Monsieur Salut writes: the club’s statement on the completion of Josh Maja’s move to Bordeaux was short and uninformative. We awaited some thanks, either way. They came belatedly from Maja and we should give him the benefit of the doubt and accept them at face value as being his own sentiments, not some old dross churned out by his agent(s). Social media being what it is, the response has been mostly unforgiving and mostly unappealing …
Matthew Warburton, writer and Sunderland fan, looks back at the striped but also – figuratively – chequered history of the SAFC home kit …
Sunderland AFC have been around for a long time; since 1879, as any properly educated schoolboy would tell you.
As fans, we’re quite proud to say that the home kit hasn’t changed too much since the early days of the club’s history. Although the first few seasons the team wore navy blue, since 1884, it’s all been about the red and white. Here we look back through time at Sunderland’s home kit.
Salut! Sunderland hopes against hope that the recent crisis is over, though if you leave a comment it may not …
Oh, the shame of playing in the FA Cup first round. That’s one way of looking at Sunday’s visit to Port Vale. Another is to be philosophical about the chance to test players’ fitness, give lesser-used squad members some game time and maintain the great recent run for Sunderland AFC.
It is a fact of life as we find it, says Monsieur Salut. Sunderland start the Carabao Cup tie (league cup to you and me) against the Owls on Thursday night as lower-league underdogs.
While we all hope that situation will last for only one season – unless, contrary to the expectations of many of their own fans – Sheff Wed reach the Premier League, we have to regard them as, for now, the bigger team if hardly the bigger club.
Supporters are often divided on the merits of a good league cup run. The paltry attendances in early rounds bear witness to a fair degree of apathy.
My view is a simple one: I want Sunderland to win every game they play. It doesn’t happen, but that’s how I approach each match. So I’m rooting for a good, confidence-boosting result that takes us through to the next round.
Monsieur Salut writes: we’re all hoping the football from Jack Ross’s new-look Sunderland side will generate an electric atmosphere for today’s opening game against Charlton Athletic. But would you feel better if you were sitting in a stand named after a SAFC hero rather than the geographically sound but dull East, West, North and South? Have your say here …
[polldaddy poll=10070350]
Back in 2007, Sunderland went to Luton for the last game of the season as a side already promoted to the Premier League under Roy Keane. A sensational 5-0 victory, and Birmingham’s defeat at Preston, gave Keano the title. This is how, 11 years ago, the youthful Salut! Sunderland recorded the win.
Less than four months later, we were back at Kenilworth Road for a League Cup game. Greg Halford was sent off and the match ended with a comfortable 3-0 victory for the Hatters.
Malcolm Dawson writes…..things are so bad at the moment for Sunderland supporters that here at Salut! Sunderland M Salut has gone en vacances sur la plage and John Mac is as we speak, jetting away de vacaciones en la playa, leaving me to update the site from a wet and dreary Weardale and Peter Sixsmith, after presumably a wet and dreary wander along Seaburn sea front, to trudge along to the Stadium of Light and take up his customary position in the East Stand to bring us his instant seven word verdict. Canaries were once common throughout the North East coalmines to forewarn of impending disaster. Was this evening the final flicker of the Championship flame or was there a bit of spark to cheer our wordmeister on a wet and miserable night. I’ll bet you’ve got a fair idea but let’s see what he has to say in his immediate post match seven word summary.
Gloomy times, gloomy thoughts from Monsieur Salut …
No football club, whatever its history, has a divine right to play at all times in the highest division (Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal may claim exemption from this rule of natural justice though each has suffered past relegation).
It follows that no club has a divine right, once relegated, to descend no lower. Think Leeds, Villa, Southampton, Nottingham Forest among others.
Come May, if not – mathematically – a good deal earlier, Sunderland supporters may be forced to accept the power of that second “no divine right” rule. How much deeper we can sink is open to speculation.
[polldaddy poll=9939797]
A just-for-fun poll introduces this look at some of the greatest games in Sunderland AFC’s history. Many readers will approve of the choices made by Ben Jones, a sportswriter and ‘massive Sunderland fan’. Others might add the 4-1 defeat of Chelsea in the first of our seventh-top Premier seasons under Peter Reid. Or the first FA Cup 6th Round replay against Manchester United at Roker Park in 1964. Back in 2013, a Roker Report piece on great games over the festive period threw others into the mix: the last-second win against Man City on New Year’s Day, 2012; a 4-1 Boxing Day romp at Bradford in 2000 and two Old Trafford classics (a 5-3 win on Boxing Day 1950 and a 2-1 defeat on New Year’s Day 2003. You decide …
Since Sunderland became the first new team to join the Football League in 1890 and from the earliest seasons, their name has been embroidered prominently in the tapestry of English football history.