Monsieur Salut writes: no fairy godmother has appeared – though one did briefly hover – and the site is still in winding down mode. Pete Sixsmith, undeterred, presses on with one last series. He is tracing the 13 Sunderland managers who coincide with Salut! Sunderland’s 13-year history.
After a rousing start with the Roy Keane era, Sixer moves on to his successor …
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.
John McCormick writes: In a response to one of my posts Sobs wondered if it might be possible to use substitutions and tactical changes to rate our managers. No chance, I thought, as I headed off to Spain. But, one baking hot day, when I was idly contemplating the frothy, chilled bottles calling my name from the fridge and wondering if it was too early, Sobs’s comment came back to me out of the blue. I began to wonder how we might compare managers. What stats would be needed, what would someone look for?
Owen Lennox* is a Sunderland supporter with unusual gifts. He is an author, as recently demonstrated on these pages with the story of his novel touching on Wearside history, he is an art teacher and he is an accomplished painter. Here, he describes how an attempted little sideline – painting SAFC figureheads in the hope they’d fork out to own the resulting masterpieces – slid slowly from the canvas …
As a practising portrait painter, when the commissions are few and far between I need to keep my eye in.
I am also an honorary member of the three little pigs’ society; I need to keep the big bad wolf from the door.
In order to kill two birds with one stone I use a ruse employed by the late John Bratby, he used to make portraits of famous people then contact them, on occasion they would buy their portrait, and this has proved a moderately successful ploy for me until it comes to famous footballers or managers.