Sunderland

Soapbox: how the Norwich build-up included a 5-0 away win

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With abject apologies to those who followed the link earlier and reached a dead end – we are still trying to work out who to blame. This is the Pete Sixsmith travelogue-cum-match preview. Lots about Norfolk, and a little about football, as Pete attempts to make all working people envious of his mixture of football, travel, culture and, um, the Barron Knights in a prelude to Sunderland’s return tonight to Premier League action …

Maybe I have already mentioned this, but I am no longer “at work”.

Forgive me for repeating it, but it does give ample opportunity for watching football, including tonight’s clash at Carrow Road.

Not for me a whole day on a coach, arriving back bleary-eyed and dry-mouthed and off to work a couple of hours later. Instead, I set off on Saturday for a short break in a county that I thoroughly enjoyed on my last visit two years ago and which seems to improve with time.

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Salut! Sunderlands week: stuffing Stoke, cheering up Reidy, facing Norwich

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The long break between games made it a quietish week, but there is still plenty to look back on if you missed a daily dose of Salut! Sunderland …

It was good to have an upbeat Bruce’s Banter, the e-mail Steve Bruce sends out after each game. Click here to see what he had to say about the 4-0 win against Stoke City. He mentioned some big individual performances but stopped short of naming names.

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Gyan: not the money man?

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A last outing for Addick-tedKevin's image?


In his latest guest posting, Eric Sweeney reflects on the depressing saga of Asamoah Gyan’s loan transfer and concludes that Sunderland may be better off avoiding overseas prima donnas who see us as a mixture of cash cow and stepping stone. It is probably stretching things to suggest greed is confined to foreign players. But Eric knows his mind and there was neither a “not” nor a question mark in the headline when it left his keyboard …

Ghana for a short time had become Sunderland’s second home in Africa.

John Mensah, the Rock of Gibraltar, came to the club and was arguably our best player: big, strong and composed but also, unfortunately, injury prone.

There was no way the club could sign him permanently despite his great performances and popularity in the dressing room. The fee was simply too high and the risk too large.

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Norwich City ‘Who are You?’: Delia’s roast spuds, Tierney’s theatrics

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That's our Julian in the middle
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Norwich City v Sunderland: we’ve waited long enough for a return to this as a top-flight league game. Julian Canham* is old enough to have attended to Friendly Final – the Milk Cup decider between two teams already or just about (see first comment) relegated – and recalls us getting revenge in the 1992 FA Cup semi at Hillsborough. He can’t make the Carrow Road game but has plenty of thoughts on the two clubs, Delia Smith, Steve Bruce and football generally …

Salut! Sunderland: Back in the Premier but, until last weekend’s fine win at Bolton, hovering just above the bottom three. More or less as expected or are you playing better football than the earlier results implied?

We are playing quite well, and playing good football but punished for every mistake. After the brilliant results for both Norwich & Sunderland last weekend, I am as confident as I can be that we will both be climbing the table sooner rather than later.

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Winning ways, winning prices, winning with Gyan

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We’ve all seen Cashamoah €yan’s protestations that his move from the English Premier League to the United Arab Emirates was not about money. Come up with the best non-financial explanation, buy something from the Salut! Sunderland shop – even it’s only a £2 pen! – and we will dip into the merchandise to add some suitable prize. Was the lure Al Ain Zoo (I’ve been there; not bad) or maybe the spectacular views from the summit of Jebel Hafeet (ditto)? A footballing reason we’ve all missed? Editor’s decision final blah, blah. Meanwhile, some good news on the prices front …

Visit the Salut! Sunderland shop by clicking anywhere along this line

Just wait until Sunderland actually win a game, I thought. That’ll be the moment to exploit the feel-good factor and sneakily put up the prices of Salut! Sunderland‘s merchandise.

Instead the prices are coming down.

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Soapbox Tote double: SAFC, Hartlepool, Hull, Gateshead – and David Meyler

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Are there telling clues about first-team prospects and planning to be had from watching the reserves? Pete “I’m no football junkie” Sixsmith caught two such games yesterday and reports on both, with an emphasis on how the impressive resilience of David Meyler is bearing up after his second dreadful injury setback …

As some of you may know, I have recently retired, allowing me to spend more time with my ever diminishing collection of full beer bottles. It also gives me the opportunity to winkle out obscure midweek afternoon football fixtures and join my fellow retired, anoraks and obsessives in near deserted football grounds.

This season,our reserves are playing a number of their fixtures in the afternoon at the Academy. Unfortunately, they are not allowing the retired etc in to watch on Health and Safety grounds as the club are in the process of being sued by a spectator who was hit in the face by a wayward ball at a game last year.

Many behind the goal at Roker Park and the SoL over the years should now be contacting Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Run.

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When Sunderland last topped the league

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John Hawley *

A trawl through the history of how SAFC respond to a really good win. As Moongod’s first comment shows, I should have made clear that being top, for the purposes of the headline and first sentence, had to last for longer than a couple of hours or so …

Only once in my long service as a Sunderland supporter have I been present at an occasion when we were top of the league. No, not the old Second Division or Third Division; I am talking about what we now call the Premier League and I am not old enough to have seen us win it in 1936.

The mini fact came to me when I decided to look back on how in the past we have followed up a thumping victory of the sort seen against Stoke City on Sunday.

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The Stoke Soapbox: bring me sunshine

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Pete Sixsmith lives for days like yesterday. He heard the tune he’d been waiting some time to boom jauntily out of the Stadium of Light PA system once again, musical confirmation that he had just witnessed a winning display …

As we drove past the seemingly permanent dereliction of the Vaux site on Sunday, we looked over to the Stadium and, seeing dark clouds hovering over it, feared for the worst.

After a soaking – and a decent lunch at the Glass Centre – we were blessed. The sun came out and proceeded to shine all over the 32,000 Sunderland fans inside the previously doom laden SoL. We all came out with smiles on our faces, a spring in the step and an opinion as to why we had gone from crisis to confidence in 90 minutes.

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From Sunderland to Plymouth: a tale of two managers

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Courtesy: A Love Supreme

Steve Bruce had every right to rub the noses of media pundits in the mess of Stoke City’s collapse at the Stadium of Light.

Football, as Plymouth Argyle said in a club statement justifying the sacking of one of Bruce’s Sunderland predecessors, Peter Reid, is a results business.

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