Queens Park Rangers

Better team: Derby. Better day out: Wigan. But welcome back QPR

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Jake makes Steve's day
Jake makes Steve’s day

Even a QPR-supporting friend thought his team was lucky. ‘Smash and grab,’ he wrote. ‘Someone should go to jail for that.’ Our own John McCormick, Liverpool-based, rued the loss of a grand day out (Wigan). Not sure anyone was too bothered about Brighton. But QPR won it and are back in the Premier. Monsieur Salut shares those thoughts but is pleased on two counts: his younger daughter, Nathalie, used to play for QPR Ladies, and Steve Colwell, Hoops fan and no stranger to these pages or the Salut! Sunderland Facebook group, is an all-round good bloke. Let him take up the story …

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Memo to Ellis Short: how it feels – thank heavens for the Lasses

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Photo courtesy of the Sunderland Women's Football Club*
Photo courtesy of the Sunderland Women’s Football Club*

If you want to re-inject into your lives a little pride in being a Sunderland supporter, consider this:
P W D L GD PTS
1 Sunderland 12 9 3 0 27 30
2 Watford 12 7 4 1 12 25
3 Leeds United 11 7 1 3 8 22
Yes, the Lasses won yet again, at Barnet, and are now five points clear at the top of the FA Women’s Premier League. Back to them shortly. Mick Goulding, meanwhile, had his weekend football a few miles away in west London. This, from the Blackcats list, is his account of heroic efforts at QPR to prevent a rare London excursion being completely ruined by the Sunderland team running out …

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The Chapman Report from QPR: watching SAFC needs a government health warning

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Bob gets his very own graphic, courtesy of Jake
Jake asks Bob: a day to remember?

Bob Chapman once again fills Sixer’s outsized shoes to report on a game the master chose to miss. It started as a day when Bob and a friend would impress two young Aussie women with a scintillating show by Sunderland preceded by the delights of a west London gastro-pub. Something went wrong; they endured takeaway KFCs in a foodless boozer near the Bush and the poor Aussies may never set foot in another football ground. Meanwhile, Bob was left feeling there’s something damaging to the health in watching SAFC at this stage of a season …

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Sunderland not at the races at QPR; Sixer sees an Ascot canter

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Jake's wrong: Sixer was grinning at Ascot (with the odd grimace whenever he checked his texts)
Jake’s wrong: Sixer was grinning at Ascot (with the odd grimace whenever he checked his texts)

You couldn’t actually escape from Sunderland-induced misery at QPR; L’Equipe’s TV channel kept annoying Monsieur Salut by highlighting the game for no better reason than the former Marseille striker Loic Remy’s goal. Earlier Pete Sixsmith, gratefully playing truant to watch a rampant Shildon in the FA Vase replay at Ascot United, had been bombarded with texts on the grim proceedings to his east. He reckons M Salut’s late dad, the Shildon club secretary for several years, would have been as proud of the Railwaymen as we were aghast at SAFC’s labours …

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After abject surrender at QPR, let’s all drink to Lisa

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Jake says it all
Jake says it all

Some Sunderland fans have more reason than others to complain.

Jeremy Robson peeps out from his self-imposed wilderness – and how we miss him – to denounce “another dreadful performance and result”. He’s in Canada. So is Bill Taylor, anticipating Martin O’Neill’s post-match e-mail and the dreaded D-word: “Martin, before you say it, we’re ALL disappointed. In fact, some of us are gutted.” Yep, the D-word was there.

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Sixer’s Sevens: QPR 3 SAFC 1. Two volleys and a funeral

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Jake gives Sixer star billing
Jake gives Sixer star billing

This is where Pete Sixsmith usually records his instant verdict, in seven words, on each Sunderland game. Today, wise man, he was in posh Ascot watching Shildon win 4-1 in an FA Vase replay. So he missed a dreadful reverse, 3-1, at Loftus Road. The verdict came from his phone, and accurately sums up what Monsieur Salut saw, but may have been relayed from someone at the game, hence – either way – the asterisk. From a winning position, albeit against the run of play, Sunderland produced as bad a performance as you’ll see in the Premier League and deservedly lost to a cool Remy finish from a(n) (un)lucky O’Shea deflection and then two fine volleys from outside the box by two Spurs refugees, Townsend and Jenas. Funeral? Maybe premature but it’s going to be tight as we attempt to prevent our Premier status being buried …

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QPR v Sunderland: hoops or stripes, guess the score whoever you support

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'The usually tight git's giving one away without strings for a change', says Jake
‘The usually tight git’s giving one away without strings for a change’, says Jake


Is it past midnight? Then let’s begin this week’s Guess the Score.

I live in hope that one of our moneyed readers will one day come up with meaningful prizes for the little competitions. In the meantime, I am once again offering a Martin O’Neill mug to the first person who correctly posts the outcome of tomorrow’s game at Loftus Road. Before kickoff, that is.

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The QPR v SAFC Who are You?: ‘still going down but not Doomsday’

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Jake wants answers ...
Jake wants answers …

On his ski-ing holiday somewhere in Europe, our volunteer from the ranks of QPR supporters Matt Bell* will surely find some way of learning the outcome of Sunderland’s visit to Loftus Road on Saturday. Both clubs are on the slopes too, QPR fighting to climb from the foot of them amid modest hopes of a revival while we slip and slide as alarmingly as we’ve come to expect as part of the deal. Matt’s indulgent view on cheating knocks me sideways, though he doesn’t amplify it, but his resignation to relegation seems uncontroversial. I’m not sure we’d like what could be read into his tale of the brother who has no interest in football and thinks he’s a Sunderland supporter …

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The ugly face of football, Vol XXXVI: those ‘disgusting’ QPR ticket prices

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Jake wasnt going anyway. He lives in Spain
Jake wasn’t going anyway. He lives in Spain

Tony Fernandes is, according to our QPR “Who are You?” candidate whose interview will appear today or tomorrow, a good guy.

Then the Rangers chairman and majority stakeholder needs to sort out the less good guys around him if they, and not him, are responsible for the pricing policy that led to Sunderland fans being asked to stump up £45 for what the London and Southern England branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association called “the worst away accommodation in the Premier League”.

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Martin’s Musings: small talk on SAFC’s failure to beat QPR

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Don’t worry, we’ll win 3-1. That was one pre-match thought. In the event, they – QPR – won 0-0. Awful result for Sunderland and Martin O’Neill‘s e-mail looks shorter than usual. There’s no elaborate attempt to present it in any better light. Just the customary assertion that another “big game” looms. Oh dear …

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