Salut!’s week: intruding on Hammers grief, honouring Millwall wit

The season ends tomorrow, a milestone some of us feel cannot be reached a moment too soon. Here, then, is what may be the last weekly digest before the new season (though that will depend on how busy our contributors keep us during the summer break) …

Someone invited to explore a Millwall supporters’ forum might steel himself for a form of expression that struggles to get past four-letter bluster. Let it be said, then, that if Salut! Sunderland were to award a comment-of-the-week prize for humour and even eloquence, this week’s would go to one Lord Kitchener from the House of Fun site.

This is not the start of a Millwall-Mackem love-in. The comment appeared between plenty more that were neither witty not eloquent, though they did at least betray a sensitivity that, perhaps unjustly, we never expected from this source.

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West Ham v SAFC: where did Millwall come into it?

We can give them the benefit of the doubt and accept the word of the Millwall fansite House of Fun that raising money to fly the “Avrim Grant: Millwall legend” banner above the ground as Wigan equalised to dump West Ham in the Championship really was “just a bit of friendly banter”. We had own own moments of friendly banter two seasons ago when, as we supposed, a nation rejoiced Toon Doon.

But what are we to make of Millwall supporters planning to head towards Upton Park on Sunday, when we play the Hammers in the last game of the season?

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Stick-in-the-mud day recalled as Man City await Stoke or Bolton

MudImage: Peter Burgess

FA Cup semi-finals weekend: we weren’t involved after our meek early exit. We now know Man City will be back at Wembley for the final, having beaten Man United. Bolton and Stoke battle it out – hardly the phrase now I’ve seen the 5-0 scoreline in City’s favour – today to decide who will be the pundits’ tip for losing finalists. We also have yet another Sunderland Premier defeat to try to forget, as we will in time. So while Pete Sixsmith sharpens his pen (and maybe knife) before delivering his Soapbox view on that one, let’s take another shameless dip into the archives, from the days when Salut! Sunderland had so few readers such postings were probably not seen at all. It did also appear in a matchday SAFC programme but if you missed it in either place, and have a soft spot for other people’s hard luck stories, read on. You’ll learn about a Big Match day out – our last appearance in an FA Cup semi-final, back in 2004 – that sticks nastily in the memory for some Sunderland supporters …

It is bad enough being dumped out of the FA Cup after reaching the semi-finals and a game against Millwall that we all expect to win.

But you know it’s not your day when you are then dumped in the mud near Derby – sorry, County fans, nothing personal about the location – on your way home.

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Millwall: hard to like but some of their fans care

Before I say anything else, let me offer the thought that Millwall fans – decent ones, anyway, and please do not automatically assume decency and Millwall are mutually exclusive terms – have a point when they say a few missiles thrown by gormless hoodlums should not tarnish an entire club.

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