Salut! Sunderland has not checked the provenance of the Caught Offside website’s report that SAFC – apologies for the lapse into tabloidspeak – are “bracing themselves for a summer approach from Tottenham for combative midfielder Lee Cattermole”.
Steve Bruce
Steve Bruce: soft Stoke goals, soft officials
The boss has sent me his usual post-match e-mail; he wasn’t impressed with the refereeing either – but he did realise that his own defence needed a rocket for the sloppiness that cost us all the points …
Dear Colin
It’s so disappointing to lose in that manner and it’s a big kick in the teeth considering how well we played.
Steve Bruce: when playing Chelsea, three giftwrapped goals won’t do
We’re back on first-name terms – the absence of a “Dear Colin” was just an oversight – but Steve’s latest …
Why Sunderland need Bruce more than we needed Bent
Eric Sweeney* is the latest addition to Salut! Sunderland‘s stable of writers. A lot of us have been fretting about false dawns. Eric – flanked in the photo by friend and brother – rightly identifies the substantial positives we sometimes overlook …
As another transfer window draws to a close it’s worth reflecting on how far Sunderland have come in the past four years.
Niall Quinn brought with him serious investment that propelled the club back to the Premier League where we know the club belongs. Roy Keane seemed to be buying a new player each passing week and our potential knew no boundaries.
Terry Deary: Horrible Histories, horrible modern football
Are you sitting comfortably? That was how I introduced an interview back in 2002 with Terry Deary, bestselling author and lifelong Sunderland fan.
It was, of course, part of the Wear Down South series on celebrity supporters; Terry may not be a famous-for-being-famous, Newcastle-style celeb supporter (Ant, Dec and Cheryl springing effortlessly to mind), but he does occupy a lofty position in the field of literature, specifically books for children. Those books, as I explained back then, sell or disappear from library shelves faster than Enid Blyton: 210 titles in 41 languages at the last count, with worldwide sales exceeding 25 million. And that’s just part of Terry’s success story, as you shall discover. The last time we updated the interview, he was warming to the Roy Keane regime, full of admiration for a “rare manager who makes no excuses (injuries, bad refs, bad luck etc.) and doesn’t whinge when things go wrong”.
Time for another catch-up, but now something has gone very wrong, wrong enough to interrupt Terry’s record of season ticket ownership. It starts harmlessly enough, but then gets blood-curdlingly sinister as he sticks a knife into the heart of modern football. Steve Bruce had best not be shown this …
Soapbox: Blackpool rocks, Bent saga rolls on
With a long wait before our next game, we must now endure a week of speculation about comings and goings (surely Ricardo Fuller, a sub more often than he starts at Stoke, is not really demanding £60,000 a week as reported today; what will Mr Bent make of that?). Pete Sixsmith, has all these things in mind as he returns from a happy trip to the seaside …
That’s more like it. After a week where of non stop chat from players, managers and fans, we finally got down to what the game is all about – actually playing football.
Blackpool v SAFC Observed (1): Steve Bruce salutes Kieran
No “Dear Colin” or any other salutation in the latest post-match missive from Steve Bruce, but his team got the result we wanted so all is forgiven …
Steve Bruce: riding our luck against Newcastle
Joan Dawson is doing such a grand job as acting editor that it seems almost wrong to intrude, and Steve Bruce‘s post-match comments hardly match Pete Sixsmith’s for wit and incisiveness (see this report). But here, nonetheless, are Steve’ s thoughts – which found their way to M Salut in Malaysia – on a game in which Newcastle started much the sharper, coped with our lively response and went on to dominate. No dispute at Salut! Sunderland on who merited three points …
Dear Colin,
When you’re behind in a derby game and score 30 seconds from the end then of course you are pleased.
Aston Villa 0 SAFC 1: the heavy price of victory
Peadar O’SullivanCould we ask for more than a 1-0 win at Aston Villa, a place where we often struggle? The latest post-match missive from Steve Bruce explains why the obvious answer, sadly, is yes …
For Match of the Day viewers, there was a miss, a goal, a couple of sendings off and not much else.
For Sunderland supporters, it was an important win on the road with a massive double downside.
Steve Bruce: ‘a great response’
A much more welcome greeting from Steve Bruce arrived by Hotmail tonight … Dear Colin, Anyone who was here three …