Image: Mike BairdThe nation has laughed. The Premier League has done its best to stop the laughter spreading by trying to force YouTube to block every clip. Pete Sixsmith, on the other hand, knows the full story of Jarvis the Sunderland-supporting spaniel. How he gets from there to Suarez would take longer to explain …
The second week of a non-football fortnight, as it has been for those who care little for internationals, has been a busy old time at Salut! Sunderland. Here is a resume for readers who do not visit the site every day, starting with something that isn’t in the headline but should be …
Jonathan Wilson is widely acclaimed as one of the best football writers around. You can read him in The Guardian, in his own books (his Brian Clough biography is due out soon) and, as of this week, Salut! Sunderland.
A truly magical piece of writing, about an unbreakable attachment to Sunderland AFC passed down from one generation to the next, appeared first at the SB Info Plus website but was reproduced here with the permission both the writer and the site. Several people who read it were, like me, deeply moved by Jonathan’s words.
Just when you thought money in football could hardly be more unfairly distributed as it is, along comes some Anfield suit with plans to make it unfairer still. At least Pete Sixsmith was able to enjoy some non-league fare and Rugby League before a new encounter with the ugly face of corporate football …
What a peaceful weekend away from the noise and commotion of the FA Premier League. I spent my Saturday afternoon watching a thrilling local derby between Shildon and Bishop Auckland, in front of a crowd of about 300, no TV cameras, a smattering of replica shirts and the ability to walk around the ground chatting to various folk while watching the game.
Denise Hone*, ChelseaD from The Chelsea Blog, has been here before, but without the real name. She previewed our great win at Stamford Bridge last season and – despite that – agreed to have another go at the Salut! Sunderland questions ahead of Saturday’s return to proper, post-international football. Denise does her “biggest pessimist” credentials no harm as she offers interesting responses on a range of issues from changing places at the top of the Premier to her Chelsea loves and hates, cheating and the weather up north …
Salut! Sunderland: You obviously saw it coming, last season’s 3-0 win for us at your place? Explain it all the same!
I saw defeat coming, maybe not 3-0 to you but it was on the cards. We’d started the season so well after a rubbish pre-season but as every game went on cracks started to appear and the wins were less convincing. It was always a matter of time before the wheels came off – and when they did, it was no Formula One pit stop.
When Jordan Henderson left, Sunderland supporters were divided into two main camps: dejection about what the move said of our own vaunted ambition, and the feeling we’d done some rather smart business provided the money was properly spent.
We are still waiting for the so-called marquee signings – two needed, three if the underperforming Gyan is on his way – but the money we received from Liverpool, £16m or more, still looks good.
But am I not right in thinking the overwhelming majority of SAFC supporters will feel pride and even reflected glory if he does well at Anfield, just as most of us smile when SuperKev bangs in two more goals for Blackpool? And Jordan’s doing well after a slow start against us.
Salut! Sunderland‘s look back on the week just gone may not appear every single Saturday – it is a useful guide for the busy reader but also time-consuming – but resumes with links to much of what has been written here about the Liverpool opener, Joey Barton’s antics at St James’ Park and today’s Derby …
Time for all posturing and pre-match boasting to end. Kickoff is only a few hours away and some of us may be ecstatic, others despondent, come 2pm.
The derby has made it a busy week at Salut! Sunderland. But the flurry of activity here began with the ultimately satisfactory draw at Anfield.
Graham Poll offers his thoughts on the weekend controversies in each Monday’s Mail. Sometimes we agree, sometimes not. This occasional column will explore those of his verdicts that find us at odds with our own …
Today, Graham Poll insists Kieran Richardson should have been sent off when Phil Dowd awarded the penalty to Liverpool. He mocks the perfectly plausible argument that Suraez, as Dowd saw it, was heading away from goal and may even have pushed the ball too far to be able to control it. He was emphatically not making a simple tour round Mignolet to tap the ball home, much as he may have wished.
It was a grand day out: I enjoyed watching both sets of supporters applaud a besuited Steven Gerrard as he walked round the touchline, smiling and singing autographs; I enjoyed seeing as many of ours applaud the traditional Gerry & The Pacemakers singalong as booed it, and I enjoyed seeing Liverpool fans applaud the superb touches of Stéphane Sessegnon (one Sunday paper’s rating of 5/10 was laughable). And Pete Sixsmith took enormous heart from a tremendous Sunderland fightback: for once, as he put it to me afterwards, deserving the cliché “very much a game of two halves” …
Another game with the once mighty Reds gets mired in controversy. We’ve had the beach ball, the back pass and the dive, which made it 2-1 to Liverpool on iffy decisions. Our turn this time, as Phil Dowd gave Kieran Richardson a considerable benefit of the doubt and showed him a yellow instead of a red.
In his first e-mail to M Salut of the season, Steve Bruce rightly praises a superb comeback from a start that made us look as if we were heading for a battering. Sess and Brown were outstanding but others put in terrific second-half displays, too, and Larsson’s equaliser was stunning. Many thanks to Stan Simpson, of the Durham branch of the SAFCSA, for magically producing my ticket …
The Chelsea Blog repeated last season’s exercise and popped a few questions our way about 2011-2012.
No great original thought appears in the replies, but I place them on record so that Salut! Sunderland readers can:
* Tell me I’m spot on
* Offer a sharper assessment
* Come back later to tell me to say how wrong I was
I’d also add that my answers would be slightly different had the questions been posed today and not a couple of weeks ago.
News from the Emirates, for example, would have made me wonder about Arsenal’s chances of making the top four. I hate to say it but fear our opponents for tomorrow’s opening game will sneak in and grab the Gunners’ slot … that is a shame because M Salut is a fully paid-up admirer of M Wenger and would be sad to see his club slip down the pecking order.