Jake: ‘M Salut is dishing out enough mugs to be sure of going broke’
Let’s throw another mug into the ring and hope it doesn’t shatter into many pieces.
A prize Salut! Sunderland mug – design to suit the allegiance of the winner so Palace fans can enter – is on offer for the Palace game. No one was correct on the QPR score (except our QPR interviewee, John Crowley, and he didn’t post his prediction in the Guess the Score slot.)
John McCormick. we’ve come a long way, some way yet to go.
It’s been a few years since I’ve done a timely review of Deloitte’s “Money League”, which usually comes out in January or February (it was January this year).
But when there’s a battle to be fought there’s not much room, time or inclination to give some thought to a little piece of meaningless self-publicity, which is what the Deloitte Money League is, entertaining though it may be.
Pete Sixsmith provides a grim read after his return from Stoke. All is not lost, and we are still in control of our destiny. Yet we have Chelsea up next and we’re not playing well.
Read on for Pete’s analysis of a game we were within seconds of losing and where a last-gasp effort kept us in touch with safety
Jake’s take on Big Sam John McCormick writes: I do believe Stoke’s goal should have been disallowed after Crouch climbed all over Kaboul. I’m not so sure we deserved a penalty, so maybe things evened up. Whatever, a point away at Stoke is never a bad result and to get one when we weren’t as good as we have been makes it more even more sweet. Here’s Sam’s post-match letter, telling us what he thinks about the result.
John McCormick writes: I thought beforehand that we could get at least a point from this game. But as the match went on, and the ref gave us nothing, I thought we were playing into Stoke’s hands and would lose.
Then the ref gave us something, and up stepped Jermain Defoe.
Over to Pete Sixsmith for the seven words, no more, no less, that finish the story:
Angela Smith*, broadcaster, Supporters’ Council leader and former squash pro, is as Stoke as they come, a fan – she says – from birth, so precocious, too. She was quite enjoying the season until recent bad results, and expects Sunderland to snatch a draw on Saturday. Ideally, we need better than that but we’ll see. Welcome back to Salut! Sunderland, Angela. after an absence of two or three years and good luck after Saturday …
It should not get much more nailbiting than this – but it may well do so between now and Watford away on the last day of the season.
The weekend threatens to be tricky. Who would put it past an Alan Pardew side to roll over at St James’ Park, assuming he dislikes us more than Mike Ashley? Or for Arsenal to be well below par at home to Norwich?
Football fans can be mightily sensitive given their reputation for boisterous irreverence.
Case in point: the recent debate here about the changing face of Stoke City, inspired by Pete Sixsmith’s whimsical article about wishing he could wake up as a supporter of that club and not the one he’s followed for half a century.
Our stripes are more fetching. Theirs are worn by better teams
Let’s be honest. We love Stoke City for beating the Mags this week, allowing us to start the weekend out of the bottom three. We haven’t always loved them. It had something to do with the way Stoke seemed to cling on to the hooligan age longer than most, the muscular nature of Tony Pulis’s approach to goalmouth tactics (at either end) and the neanderthal hounding of Aaron Ramsey. But Salut! Sunderland has broadly enjoyed excellent rapport with Stoke fans willing to answer our Who are You? questions and, lo and behold, City are all of a sudden a decent side playing good, winning football.
Pete Sixsmith was brilliant on BBC Radio Newcastle this week, hailing the virtues of Stoke and saying, more or less, how nice it must be to wake up as a Stoke supporter instead of enduring SAFC’S annual assault on our collective blood pressure. Here he explains why …
John McCormick asks: Do you remember, at least three managers back, so it must be years and years (or perhaps 18 months) ago, when I did an end of season piece about the songs that made the season. Now Peter Lynn, aka Wrinkly Pete, has picked up the theme with his own version of Desert Island discs. In keeping with the programme he has picked eight songs that have special meaning for him, and maybe for other supporters.
Were you there? Did you sing? Or do you have other songs that bring back memories? In his e-mail to the boss Pete suggested others might give us their favourites. Why not give it a go?
