Middlesbrough

Forget Oscars: the HAWAY awards are what matters to fans of Everton, Stoke, Chelsea … and Shrewsbury

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Jake: ‘with thanks to all opposing fans who participate’

Salut! Sunderland gets big hits for “Who are You?” interviews, the Q and A sessions with opposing fans that we publish before every game, writes Monsieur Salut.

And at the end of each season, we present the Haways – Highly Articulate Who Are You? awards – to those our judges deem to have been the best.

It is entirely subjective but a spot of fun. If any reader who follows the series wishes to have a say, please just leave a comment (using your correct e-mail address, which is not shown but I can see) and you will be contacted.

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Premier title looks sorted but Sunderland can now affect Hull and Swansea’s fate

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… through the Championship, we’re on our way

After a season devoid of impact or excitement, Sunderland are in the relatively unusual position of having a major say in who else goes down – and a glance at the odds at 10bet homepage suggests the bookies don’t expect us to stand in Swansea’s way on Saturday.

Our rare win at the weekend, with goals from Billy Jones and Jermain Defoe to beat Hull, did the Swans a power of good. But they were also doing what we used to do when we took survival battles more seriously: they won an important game of their own.

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Wrinkly Pete’s Crystal Ball: Middlesbrough suddenly make the screen look clearer

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Peter Lynn, aka Wrinkly Pete

So has our Wrinkly one, who also answers to Peter Lynn, finally seen the light staring back at him from his imaginary crystal ball?. We regret to say he has. Scroll down for the updated predictions and his thoughts on a grand evening out to Middlesbrough. Well, the company was good, not to mention fish and chips at Wetherby and slices of Mrs Wrinkly Pete’s cake …

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Moyes on the Boys after Middlesbrough: another slap in the face for the manager

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Moyes on the boys

Malcolm Dawson writes….Pete Sixsmith is the most resilient of the Salut! Sunderland regulars. While M Salut was tied up entertaining long distance relatives, John McCormick was fighting his own relegation battle in the Merseyside Chess League or whatever and I was occupied in my post retirement part time career opportunity in Lytham St Annes, Pete was at the Riverside suffering ……again! His seven word summation suggests that he and our manager differ in their opinions as to how tonight’s match went if this post match e-mail is anything to go by…

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Sixer’s Sevens: Middlesbrough 1-0 SAFC. Even Benno lost for words

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Jake: ‘Boro have won five games all season, two of them against us – ’nuff said’

Pete Sixsmith will have more to say, here and standing in for Monsieur Salut at ESPNFC, but this is his immediate post-match verdict on another wretched defeat, once again when facing fairly poor opposition. Some folk were clinging to the straw of a possible West Ham demotion after today’s HMRC raids. They won’t be now. I am told Gary Bennett had this to say on radio: ‘I tell you what… no, I can’t tell you anything. I’ve got nothing to say’. Sixer thought we deserved a point from as dismal a game as you’ll encounter. As Jake said in his caption above, ’nuff said’ …

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Sunderland’s demise: blame Moyes, blame Short, blame life

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M Salut: ‘can I use this baguette to batter anyone planning to vote Le Pen?’

Forgive Monsieur Salut for feeling down. How can a Sunderland supporter be otherwise?

The poor response, in terms of readers, to yesterday’s pre-match package, a very good ‘Who are You?’ and another prize Guess the Score, suggested lots of us have simply lost interest.

We remain fans of the only club we’ve properly supported but we feel cheated at the same time. The club has let us down in a big way. We may well fear, as did our Boro interviewee, for life in the Championship. But here, for what it is worth, is my preview of the Tees-Wear derby for ESPNFC, cleverly headlined ‘Last Rites for Sunderland as relegation looms into view’ …

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Middlesbrough vs Sunderland Guess the Score as the curtain crashes down

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Guess the Score: still offering prizes

Let’s not beat about the bush. Wrinkly Pete’s rose-tinted crystal ball couldn’t save us and nor could my sister and her family’s Boro passions save them from the drop. We are both going down, leaving little more than pride – and avoidance of bottom place – at stake at the Riverside on Wednesday.

The maths are simple enough. We lose at Boro and Hull need only a win and draw from four games – even allowing for goal difference changes – to send us down. Say they drew two and lost two; we’d still have to win five of our six remaining games and hope Swansea and Boro didn’t stand in our way.

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The Middlesbrough ‘Who are You?’: on Juninho, Lauren Laverne and two doomed clubs

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Catherine Wilson: never been to the SoL but loves Sunderland-born Lauren Laverne

So Sunderland are effectively two defeats from relegation, one if Hull were to win just one more game and goal differences remained much as now. Middlesbrough are not much better off. In other words, both clubs are doomed to the Championship with only the mathematics left to complete. Dogs in this predicament are usually put out of their misery, but we have to await the formalities of our demise. Catherine Wilson*, our Boro interviewee and bassist/vocalist with ‘North London’s favorite grungey-indie superdupergroup’ Paintings of Ships, has accepted the inevitable, a relegation perhaps sealed by chairman Steve Gibson’s unwise loyalty towards Aitor Karanka …

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