Niall Quinn

2014: where will we be then, where are we now?

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That’s the year when Steve Bruce’s newly extended contract runs out.

At a time when a painstakingly detailed report on the Sunderland business model has just appeared (see below), it is not impertinent to wonder aloud where he will be then, and indeed where SAFC will find themselves.

If Bruce does well, returning to where we left off before the present run of defeats began, the risk is that another club – if not a post-Fergie Manchester United, then someone else – will come in to lure him away.

Managers, like players, can change allegiance at the drop of a hat provided the hat contains enough dosh or professional promise (just as there is no such thing as loyalty from club to them).

And if the decline worsens and we end up, despite all that Ellis Short money we’ve spent, hovering just above the relegation zone in an incredibly tight division, or a prolonged slump extends into next season, that absence of loyalty from clubs to their staff could see Mr Bruce on his bike out of the place.

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The Quinny stayaway fans debate: our winners, SAFC’s winners

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Niall Quinn is a passionate man, as events over the past week have shown.

Salut! Sunderland remains surprised by his use of the D word – despise – to describe how he felt about fans who stay away from the Stadium of Light to watch illegal live broadcasts in the pub. But it is no surprise at all that he has presented his case in emotional terms – see our original item here – to the extent of saying his own future commitment to the club may be at stake.

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Niall Quinn and the D word

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Monsieur Salut answers a question raised by an eminent SAFC supporter on these pages. See the original debate by clicking on Niall Quinn: love means never having to say ‘I despise you’ ….

Did Niall Quinn really use the word “despise” to describe his feelings towards fans who watch currently illegal live broadcasts down the the pub instead of paying to see the games at the Stadium of Light?

Or, asked Tom Lynn with perfectly good reason, was the word put into his mouth by the SAFC corporate press people?

Now we have the answer, and it’s from the horse’s mouth, as this link provided by BBC Radio Newcastle’s Martin Emmerson shows.

Despise ’em he does.

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Niall Quinn: love is never having to say ‘I despise you’

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de·spise? ?
[dih-spahyz]
–verb (used with object), -spised, -spis·ing.
to regard with contempt, distaste, disgust, or disdain; scorn; loathe.

Among all the responses to the Salut! Sunderland piece on Theo Walcott’s admission that he had dived in the hope of stealing a penalty, this struck me as a genuinely nice – and totally unrelated – line from Matthew Wade, an Arsenal fan: “The mighty Quinn still has an element of cult-hero-ness down here.”

Sunderland supporters, of course, have huge affection for big Niall. For many, it’s practically a love story in which both parties show commitment and loyalty.

As with most relationships, of course, there are downs as well as ups, with faults on both sides. Niall wasn’t much of a manager, he escaped by the skin of his teeth after at first failing to make proper replacement for Roy Keane and he occasionally gets a call wrong.

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Pauline McLynn: Father Ted’s char cheering shamelessly for Aston Villa

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Pauline McLynnDLR Library

An actress’s life can bring varied demands. After being made up to look a lot older for the part of Father Ted’s housekeeper Mrs Doyle, Pauline McLynn* was required to appear nude as Libby in Shameless. But never mind that: she’s here because she is a keen Aston Villa fan. As a lass back in Ireland, she’d flirted with Liverpool and Steve Heighway before being converted by Paul McGrath. Salut! Sunderland gallantly chose a discreet image …

Salut! Sunderland: Things may change before we meet next week you but it has been looking a little ominous at Villa Park with some pundits even mentioning the dreaded R word. Surely not relegation, even after the 4-0 drubbing at Man City.

The only R that I agree with is Resurrection, and I think the game against Chelsea proved we can still take a game to the opposition. Villa are notorious for going downhill a bit at this time of year but I feel we on the rise again now so look out Sunderland.

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OK, so let’s help Niall get the crowds flocking back

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Niall Quinn made plenty of sensible points in his lament to the Sunderland Echo about the disappointing size of attendances at the Stadium of Light.

The season’s average so far is 38,342 which is 2,000 down on last season even though the quality of football is much higher, the squad stronger and hope at its highest level for 10 years.

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England 2 Russia 13: maybe we’re not the greatest after all

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As attentive readers will know, Monsieur Salut is in Zurich, reporting on the outcome of the Fifa vote – not for the British media but for a newspaper that is delighted with one of the decisions taken. The National, Abu Dhabi is enjoying a spot of reflected pride at Qatar’s choice for the 2022 World Cup. Meanwhile at home …

When Niall Quinn has a go, the world listens. Sunderland fans have no monopoly on admiration for their club’s chairman; he commands respect and attention throughout the game.

And Niall is deeply unhappy about Fifa’s humiliating rejection of a bid its president called outstanding and remarkable but then joined almost every other member of the committee in ignoring. Two votes, one of them the English one anyway, and summary elimination after Round One: sounds reminiscent of Sunderland’s performances in the last two relegation seasons.

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Steve Bruce: no oil painting? Quinny and Keano know why

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Owen Lennox* is a Sunderland supporter with unusual gifts. He is an author, as recently demonstrated on these pages with the story of his novel touching on Wearside history, he is an art teacher and he is an accomplished painter. Here, he describes how an attempted little sideline – painting SAFC figureheads in the hope they’d fork out to own the resulting masterpieces – slid slowly from the canvas …

As a practising portrait painter, when the commissions are few and far between I need to keep my eye in.

I am also an honorary member of the three little pigs’ society; I need to keep the big bad wolf from the door.

In order to kill two birds with one stone I use a ruse employed by the late John Bratby, he used to make portraits of famous people then contact them, on occasion they would buy their portrait, and this has proved a moderately successful ploy for me until it comes to famous footballers or managers.

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Niall Quinn, Titus Bramble and presumptions of innocence

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Click here and you will quickly see what you are invited to sign. Most of us pay lip service to notions of justice. In practice, we repeatedly encounter anomalies …

Niall Quinn stands convicted on one count – not knowing the difference between refute and deny – but is absolutely right to put out a dignified club statement* emphasising that Titus Bramble, arrested on suspicion of rape, maintains his innocence.

Niall was also wise enough to the potential charge of hypocrisy to avoid adding that whenever an individual is charged with a crime in the UK, and indeed his own native Irish Republic, there is – notionally at least – a presumption of innocence. It is nevertheless worth pointing it out: Bramble has not even been charged; if and when that occurs, he must be seen as innocent until and unless found guilty.

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