It started as a harmless gag on the Blackcats list. E-mails from the list’s subscribers – located in various corners of the world – have been suffering delay or gone missing or arrived out of sequence .. you name the problem and the list has had it.
On the west coast of America, an exiled Mackem thought he’d get his verdict in early on Arsenal in case the loop crashed altogether or contrived to exclude some of its subscribers before we even had a chance to record another defeat.
It had to happen sooner or later. Gordon Brown has become embroiled in the scandal over the exclusion of Sunderland Women’s football club from the proposed Super League of eight teams – despite being current Premier League leaders, FA (Women’s) Cup finalists last season and a team containing nine international players at different levels.
The FA has been maintaining the apparent fiction that no decision has yet been made, even though the club says it has been told – by, presumably, the FA – that Sunderland’s strong case for a place has been brushed aside on commercial and marketing grounds.
Among the many football supporters outraged by this latest piece of discriminatory nonsense from the FA were non-Sunderland fans, including Wull Rowan from our good friends at FootballUnited (futd.com).
Will decided to start a petition with the aim of shaming the FA into making the decision that would surely strike any neutral observer as decent and fair: offer Sunderland WFC a place.
The tension is beginning to build. Sunderland have a strong strike force and, on paper, a semi-viable defence but no one knows quite how Steve Bruce will fashion a midfield from depleted ranks. Arsenal have problems, too, from injuries of their own to question marks over some of Arsène Wenger’s players (though Sod’s Law decrees that the hapless, fumbling Lukasz Fabianski would have a blinder if he played against us). We turned again to New York City and Fatima al Shamsi*, a rare Man City-loathing Emirati (above, left, with her sister Alyazhah), for a few more nuggets of wisdom from the world of gloryseeking Goonerworship. Fatima is charitable about SAFC, pragmatic about cheating, unladylike about Barcelona’s Ibrahimovic and restrained in her match forecast …
What about Arsenal’s season? Are you still right behind Arsène Wenger or do you feel you need someone else to move you on? I take it you’ve been following your Gunners from afar.
Unfortunately still watching them predominantly on my laptop although I have made a few trips to sports cafés whenever we’ve had an 11am kick off (NYC time). I like to be behind Arsene but our starting 11 against ManU was a horrible choice , although to be fair I’m not too sure what our alternative options could have been given the state of our injuries and such. I’m starting to get frustrated (about time too) but despite that, I still have faith in our crazy French man. What we do need is to get a decent experienced player to help pull the talent we already have all together – and I don’t count Sol Campbell as one, despite his goal against Porto this week. also more importantly we need to look into some decent goalkeepers neither Almunia nor Fabianski play convincingly enough to be part of a top team.
How many Salut! Sunderland readers scroll down the right-hand sidebar and then click on Soccerlinks? If you do, you’ll know that since the technical glitch that put us in something like 565th place, we’ve climbed back up to the top 100 and, when things are busy here, get as high as 35th. For this week’s Who Are They? candidate, we went straight to the top of the charts to find Chris Borg*, whose site, The Gunning Hawk pulls in an average of more than 5,000 visitors daily. Chris makes it all sound so easy. Sunderland’s task in trying to avoid defeat at the Emirates on Saturday is a long way from easy. Is our only hope that Porto soften them up? …
So, an easy one to keep your slender title hopes alive. I take it you couldn’t have wished for any better fixture, after beating Liverpool to stay on course, than us at home …
On paper, it is an easy game but one not to be underestimated. After all, you’ve got Bent up there, third in the top scorer list and our backline has been pretty shaky in recent appearances.
Lots of Arsenal fans were drawn into some great crack here over the weekend. Some of them said kind things, but they are probably all looking at this Saturday as a home banker. That sort of means we have nothing to lose. But there’s a lot of pride to play for after the recent dismal run, and no one turning out for us at the Emirates should do so without at least the hope in his heart of pulling off a result …
Confirmation that Jordan Henderson is out for six weeks – not three as I believed from one earlier report – is unwelcome in that his absence, added to Andy Reid’s injury, robs us of most of what little midfield creativity we seem to possess.
David Sullivan’s warning that everyone at West Ham, the club he now co-owns, faced a 25 per cent pay cut did no harm to the players’ mood, the Hammers dismissing Birmingham City with a minimum of fuss to put more pressure on us at the bottom of the Premier. As our own aversion to winning gathers strength, we wonder whether there might be a lesson in this for Niall Quinn and Ellis Short …
Two stories about Sunderland and full backs tell us a lot about the nature of football.
Mickey Gray was a decent if unspectacular SAFC player, admired both for being a local lad made good and for the exciting partnership he forged down the left flank with Allan “Magic” Johnston. He is remembered less admiringly for his woeful penalty miss in the Charlton play-off final in 1998, and for a restaurant altercation with Wayne Rooney.
As everyone who supports Sunderland probably knows, he also won a star prize for insensitivity when, on the day several members of the SAFC staff were laid off because of the team’s failures on the field, he arrived for training in his gleaming new Ferrari.
Another game against lowly opposition, another failure to show ourselves to be in a different class. Colin Randall endures last-ditch heartbreak – and a missed golden opportunity to win for a change – at Fratton Park
Sorry Niall, sorry Steve: if only you had taken the players on a pre-match inspection of the away end at Portsmouth last night: primitive toilets and catering, narrow steps and a shockingly congested exit path at the top of the stand …
It might have stopped them putting in another ultimately inadequate performance of the kind that threatens to lead us back to the Championship – where such conditions are the norm.
An 11-hour flight from Beijing gave
Colin Randall plenty of time to ponder gloomily on Sunderland’s present predicament …
Niall Quinn has reason to remember Nov 20 1997. It was, if my memory is correct, the last time Sunderland managed to win at Portsmouth and his was the first of four goals in a superb 4-1 victory.
Thirteen years on, Niall has asked fans to show patience and support despite – or perhaps because of – the present appalling run of defeats and draws. And he cannot be faulted for doing so: booing the team as they leave the field after a rotten display is one thing, getting on players’ back from the first misplaced pass is another (especially in our case, given how many misplaced passes we have come to expect).
So. I go away for 12 days and six home points turn into two, Sunderland are back in yet another relegation scrap and we’re left wondering where the next win is coming from. Fratton Park? We’d love to think so. Dave Byne*, from the myPompey fans’ site, thinks we’ll have to settle for a draw, but fears his own club is going down …
Salut! Sunderland The cup game left Sunderland fans fuming. You must have taken heart for the rest of the Premier season – as in, there’s worse than Pompey!
Certainly on the pitch it has to be encouraging when you beat a Sunderland side that have clearly built on last season and have generally had a solid campaign so far. And yes, I believe that there are at least three worse teams than Pompey in the Premier League but we are now operating with a very threadbare squad and the chances of keeping them altogether feels doubtful. Good result for us though BUT we need to get some victories in the league.
With Pete Sixsmith once again missing the action (and the chance to appear on MOTD2), Malcolm Dawson takes the positives from our match against Wigan.
The journey to the Stadium of Light from my base in the Midlands had a familiar air about it. I have lost count of the number of times fellow exiles and myself have made the trip with the feeling that here was another crucial game. Three points essential.
There have been seasons when we have been pushing for promotion and even two when we harboured hopes of European qualification, but more often it has been the threat of relegation that has been the dark cloud tracking our progress north, emphasising the importance of the win.
Yesterday was no exception. Fortunately, I had missed Monday’s game. I hadn’t been impressed when I watched our game at the Britannia and had no desire to find a pub with ESPN. Reading Sixer’s summing up I was happy to have made the right choice.