The Lars Word: Cheer Up Peter Reid

Lars Knutsen touching base

Lars Knutsen prefaced the e-mail which arrived this morning with “We need a win against Sheffield Wednesday”.  There’s no disagreement there. Nor will there be, I suggest, any disagreement with his proposition that “Reidy’s master coup was of course the signing of the legend, Kevin Phillips for a mere £375000 from Watford”.

From Sheffield Wednesday to Peter Reid might seem quite a jump.  But there’s logic to Lars and he draws some interesting parallels in his latest missive:

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Melanie Hill: flirting on the Fulwell

melanie

When I thank you for the stream of visits to Salut! Sunderland that has sent us rocketing up the Soccerlinks hit parade to the dizzy heights of the mid-40s, “you” includes the away fans attracted by the Who Are You? feature and such controversies as the Ilunga/Jones affair. While I stand by for an invasion by Spurs fans later in the week, ahead of Saturday’s game at White Hart Lane, I will give another airing to an interview from the Celebrity Supporters series that began with 5573 (later renamed Wear Down South), the magazine of the Sunderland supporters’ association London branch, and continued at the old site.

Melanie Hill, whom I described as a “smashing actress known from Bread, Brassed Off and much more” was easily one of the nicest interviewees in the series. She agreed to an interview two days before the fateful Arsenal match in Oct 2002, Peter Reid’s last in charge, and rang again just before kick-off to fix a time. The interview took place the day after Reid’s sacking. As I said at the time, it felt like a whirlwind telephone romance.

Here, for those who missed the interview when it first appeared (and apologies to those for whom it is just a repeat), is one of the stars of our wider support base …

This starts as a tale of two celebrities with strong Sunderland links, of one door opening while the echo of another slamming shut is ringing in the ears.

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Be a star in a Sunderland film (or at least in the script)



Remember the fans
who appeared, with varying success, in the fly-on-the-wall television documentary, Premier Passions, which revealed in excruciatingly fine detail the behind-the-scenes goings on at Sunderland under Peter Reid?

From Martyn McFadden, editor of A Love Supreme, comes news of another project aimed at capturing the support of SAFC on film.

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