal fan for half a century, felt at the end: ‘real rubbish in the second half and they could have won it. It is pushing me ever closer to the end of my tether. All they have to do is pass the ball to a red and white shirt – surely not beyond most of them. Fifty years of relegation struggles. We could well lose this one’ …
If Pete Sixmsith, present on May 5 1973 and present on Jan 4 2015, doubted he would experience the same level of excitement, his pessimism was well-founded. Roles are reversed these days; it is not that Sunderland are as mighty as Leeds undoubtedly were back then, but we are almost a full division ahead. And yet the only side that looked liked scoring in the second half was Leeds. Just as well Patrick van Aanholt had returned from injury with a fine first-half attacking display rewarded with the excellent strike that won the game (on 33 minutes, two later than it took Ian Porterfield in 1973). Sixer’s considered report can be expect to dwell at length on the failings shown subsequently, with Leeds unlucky not to gain at least a replay ..
Jan 4 2015 FA Cup 3rd Round: SAFC (1) 1 Leeds United (0) 0 Scraped through after a shocking second half Jake: ‘through, but only just’
As the FA Cup 3rd round looms, and just for the memories, here are some jottings that have cropped up here in the eight years since Salut! Sunderland was created …
Forty-one years on from our great triumph at Wembley, 77 years after we had last done it and a shorter time, though still too long, since the FA Cup seemed to stop mattering to most, a 3rd round tie would not merit undue attention.
Julian Young is a good friend. The cross he bears is that of being a Leeds United supporter. Not surprisingly, as his club went into steep decline, he put some distance between him and them. For some years, he has been in Paris. It works; as M Salut remembers from his own time there, it can be tough trying to catch live football outside the Premier. But he still cares, and readily agreed to offer his thoughts ahead of the Sunderland vs Leeds cup tie …
No one correctly guessed 3-2 as the score from the Etihad so the latest edition of Guess the Score is a rollover, with two mugs as the prize. READ ON …
Over the years, and perhaps with relatively little else to shout about, Salut! Sunderland has published plenty about the great day in history – social history, too, not just footballing detail – that was May 5 1973.
Many readers are old enough and were lucky enough to be there. Others, Monsiuer Salut among them, have hard-luck stories of broken promises or disappointment in the hunt for tickets. But however we ended up watching the momentous events of that afternoon in north-west London, it was an occasion to be remembered forever.
