Steve Bruce

Sixer’s Soapbox: two points dropped against Fulham and the ‘R’ word looms

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Another poor show at The SoL, as we stumble to a draw against opposition we should beat. We have now won 2 out of the last 15 home games. Pete Sixsmith had high hopes of a wonderful weekend but the first of the three events he attended was the only disappointment

You occasionally get weekends which are full of things to do, things that you are looking forward to, things that you really, really want to enjoy.

I knew that two out of the three things I had planned this weekend would be fine. The one I was worried about was the Fulham game. My worries were not unfounded.

Let’s deal briefly with the two successes. Après le match, Martin Simpson was his usual excellent self at the Davy Lamp Folk Club in Washington, while Sunday evening was enlivened by the wonderful Lumière Festival in Durham City.

But I suspect that those who are able to read this couldn’t give the proverbial monkey’s about either. The sole thing that interests them is the loss of two more points to a club who are in a similar position to us – viz. beginning to contemplate a serious relegation battle.

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Bruce’s Banter: ‘my Fulham might have beens’

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Not sure what Steve Bruce‘s matchday experience was. Mine involved sitting in front of a screen in a Bali hotel watching safc.com’s slow-changing, allegedly minute-by-minute text coverage. The BBC’s was hardly any better; much worse, it seems, would have been finding a bar actually showing the grim truth of a 0-0 draw. Steve? His e-mail reached me in Indonesia and boils down to: “if only we’d managed to raise the bar” …

Dear Colin,

The save their goalkeeper made at the end summed up our luck in the game.

It was a great save and to be fair Mark Schwarzer has done that for years.

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Birflatt Boy: stairways to hell and the cauldron of negativity

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Originally used here to deplore the anti-Steve Bruce sentiments expressed at Salut! Sunderland, while overlooking the strong voices raised in his defence, cauldron of negativity is a phrase that has stuck. The shadier and shadier Birflatt Boy, a fully paid-up member of the “Negativos”, invokes the debuts of Led Zeppelin and long-forgotten German urban terrorists in support of an assault on the loose band of “Positivos” and fencesitters, M Salut among them, holding out with varying degrees of conviction against dismissal …

Over the past four decades it would be hard to find a time when Sunderland’s support has been so sharply divided into two distinct camps.

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Asamoah Gyan, greed and fatherhood

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Asamoah by addick-tedKevin


If, like me, you’re drawn to the headline “Gyan admits: I left Sunderland for the cash!”, you’ll be dusting down the fitting, if innumerate, chant “There’s only one greedy b******”.

Then you’ll scour the article, at Ghanaweb.com, for the killer quote. “I did it for money.” “I left to make myself richer.” “Stuff Sunderland; gimme more money and I’m anyone’s.”

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Bruce’s Banter: narrow defeat to Manchester United ‘a shame for Wes’

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Steve Bruce still cannot win as a manager against Manchester United. In his post-match e-mail, he praises a good but losing performance …

Dear Colin,

With the penalty shout the right decision was made. There wasn’t any real clarity on it even after seeing a replay.

It was a handball, we could all see that. Ultimately we’ve got no complaints.

It’s such a shame for Wes [Brown] to score on own goal; we seem to make a habit of conceding own goals at Old Trafford.

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Bruce’s Banter: ‘Wickham’s wonder, Seb’s fantastic delivery but not enough’

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After each game, Steve Bruce e-mails Salut! Sunderland – and a few thousand others – on his immediate post-match thoughts. This is what he made of the game against Villa, a 2-2 draw that could have gone either way and in which we scored good goals but conceded possession and dominance too easily …

Dear Colin,

Well I can’t deny the spirit of the team. It’s quite remarkable the way they didn’t give up.

I do have to be honest and say that in the second half we didn’t do enough. When you’re 2-1 down with four or five minutes to play it was great get a wonderful set piece from [Sebastian] Larsson.

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Bruce’s Banter: players responded to ‘fantastic support’

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Image: Mrs Logic

Steve Bruce’s pre-match BBC Newcastle interview ended with him protesting he had been misrepresented in his views on Sunderland supporters. If the smarter move might have been to admit his own words have sometimes been ill-chosen, most of us would accept public relations gaffes if more of the post-match e-mails were talking about wins. Tonight Bruce, rightly under pressure, is able to savour a good away victory – and guess who got a great cheer from the away support at the final whistle?

Dear Colin,

I’d like to start by saying a special thank-you to the supporters.

There’s not many clubs who’d bring more than 4,000 to an away match when their team could have been around the bottom at 5pm.

The fans gave us some fantastic support and the players responded to that. They’ve gone home happy today which I’m delighted about.

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Bruce: search for a safe haven leads to Orkney

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Why has Pete Sixsmith abandoned non-league football, the paqes of Salut! Sunderland, his cat Samson and – just days ahead of Bolton away – the intensive psychological training considered essential for those planning to attend SAFC games?

What are we to read between the lines of a mysterious text message sent from what was meant to be a secret location detached from the British mainland?

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When the Bruce Out bandwagon becomes harder to resist

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Regulars at Salut! Sunderland know the drill well enough.

We try as best we can to tell it how it is from the moment one match finishes until it seems right to suspend hostilities/stop gloating (usually the former, alas) and get behind the team for the next one. We try not to be, in the never-to-be forgotten words of one reader, a cauldron of negativity.

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