Premier League

Sunderland’s 10 relegations: the Coventry City conundrum (part one)

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Jake: has anyone suffered more pain at football than Sixer, on the right though not remotely so in politics, and Sobs?

Monsieur Salut writes: scroll down on the right of this article and you’ll find him: the perplexed Coventry fan who wonders that a grudge has been held for all this time: ‘my god, you’ve been keeping this bottled up since the 76/77 season!!!! Any football fan who takes pleasure in another team’s (and not even rivals’) downfall to this degree needs some hobbies…’

‘You know what?’ as they say on X Factor. ‘We have.’ It was blatant cheating, a disgraceful episode and ought to have been punished, even if it has to be accepted that a relegated team also needs to look back on its own failings. Even if no one would have scored a winner anyway. Let Pete Sixsmith bring us up to date, in a rather tantalising way, with his series on Sunderland relegations ….

 

Daily Mirror, Nov 2nd, 1972

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End of season reviews: (3) smilin’ like I’m happy, seeking extenuating circumstances

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John McCormick: We're not bottom, so is it a Happy Christmas?
John McCormick: been here before

Colin Randall writes: I commend this epic piece from our associate editor John McCormick, his superbly argued but also entertaining contribution to our series of end-of-season reviews ….

 

You might be telling people

“ it’s a chance to rebuild”.

You might be saying

“Now we can bring the young’ns through”

Or you might just be thinking

“at least we won’t have to watch that rubbish next season”.

And maybe you’re forcing a smile as you say it.

Recent events might even have made it a genuine smile. But are you really happy? How do you really feel?

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Sixer’s Soapbox: Moyes resigns, he won’t be missed

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John McCormick writes: end of season reviews have just begin, with Lars Knutsen providing the first with a piece entitled “Hire and fire”.  Some time in the next couple of weeks, depending on how many reviews there are, Pete Sixsmith will bring the season to a close.

But M Salut called on Pete to perform a duty first, and Pete stepped up to the mark in fine style. Here’s his take on the hiring, but perhaps not the firing, of a manager who promised so much and delivered nothing but dust:

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End of season reviews 2016-17 (1): ‘hire and fire’ is the Lars word

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Lars Knutsen touching base

STOP PRESS – Lars submitted this piece well before the season end, before the Arsenal game in fact. It has been sitting in the draft folder for a week and would you know it – within minutes of it going live Moyes resigns. MD

Malcolm Dawson, deputy editor, writes: at the end of a season that will linger long in the memory as one we would wish to forget, Salut! Sunderland approached both its regular and occasional contributors for their thoughts. Don’t be fooled by the name – Lars Knutsen is Mackem through and through and even though his work took him away from his Boldon roots to Cambridge via Scandinavia and the USA. he retains his love of SAFC. Working as he did in the pharmaceutical sector  you’d think he might have driven his troops into researching a cure for the compulsion to follow a club that has been a long term underachiever but no – like the rest of us he is stuck with his lot.

You can read more of Lars’s contributions here

Monsieur Salut adds: a series of painful steroid injections to a dodgy knee reminded me today it was time to launch this series of end-of-season reviews. With thanks to Malcolm for preparing Lars’s contribution for publication, let me make it clear the series is open to all Salut! Sunderland readers who have time and inclination to offer their own reviews of a season. Just let us know – leave a message below or use the contact link you’ll find somewhere on the home page

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Hutch’s Patch post-Chelsea: ‘culpable, fragile, tragic’ – match the words and players

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Jake: ‘2016/17 season, bog off and don’t come back’
Rob Hutchison – inexplicably renamed Ron when this first appeared – gets to lots of games, almost all of them away since he’s exiled in the south. He and his daughter, Olivia, enjoy the day out, like meeting up with old and new friends and then – for the most part – endure the football. Here are Rob’s final one-word ratings of the season after watching the champions tear us apart at Stamford Bridge. ‘And so it’s done,’ says our man of few words. ‘Thank God for that.’ Monsieur Salut’s ratings at ESPN FC appear in parentheses and are not so different …

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Chelsea Who are You?: (2) advertising on men’s shirts, shortness of Sunderland skirts

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Sid and Robin at the Vikings Stadium in Minneapolis ahead of a Chelsea friendly against AC Milan

One of the many joys of the various seasons’ editions of ‘Who are You?’ has been the way it has unearthed sparkling anecdotes, unexpected encounters between supporters, or supporters and players and/or officials and fascinating details of people’s lives. David Millward* has been here before, telling us about his allegiance to Chelsea but, much more interesting, recounting the story or why everyone calls him Sid. An uncle was the British bandleader Sid Millward (of Nitwits fame, no less) and the tale is told here .. Sid is now in the USA from where he sends this welcome set of answers to our questions, thus ending the 2016-2017 series. We learn, for example, that he was dumb-struck by the shortness of girls’ skirts on a cold Wearside night and also how much he loathes the sight of sponsorship advertising on players’ tops …

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Who are You?: when Byrne broke Chelsea hearts and Perez defied five Sutton one-on-ones

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Jake: ‘they did it their way’

Last game of the season means last of the 2016-2017 ‘Who are You?’ interviews. We have not one but two from Chelsea supporters (a consequence of Monsieur Salut panicking unnecessarily and fearing we might get none). Mark Williams* comes to us via a Sunderland supporter, his friend and occasional Salut! Sunderland contributor Jim Minton. If you ever need to catch the pair of them and there happens to be an African Cup of Nations tournament on, that’s where to head. They make it each time but be aware the next one is not until January 2019. Book now for Cameroon … and thanks Mark for a splendidly thoughtful set of responses …

Jim Minton and his Chelsea-supporting pal Mark Williams at the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon in January


Chelsea secured the Premier League title by beating West Brom a week ago. On the day of the 38th and final Premier League games for each club, the Blues will meet Sunderland at Stamford Bridge. Several football predictions go with a victory for the home team.

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