From Duncan Singh, a researcher with the Tiger Aspect television production company, comes a request so off-the-wall that we could not bring ourselves to say no.
Could Salut! Sunderland please help publicise the company’s work on a three-part series, to be hosted by a Sunderland supporter, for Channel 4 about housing issues in the UK. One of the aims is to look at what can be done about the shortfall in affordable accommodation nationally.
So where do we come into this?
We stuck to our guns and stayed patient. Then the official news came, from both the Manchester United and Sunderland club sites: John O’Shea had followed Wes Brown into the Stadium of Light and joined SAFC for another of those idiotic undisclosed fees.
This is how the announcement came from safc.com:
The 30 year-old Republic of Ireland international … has agreed a deal which will keep him at the Stadium of Light until summer 2015.
O’Shea, who becomes Sunderland’s eighth permanent senior signing of the summer transfer window, will link up with former Red Devils teammate Wes Brown, who also made the switch from Old Trafford.
Speaking following the completion of his move, O’Shea said: “Once I’d heard reports about the club and the people here, the ambitions and what the manager was all about it was the only place I was going to come to.”
No sooner had I said we would hold fire for official news than Sunderland AFC announce the signing of Wes Brown from Manchester United.
No immediate word on John O’Shea and/or Darron Gibson, also attracting our interest, but it is fair to assume there will be movement one way or the other on either or both of them before long.
Salut! Sunderland is following normal practice and avoiding premature comment on the signings from Manchester United that seem imminent. For now, we have a minor problem – and you may be able to solve it …
This, with the previously missing third page of the article (shown on the second image) is a corrected repetition of the item already published as No 8 in the series of extracts from the fanzine It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand.
But the cupboard is now bare. I wanted to end the series with two more pieces: the Kevin Ball article that drew a sharp but ultimately friendly response from the man himself and a suitable farewell, assuming one appeared, from the final edition. That is the only ITHICS I have not got, and Nic Wiseman, the co-editor who has supplied me with all these scanned pages to enable you to read some of the best of the fanzine, cannot locate his copy.
If anyone else has it – and we are talking about ITHICS No17 – they’d be doing us a much-appreciated favour if they could scan the Bally piece and any article dealing with the magazine’s closure. Use the email link in the Contact section near the top of the right-hand sidebar or copy colinrandall1@gmail.com … thanks in anticipation.
And here again is my account of Nic’s article – Why Do We Support Sunderland – looking at the international and sometime surprising reach of SAFC;s support base …
Two abrupt departures from the club and no, we don”t mean Cristian Riveros off on loan to Kayserispor following Jordan Henderson’s sale to Liverpool. Pete Sixsmith ponders Sunderland AFC’s announcement that two boardroom figures are “stepping down” but is already too late with his cry of “gizza job”* …
I did intend to write a jolly little piece on the delight of pre-season friendlies – Little Titterington Wanderers v Great Bumstead Athletic, that sort of thing, when I saw the news that Steve Walton and Lesley Callaghan were leaving the club.
So I immediately turned to the club website and read the usual bland, corporate statement that all institutions give when there is a change at the top. They are “stepping down” from their positions, their “professionalism and commitment” have been invaluable and “we are sorry to see them go”. All said in the name of Niall Quinn, although I would be surprised if he had actually written the press release.
Time for another extract from the fund of material to be found in the complete works of It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand, a fine but shortlived Sunderland fanzine from the back end of the 1990s.
Nic Wiseman, the co-editor, is the man who came up with the copies for M Salut and then took the trouble to scan and e-mail selected articles.
This is one of his own.
Want to know what is wrong with football?
Read these comments from Fabien Pivateau , the agent of Asamoah Gyan, who a year ago signed a three-year contract, on what we can imagine to be fabulous wages, with Sunderland AFC.
Never mind the Florida sun. our regular contributor Luke Harvey had some serious sporting spectacles – one with a Sunderland interest – to keep up with at either end of the day …
Everyone has their own thoughts about going on holiday.
Jetting off to a sunkissed part of the world to enjoy peace and relaxation and forget about any troubles at work. That would be one interpretation of a holiday. For me, once there, the trick was how to figure out how I could convince my family that watching Wimbledon for a fortnight while keeping up to date with the Fifa Under 17 World Cup should not be seen as antisocial.
As it turned out, it was relatively easy. Due to the time difference in Florida I could keep up with Wimbledon in the morning, though iI was often subjected to ESPN showing me whichever American they hoped wouldn’t lose that day, and I could watch the Mexico-based World Cup in the evening when the daytime pursuits were done. It all worked out rather well.
And I had an extra incentive to be interested in the Under 17 World Cup, and so should all of you: Jordan Pickford, of Washington, is on the books at Sunderland and the number one goalkeeper for England.
Click on images to magnify text
Salut! Sunderland recovers from the rigours of a busy week on the transfer front to resume its summer series of classics from the short but edifying life of the SAFC fanzine It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand. This, roughly maintaining the slightly worrying theme of his first article on travelling away with Sunderland, is Dave “Chalkie” Dawson’s description of the day committing a public nuisance came close to being a case of mass indecent exposure …
Opening game of the season: Hull City 3 Sunderland 0.
Whatever takes Pete Sixsmith‘s fancy in summer, you’ll find it here at his Soapbox …
There’s an old adage that says that a dog walking on its hind legs may not be able to do it well, but it’s a wonder that it can do it at all. Some folk think the same about the fairer sex playing manly sports like football, cricket and Rugby League.
So, as I turned away from Andy Murray’s disappointing end to a Wimbledon tournament where he has played as well as he could – Nadal is just better, nothing to be ashamed about – I pressed the red button on my remote just in time to see England equalise against New Zealand in Dresden.
Image: Andrea Sartorati
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