Sunderland

From Sunderland and Jarrow to Portsmouth and Wembley: meet the renowned Dean family

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John and Rosie Dean, with daughter Maddie

Monsieur Salut writes: by far the best part of the Pompey awayday in December, not least because we lost, was meeting the Jarrow brothers Dean – twins Paul and Stephen, who never miss a game, their Portsmouth-based sibling John and John’s family – in an excellent pub before the game. Thanks to my pal and former colleague Kevin Maguire for the introduction.

There is a more conventional Portsmouth ‘Who are You?’ to come but I thought it would be interesting to hear from John and his wife, Rosie. They’ll be together but among the Pompey fans and both are going for a narrow SAFC victory …

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Do they mean us? A Wall Street look at Sunderland

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Attracting the attention of an influential US financial weekly

Monsieur Salut writes: it is a pleasure to come across a New York take on Sunderland that doesn’t just gasp in disbelief at the turkeys-voting-for-Christmas syndrome.

When the Dow Jones financial newspaper Barron’s decided SAFC was worth a look for its Penta section, the task fell to Tom Teodorczuk, who grew up in Virginia but also studied at Durham so knows the patch. It’s an interesting read – and can be seen in its original form at this link – and I will leave the Americanised spellings unchanged. It appeared beneath the peculiarly American headline, ‘The Rebirth of the UK’s Sunderland Soccer Club’ …

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View from the Avenue: how Sunderland benefit from the Checkatrade distraction

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So close

A few days when size mattered, writes Monsieur Salut: first we had Salut! Sunderland passing a grand total of 4m visits since launch. John McCormick, our associate editor, got so close to capturing the moment (see above) that he wins the promised special-ish prize, Art of Football’s Jermain Defoe five-in-a-row print. Then we had more than 34,000 people at the SoL for a League One fixture from which Sunderland took maximum points. Meanwhile England conceded 31 second-half points after leading 31-7 against Scotland in rugby and could only draw and – no offence intended – another ‘only draw’ was the start of UKIP’s little Leave means Grieve Leave march from Sunderland to London, which could only draw 300 hardy souls.

Amid all this number-crunching, Paul Summerside contributes his first piece for a while. It’s short and sweet but lends an opportunity to reproduce John Mac’s 4,000,005 photo …

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Walsall Who are You?: ‘genuinely shocked Sunderland are not running away with League One’

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Monsieur Salut writes: we heard a little from Darren Fellows* after the first of our earlier games against his club, Walsall.

This time, his answers arrived as both of us nervously awaited Tuesday night’s fixtures. We managed a draw at Barnsley, a result that was good in isolation but left us still chasing the top two, while Walsall did us no favours, beaten at home by Pompey. Over to Darren, who thinks we should be doing  so much better this season than to risk having to accept a playoff place.

It’s another interesting set of answers, though Will Grigg’s friends may want to keep it from his eyes …

 

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Can four million be wrong? Salut! Sunderland scales the heights

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Three words that sum up our mission

Stop Press: we passed 4,000,000 some time between 1pm and 2pm. Did anyone grab a pic of the figure? Tell us if so and you qualify for a prize

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We have said something like it before and it remains the case now save that the figure has grown higher. Four million hits to a website does not mean that much if you compare it with what the big news, entertainment and pop culture sites attract. But Salut! Sunderland is rather proud to be on the brink of passing that figure. As I start to write, it stands at 3,998,551 so the 4m point will be reached within a day or less.

We took our first breath of air back in January 2007. That was when I, Monsieur Salut, newly redundant but still prevented by contractual nonsense from working for anyone else for another month or so, decided to expand my tinpot Salut! empire to embrace a lifelong passion for Sunderland AFC.

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Sunderland vs Walsall prize Guess the Score. Playing catch-up on Luton and Barnsley

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Monsieur Salut says: we will go early with Guess the Score for this Saturday. Pete Sixsmith’s Soapbox from Barnsley will not be with us until later in the day and we also need to check whether our headlines are being ‘grabbed’ by the newsnow.co.uk aggregator (Sixer’s Sevens seems to have avoided their radar last night) …

A draw at Barnsley can hardly be described as two points wasted. Sadly, coming after the disappointing stalemate (and very nearly defeat) at Wycombe, the reality is that automatic promotion is looking a lot less likely.

We can but hope that Sunderland will at last stamp some authority on League One and find winning as easy as Luton Town, nine points clear of us at the top. Even then we need them or Barnsley to falter.

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The First Time Ever I Saw Your Ground: Barnsley’s Oakwell

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Sixer now …

Pete Sixsmith was adamant. There simply wasn’t time for a new First Time Ever I Saw Your Ground on Barnsley, not least because we were also in the same division last season and he wrote a perfectly good instalment of the series then.

At the time John McCormick introduced Sixer’s piece with a historical note, saying the town probably originated in Anglo-Saxon times (‘hence the -ley‘), was mentioned in the Domesday book and had a ‘venerable football club which has done more than many may think, including FA and League cups and a short spell in what we now call the Premier League’. And that team proceeded to tonk us 3-0 as we continued our undignified slither from first to third tier. And this is how Sixer set up that forgettable match …

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Barnsley Who are You?: the Sunderland star who’s too good even for this match of the season

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Click on Jake’s banner to reach the prize Guess the Score competition. There’s still time to enter

 

Monsieur Salut writes: as has happened all too often, the results on Saturday showed a win for Barnsley, a draw for us. But Tuesday remains an all-important step in our attempt to climb back to the Championship. Those of us who worry about our inability to dominate lesser sides cry out for evidence that we can match – and preferably more – the better ones.

Before we welcome our Barnsley interviewee Daniel Finney*, let us offer a signpost to the prize Guess the Score competition. Find it at https://safc.blog/2019/03/guess-the-score-amid-sunderlands-wembley-euphoria-work-to-be-done-at-wycombe-and-barnsley/ . Even if you did not enter the double competition by guessing the Wycombe result as well, you may still have a go at predicting the outcome of Tuesday night’s crucial game at Oakwell.

Now to Daniel. He was one of three or four Barnsley fans who responded to our requests for a Who are You? candidate ahead of the home game. He agreed to be patient as Lucy Dawn did the honours  and now his time has come. He came up with cracking answers so it was worth waiting for … and no prizes for working out who among our players he considers too good for the third tier

Daniel: ‘ha’way Lads. Click on my photo to see all the Who are You? interviews this season’

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There is no Wycombe Wanderers-Sunderland Who are You? Here’s one we prepared earlier

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Jon Dickinson: on stage (right) accompanying the Wycombe Wanderers boss and former player Gareth Ainsworth

Monsieur Salut writes: we tried very hard to find a Wycombe Wanderers supporter to talk about his or her club and ours ahead of Saturday’s game. We failed. Jon Dickinson*, our interviewee ahead of the first game, also tried to find a pal who might be up for it. He wasn’t successful either.

Sorry folks. But since it was so good, let’s settle for a re-run of Jon’s original Q+A – as rock musician, he was gigging when the SoL match happened and had to follow from afar as the Chairboys went close to snatching an unexpcted win .. apologies for any references that seem outdated

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