Nice and early again, here’s the second Guess the Score competition, with or without a prize, of the new season …
Amid all the gloom following our latest no-show, this time at Leicester where the consensus appears to be that we got two back only because City were by then cruising, there has at least been the excitement of the Great Sixer Debate (see the comments at https://safc.blog/2015/08/au-revoir-mvila-new-signing-sees-red-in-norwich-semi-rehearsal/, which can be summarised as Dan Tilley vs The World).
Bill Taylor came across a nifty new BBC tool allowing fans of all Premier League teams to calculate their clubs’ performance during their lifetimes. Fellow Sunderland supporters – and others – are invited to have a go and report back any interesting findings …
There’s no evidence to support this, but George Santayana, the Spanish/American writer and philosopher, COULD have been at Wembley in 1937 to see Sunderland clobber Preston North End 3-1 in the FA Cup. Santayana was certainly in Europe at the time.
And the saying he’s most famous for could well be applied to the Black Cats and their long-suffering fans: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
For those of us who have trouble remembering what happened last week, let alone a few decades ago, the BBC’s football website has unveiled a magical new tool to jog our memories.
Sometimes, Who are You? interviewees bend over backwards to please, offering upbeat predictions for Sunderland’s season that even we wouldn’t share. Not Ben Jacobs*, another of Monsieur Salut’s ESPN FC colleagues but also a busy sports broadcaster and journalist in the Middle East. A passionate Leicester supporter, and first in the WAY hot seat for the new Premier season, he makes due apology, but forecasts an end to our top-flight stay. What’s worrying is that he comes across – with fascinating views on football cheats, Qatar as 2022 World Cup hosts and Foxes management issues – as knowledgeable!…
“… I think Pearson will, at some point, have a big row with a player or a fan, and the team’s spirit that kept them up will dissipate…”
Two weeks later Leicester City’s website contained the following:
“…it has become clear to the Club that fundamental differences in perspective exist between us. Regrettably, the Club believes that the working relationship between Nigel and the Board is no longer viable…”
The effect on team spirit remains to be seen but as I said at the start, what a website!
A week ago I left you with a poll whose results were suggesting the targets of my dodgy numbers “relegation watch” would be the three promoted clubs and Leicester. Since then another couple of thousand votes have been cast but they didn’t make much difference, despite the turmoil at the Kingpower . Here are last Friday’s and this Friday’s results:
Strange, isn’t it? I spend Monday evening idly browsing the MLS (aka Major League Soccer) website trying to work out how it (the league, not the website) operates and then along comes David Millward with a piece about a football convention in the USA. I wonder if the fans he mixed with can get their heads around relegation and promotion better than I can handle the subtleties of the MLS.
John McCormick: 1×1 is 1, 1×2 is four, 1×38 is 38 and that’s enough for safety.
At the start of last season I chose three relegation candidates (QPR, Hull and Aston Villa) and two reserves (Southampton and West Brom) on the basis of PL history and some iffy statistics.
Mr QPR said “What a rubbish article, how can a Sunderland fan have any view on relegation when they will be one of the teams themselves”
Germany Tiger said Hull had improved significantly as well as: “You are the only one (and I’ve read a lot) who have Hull in a relegation spot, which suggests to me that there is still a bit of disappointment at being put to the sword 3 times last season by the Tigers and I predict a few more this season also….. oh if we could only play Sunderland every week… deep joy!!”
Bald ugly bloke was a bit more restrained, and perhaps a bit more optimistic: “Laughable that you have Hull City in the 3! The Tigers will be pushing top half.”
Having been around for a few seasons, Swallavc was much more measured: “Aston Villa have been relegated in 0% of premier league seasons and therefore will be safe!”
I could go on, but what I’d prefer to say is that many of the readers, SAFC fans and others, were prepared to give their opinions on relegation candidates, as well as of my words . I’ll come back to this at the end.
Andrew Pink, from the Square in the Air sports marketing firm, was trying to make me feel better.
He’d sent something about Betway cutting the odds on West Ham finishing in the top six from 18/1 to 14/1 after the appointment of Slaven Bilic as team boss. So where, I wondered, did Dick Advocaat’s return leave us? I told him I’d almost bet on them having us down for the drop anyway, on the basis that betting analysts would reckon we cannot keep getting away with it.
“It’s not all bad news,” came Andrew’s response once he’d lowered his eyes to the prognosis for that far down the table. “Sunderland are 4th favourites to go down….”
After the great Scottish referendum debate inspired by Birflatt Boy and drawing in a couple of thousand new readers, the next item for posting needed to be a golden. Here is it …
An unusual request suddenly popped up at the Facebook group of Salut! Sunderland.
Back in February 2012, Clare Owen found the wedding ring you see above outside the Stadium of Light after SAFC thumped Norwich City 3-0 to roar to an unlikely eighth top under Martin O’Neill.
Not the easiest of things to lose, you may feel, unless it was very loose fitting in the first place or the wearer’s finger had suddenly lost a lot of weight. But lost it was.
Melissa Rudd’s interview looked a winner in Salut! Sunderland’s Haway awards – Highly Articulate Who are You? works for us to produce the acronym – when it appeared before her club, Norwich City, came up to Sunderland and deservedly took a point. Her bad luck was threefold: two later entries that our judges collectively found to be even better, plus the Canaries’ relegation. Commiserations, Melissa, and thanks again. Your consolation as the final results are announced is to have your golden words reproduced below – and to collect her choice of prize as now described:
Melissa may choose between a year’s subscription to the great football magazine When Saturday Comes or a choice of WSC tops. If she visits http://www.wsc.co.uk/, she will get an idea of the options.
From our main sponsor soccerpro.com’s range. Our winner chooses items to a total value of $200 from soccerpro products
WAY has grown to HAWAY, simply because it seemed an appropriate acronym for Salut! Sunderland‘s annual Who are You? awards to those judged to have contributed the most interesting responses in the Who are You? feature that precedes every Sunderland game. It doesn’t matter too much whether we make this the Hello and Who are You? awards or dream up some other first words starting H and A. Our Oscars are, henceforth, the Haways.
