Salut! Sunderland is very close to announcing the 2015 winners of our annual Haway awards – in other words, fans of other clubs who contributed Highly Articulate Who are You? interviews to our regular pre-match feature.
The shortlist supplied to our judges – see it here – has been whittled down from 13 to five. From Aston Villa, Burnley, Everton, Newcastle and Stoke – listed alphabetically – will come our top three.
Salut! Sunderland announces the annual HAWAY awards for the opposing fans who gave us the best interviews this season. Only two to publish, so results should be available soon after the season ends. The first sponsorship comes from our old friends at the half-decent football magazine When Saturday Comes – a year’s subscription – for which we are very grateful …
It’s the bit that makes all the effort involved tracking down Who are You? interviewees worthwhile.
The Haway awards – made each season for the best of our Highly Articulate Who are You? features – are back.
Pete Sixmsith once again steps down from the Soapbox to make way for Bob Chapman, whose pre-match pint was taken with a man who’d willingly forked out £30 for Stoke versus Sunderland after baulking at nearly six times more for a Barcelona game a few days earlier. Bob considered it a decent point even if results at Palace and Burnley dumped us in the bottom three …
Malcolm Dawson writes: It all so much clearer now for SAFC – Shildon that is. A come from behind 3-1 …
For Rob Hutchison, our master of the one-word assessments, the 1-1 draw at Stoke City was ‘much improved’. Our problem lies in the next three words: ‘improvement on what?’
Monsieur Salut writes: a draw at Stoke would normally seem acceptable. But wins for Hull and Leicester – also away – dumped us in the bottom three, so it felt more like losing. The next three games – Southampton and Leicester at home, Everton away – will decide our fate. Pete Sixsmith gave the game at Stoke a miss, opting to follow events at the Britannia on the radio while watching Shildon, his home town as it is mine, keep Northern League title hopes firmly alive with a 3-1 win against Durham City. So the seven-word verdict is not his but a supersubs’s. Listening from afar, I imagined my fellow-SAFC supporters all over the world mixing jubilation and trepidation as Wickham punished Bergavic’s first-minute mistake. Adam’s equaliser was probably the most predictable goal of our season. We had chances to regain the lead but a draw was probably a fair outcome …
Salut! Sunderland likes occasionally to pull an unexpected gem from the ‘Who are You?’ hat. The ‘ordinary’ fans are just as good, often better, but it’s heartening from time to time to have celeb supporters, former players, noted authors, church leaders, broadcasters and, of course, former managers. Denis Smith never played for Sunderland but he can look back with pride on his achievements as our manager. He’s also Stoke City through and through; we must thank John Ruggiero, secretary of SCOBA, the Stoke City former players’ association (find it at Twitter: https://twitter.com/SCOBA1863), for persuading him to enter so gamely into the spirit of the series. Let’s hope his prediction of points plural for SAFC comes true. Pete Sixsmith joined M Salut in conjuring the questions …
Despite the air of resignation that has drifted into the tone of comments posted by Salut! Sunderland perceptive band of readers, the overwhelming majority of us fervently want one outcome to the season, safety for SAFC.
Actually, quite a few would quite like another outcome, too, the relegation of Newcastle United, but the 35 points Toon won before they decided winning and drawing are not really much fun will probably be enough assuming they don’t get hammered in each remaining game and pick up another point or two.
Even after a break – not internationals to blame this time, but Arsenal’s FA Cup semifinal – Monday is far too too early to be starting the customary sequence of interview/preview/score predictions.
Our nerves are raw enough without unnecessary reminders of what could rest on the outcome of Stoke City versus Sunderland. Wherever you are in the world, you can almost hear Mark Hughes’s early team talks about where and how we may be vulnerable.
But the game is coming and so are the usual Salut! Sunderland features.
As Sunderland prepare for what Seb Larsson admits will be a “very tough afternoon” at Old Trafford if players do not rise to the occasion, we must acknowledge Tony Pulis’s contribution to the evolution of the English language.
First we should forget the muscular approach to defending that saw, for example, Jermain Defoe flattened twice in the penalty box even before a corner kick was taken. That is Tony Pulis’s way and he has imported the approach he adopted at Stoke City to his new job at WBA.