Salut Sunderland

Hated from Arsenal to WBA, Salut makes the football Oscars

by

Salut! Sunderland has been nominated in the “Best EPL Club Blog” section of EPL Talk’s annual awards. If you think someone has a point, give a helping hand to our chances of winning by clicking ON THIS LINK …

There are sensitive folk out there in the football blogosphere. We need only mention another team to get an avalanche – ok, a trickle – of putdowns.

But it is all, or mostly, in good fun and the fact is that Salut! Sunderland‘s deliberate policy is to attract supporters of other clubs while remaining 100 per cent partisan. As a result, we receive massive input from people who do not follow Sunderland but have a point of view. And in reality, Gooners and Baggies have made some lively contributions to the issues discussed here,

So it is especially heartening to receive recognition from non-Sunderland sources. Look down the sidebars and you see that FHM lists us as a “website we quite like” and that When Saturday Comes gave us special mention in its virtual awards as a “balanced, articulate” site.

Now comes news from EPL Talk that we have been nominated as Best EPL Club Blog in its own annual awards.

Read moreHated from Arsenal to WBA, Salut makes the football Oscars

Salut!’s week: boycotting West Ham, loving non-league, facing Man City

by


Each week, when we remember that is, Salut! Sunderland gives the busy, occasional visitor a taste of what he or she may have missed. Just because Sunderland weren’t playing last week, it doesn’t mean we weren’t still looking for ways of keeping interest alive. This is a glimpse at what we thought worth talking about …

A £46 price tag for a frankly rotten seat in a doomed stadium to watch, for us, a meaningless – but final – game: fair or rip-off?

Salut! Sunderland is in no doubt as to the answer to that question. Mr Sullivan and Mr Gold may even know what we think, since our discussion on whether SAFC supporters should boycott to game has featured at Hammers fan sites, too.

Read what we – and, in reply, some Hammers as well as Sunderland fans – had to say by clicking here.

And follow the same drill for the other highlights of Salut! Sunderland‘s week by clicking on each sub-heading if you want to see the full posting:

Read moreSalut!’s week: boycotting West Ham, loving non-league, facing Man City

Sickbed blues, and never having to say sorry

by

Image: Mrs Logic

We have the sterling assistance of Pete Sixsmith, Luke Harvey, Bill Taylor and our Who Are You? contributors to thank, along with the good fortune of a long break without proper football.

But one way or another, Salut! Sunderland has done its utmost to keep up a decent stream of of interesting, amusing and plain daft articles despite Monsieur Salut’s severely reduced activity in his immediate post-op phase.

Read moreSickbed blues, and never having to say sorry

Sunderland/Leeds remembered: it’s those magic numbers 7 and 3 again

by


Leeds United fans hate us mentioning it, just as Newcastle United supporters mock us for referring to Dec 5 1908. But since Leeds still have a good chance of following the Toon example in gaining promotion from a lower division, we’re sure they won’t mind another gentle reminder of the day every football fan (apart from them) smiled …

Sunderland fans, especially those who go back a bit, never tire of remembering, on May 5 of each year, a certain event that occurred at Wembley stadium on that date in 1973.

Read moreSunderland/Leeds remembered: it’s those magic numbers 7 and 3 again

Who are you? We’re Liverpool

by

gerry

Hard on Man Utd, even harder on Liverpool’s owners, Gerry Ormonde* is a man who knows his own mind. A Dubliner with his footballing heart across the Irish Sea on the Mersey, he was quick to agree to preview Sunderland’s return to Premier action against his beloved Liverpool this Saturday. Gerry runs Kopblog.com – part of the This is Anfield website – and Salut! Sunderland takes off its hat to the feedback his efforts receive from fellow fans of the Reds. And little wonder: his blog won Best Premiership Blog in the New Football Pools awards and this year iBest Sports and Recreational Blog at the Irish Blog Awards.

Disappointing Champions League game for you, dropped points in the Premier. Is the press premature in sounding alarm bells, and what are your priorities this season?

Obviously losing both games (CL , then Chelsea) was a big disappointment but it’s early days yet. I’m still confident we’ll qualify from our Champions League group and as for the league, it’s more competitive then ever this season and it looks like a lot of teams are going to drop points so we’ve just got to hang in there and take it one game at a time.
The alarm bells in the press are always premature. The opinions expressed in the media seem to change on a week to week, game to game basis. For example, Chelsea made a perfect start to the season until they lost against Wigan and then suddenly the media seemed to be going out of their way to raise question marks about their manager. Then they beat us 2-0 and suddenly they are red-hot favourites again, at least for the moment! It’s incredible how these clowns in the media constantly change their tune and even more incredible how some fans allow them to form their opinions. It used to be said that today’s headlines are tomorrows fish and chips wrappers, but these days I’ve far too much respect for my fish and chips to wrap them up in that s****!
Our priorities are the same this season as they are every season, Premiership, Champions League, FA Cup, Carling Cup.

Read moreWho are you? We’re Liverpool

Salut! Sunderland: thoughts on moving house

by


Moving home is said to be among life’s most stressful activities. Colin Randall has moved seven times in five years and knows all about it. Now he’s moved a football fan site (Salut! Sunderland), so knows that even an electronic change of address isn’t without its moments of tension …

Slowly but – just about – surely, Salut! Sunderland has completed, with enormous help from Sam and his colleagues at Football United, its housemoving exercise, shifting the site and its whopping archive from Typepad to WordPress.

The result of this move, and a rare bit of self-promotion, has sent readership levels to heights known only during the week we stayed up and Newcastle United went down (save for the odd deluge when the Who Are They? feature attracts the fans of other clubs, notably Pompey, West Ham and Nottingham Forest).

We hope you have found and will continue to find items here that interest or amuse you, or provoke thoughts of your own. Football thrives on controversy and Salut! Sunderland is happy to stick its neck out from time to time, usually though not always on topics of at least indirect interest to Sunderland supporters.


One example: this coming week being football-free, as in being merely an international break, I will give another airing to my Club vs Country reflections (subtitled “an easy home win”).

The move has not been completed without hitches. Not all images seem to have accompanied the text on its way over from Typepad (click on the Denise Robertson item in the Salut! Smiles feature and you will probably see what I mean). Some files may have been corrupted – one of my rants against Laurent Blanc appeared in much shortened
form until I spotted it. Our Soccerlinks football site ranking has slipped from a high of something like 65th to its recent, pitiful 261nd – though that is only because it has been recording only visits to the old site, which means virtually none at all, since the move was completed. At least qe are climbing again …

In addition, we are a long way from restoring all the sidebar links to other sites, and to our Amazon bookshelf, which some will remember from the original Salut! Sunderland.

All will be accomplished as time permits. It goes without saying that we will pay careful attention to any suggestions or comments concerning the site.

Your patience during the move has been appreciated, and we will do our best to live up to our new slogan: Premier League writing for a Premier League club. But bear in mind that lofty (cl)aim does not imply any guarantee against the typos, mistaken assumptions and blind faith that are the staples of any self-respecting football site.