John McCormick writes. Pete Sixsmith is still on Santa duty and mad busy. Even so he found the time to compose another epic piece. It’s better than the Labour manifesto or the Queen’s speech and more honest and compelling than anything from Boris.
And we aren’t even half way through Pete’s series, recalling the men in charge at SAFC during the time Salut! Sunderland has been on the interweb!
‘You decide,’ as Jake used to say. But is there a middle ground?
Monsieur Salut writes: Pete Sixsmith’s piece on the departures of John O’Shea, Robbie Stockdale and Adrian Tucker – a fond farewell but measured and excellently argued – got one or two talking about Paolo Di Canio. ‘JoS stood up to the ridiculous bullying of Di Canio,’ Pete wrote. Jeff, in response, felt PDC went ‘because players didn’t want to work hard and John was part of that’.
I have a good anecdote that concerns the infamous drinking culture at the club and supports the Sixer view of John O’Shea, but it is probably not one I can yet share without my informant’s consent. Ken Gambles, however, reminds me of a piece he wrote here back in 2014, at the time of the controversy about PDC’s man-management techniques and that can be repeated ….
Jake: ‘click my image to join the Salut! Sunderland Facebook group’
For his second contribution to the pages of Salut! Sunderland, Martin Crow compares and contrasts – favourably – the Chris Coleman way with words, when talking publicly about Sunderland AFC, with the mix of gibberish, gallows humour, boorishness, beyond-the-pale philosophy and heavy gloom that has gone before …
‘You decide,’ as Jake used to say. But is there a middle ground?
Is it possible to believe both that Ellis Short was utterly right to dismiss Paolo Di Canio when he did and that not every scathing appraisal of PDC was fair? Ken Gambles regards the merits of the sacking to be proper ground for debate but finds unjust and unpleasant the almost cliched view of the Italian as a man not quite right in the head …
In his first article here after a spell of stunned silence, Lars Knutsen reflects on a heady weekend and contrasts the styles of the successive head coaches …
Malcolm Dawson was editing this but to save an unavoidable delay I’ve stepped in to finish. Those of you who are as old as Malcolm and myself might remember a rock band by the name of Ten Years After, one of whose albums was entitled Positive Vibrations. This tenuous fact allows me to introduce a new writer, Michael Lough*, who Ten Years After his first visit to the SoL (or was it Roker? Work it out for yourselves), puts pen to paper to bring you his thoughts. Does he have positive vibrations? Make your own mind up as you get to grips with Michael’s take on the media’s response to the hiring and firing of Paolo Di Canio:
Things are never quite what they seem. That probably applies as much to a statement released by Paolo Di Canio to Sky Sports News today as to comments made by at least one senior Sunderland player following his dismissal as head coach. In the statement, PDC denies there was any “training ground bust-up” and claims that with more time, he could have led Sunderland to safety.
Sir Niall, by Owen Lennox.
the lastfootballer on the board
Roy Keane, as portrayed by Owen Lennox
Our former boss, their current one: bravo Owen Lennox, Sunderland artist and friend of Salut! Sunderland
as Jake saw him; Pete’s view on the left
So who’s next? Will Ellis Short stick with Bally or go for one of the candidates we’ve seen mentioned – for example Gus Poyet, Rene Meulensteen, Gianfranco Zola and Stuart Pearce – or someone else entirely? Whoever it is, we should expect it to mean work for the Sunderland-born, Sunderland-supporting artist Owen Lennox, who now describes his labour of love …
In the 83/84 season when Alan Durban was the manager, Sunderland made an important signing, Chris Stevens. Rarely had Roker Park seen such artisty. Not since the board had commissioned the Hemy painting that now hangs majestically in reception at SoL had the club invested in so much money in art. Chris Stevens was appointed as artist in residence on a year’s contract valued at £7,000.
