Sunderland

SAFC 1 Wolves 3: dismal end, cheers to Jody

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All that needed to be said about our respect for Wolves has been said here – and especially here. This was not the way we wanted our own season, in terms of the home games, to end. Happy for them, sad about our own failure to perform …

If all this week’s goodwill from Salut! Sunderland towards Mick McCarthy and Wolverhampton Wanderers had to lead to such a bitterly disappointing defeat, then we can at least be happy that it was Jody Craddock who set them on the way.

Steve Bruce claimed he had only 12 senior players fit to train this week and that has to be taken into consideration.

But this is a game we should have WALTZED!

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Salut!’s week: relief at Bolton, revenge for Chamakh, respect for Wolves

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Salut! Sunderland looks forward in all senses to the last home game of the season, when we expect no slacking despite our affection for Wolverhampton Wanderers and our desire for them to stay up (though 5-2 again would be rubbing it in; 1-0 will do). And we look back over a week that started well. This is the weekly digest of Salut! Sunderland‘s efforts to inform, amuse and inspire …

For once – well, twice or three times in the past four months – we began the week in happy frame of mind.

The last-gasp winner at Bolton was exactly what the doctor ordered and given Sunderland’s appalling run not only of form but of luck, we need apologise to no one about the merits or otherwise, as described by Owen Coyne, of those three priceless points.

There was plenty to read here about that match. And there was, as usual, more to get stuck into as the week went on. Click on the sub-heading for any item that appeals if you want to read more or read again.

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For David Graves: another reason to want Wolves to stay up

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Tomorrow, nearly nine years after he died an avoidable death, David Graves‘s spirit will be willing his beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers to victory at the Stadium of Light. David was a globetrotting reporter and a great colleague and friend. I imagine him in some far-off, dusty and maybe dangerous spot, fiddling with the internet links he seemed able to find even all those years ago. David would not have expected me to want Wolves to win today, and I do not.

But in his honour, and thinking very much of his wife Diana and their two boys Oliver and Nathan, Wolfies all, I hope very much that other results go for them and that they clinch survival on the final day. The following, reproduction of which has been inspired by the friendship shown by so many Wolves supporters this week and in the past, originally appeared at another of my websites, Salut!, on the fifth anniversary of his death …

Every so often, you still hear that extravagant, rising laugh of his.

You imagine him back in the old Telegraph newsroom. There, he’d be approaching each task with customary professionalism. If things were quiet, he’d be wandering from desk to desk showing quizzical interest in what others were up to.

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Back to the Predictor: bad news for Wolves

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You read it here first that we were safe. At least, according to the BBC Predictor that Pete Sixsmith had been playing with. We still had to make his predicted results come true and did better than that by winnng at Bolton and not just drawing. But what about Wolves, tomorrow’s opponents? They’ve generated lots of nice thoughts by liking us as we like them, but Pete fears the worst …

I was back on the Predictor again this week after the latest batch of games. I tried to gauge the mood of a club as well as its current form and its desire and need to stay in the Premier League.

After a much improved performance at The Reebok last weekend, I am much more optimistic than I was the last time I did it. I now have us drawing with Wolves and winning at West Ham and that will have us finishing an eye watering eighth, three points above the Mags and six points away from Villa and Darren B£nt.

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Sorry Sulley, greatest on earth or not, it’s back to dreary Milan

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Whether it was an own goal or his own, Sulley Muntari fired the shot that led to what Pete Sixsmith called possibly our most important goal of the season, since it secured a Premier status that had at least showed signs of vulnerability.

But now it’s over. Sunderland AFC have confirmed the option to sign midfielder Muntari permanently will not be taken up. And that, because of the terms of the loan deal with Inter Milan, means his association with the club is over

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Wolves, the North East and a love-in that stops at Newcastle

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Not everyone goes to the message boards and sites of other clubs. I have to quite often, in search of Who are You? candidates, and I have to say Molineux Mix has been a happy hunting ground. You’ve seen Andy Nicholls’s award-winning contributions. Today you saw the reason some Wolfies thought he was getting our awards: he’s married to a Mackem, which must make La Nicholls – Jo – the ultimate trophy wife. Here, for those who share my view and Jeremy’s (see comments in Jo’s piece) that WWFC is a grand old club with cracking supporters, is part of a thread from that Wolves site (but why should they so dislike our friends from the Tyne>) …

Sunderland fans

Visited Sunderland when I was in the Navy. Had a great time, genuine people.

– tiggerkev

Had to go to sunderland this morning to pick up some steel rails. Anyway some lads at the stell depo noticed my wolves sticker on the cab window,and they all said that they hoped we beat them on saturday and stay up,they also said how much they liked mick and hated bruce,they feel mick was very hard done to at sunderland seems like they still have a very soft spot for mick.

– mister-T

I can’t work out from their main forum whether they’re ever-pessimistic or just resigned to their fate, started a quick thread on there asking about away pubs and it’s turned into an 11 page monster lol. Much prefer them to Newcastle fans anyway

– Bossworld

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Sunderland v Wolves: Mackem and Gold, Mickey Gray and Will

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This makes a fascinating change for the “Who are You?” series: the answers come from an opponent’s hosuehold- but a Mackem’s voice. Jo Nicholls* is married to Andy, who is a moderator at the excellent Wolverhampton Wanderers fan site Molineux Mix . Andy is a past prizewinner, both in our annual honours and in one of those Who are You-of-the-month awards. Jo will be there with the family on Saturday and, whatever it means for her beloved’s beloveds, she needs no encouragement to pray for a Sunderland win. And she has a great Mickey Gray story …


You’re a Mackem married to a Wolfie: how did that happen and do you always have to end up in the Wolves end at games?

Bad luck I suppose! Not really – he’s alright for a bloke with a funny accent! We met in Edinburgh when working about 20 years ago. I didn’t realise what I was letting myself in for – I wasn’t the greatest follower of sport but that soon changed (love does strange things). We eventually married, moved around the country a bit before settling in sunny Wolverhampton – the furthest you can get from the sea in the UK – different to days spent down Seaburn! As for where I sit – well I don’t really have much choice really as we treat the football as a family day out and the other 3 are gold and black – I just humour them and go along with it!

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French Fancies: Laurent Blanc, racial quotas and Lille’s shock for OM

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Supporters lillois lors de PSG 3-0 LilleImage: Psgmag.net


Our regular look at French football – illustrated by a photo borrowed from the PSGmag.net fan site – considers the racial quotas scandal – and comes clean on another dodgy prediction …

Lille football club – LOSC Lille Métropole if you must – are very nearly the Ligue 1 champions in France after winning 2-1 last night at Saint-Etienne (who else remembers when Dominique Rocheteau played for them?

It puts them seven points ahead of Marseille, who have a game in hand but a markedly inferior goal difference.

Only a remarkable collapse in their final three games, from which five points would suffice, would stop Lille winning the title for the first time since their previous championships on 1946 and 1954. As in 1946, they may also win the double, the Coupe de France final against PSG coming up on Saturday night.

And my apologies to Marseille for casting a curse on their title hopes for the second time in three seasons. On the morning OM blew their chances by crumbling at home to Lyon two seasons ago, I had a 2,000-word piece on the sports pages of The National, Abu Dhabi, dealing at length with their revival after 16 years in the doldrums. And only last week, when they briefly went top of Ligue 1, I predicted that they would go on to stay there. Oh well.

Meanwhile, the hot football news in France is the sports minister’s clear statement that Laurent Blanc, manager of the national side, was innocent of any improper behaviour in the affair of the racial quotas. For those new to the subject, the Q word was used by the French Football Federation technical director François Blaquart when a meeting of coaches last November discussed the issue of schoolboy hopefuls who were trained at FFF expense only to go on to represent the North or sub-Saharan African nations of their family origins.

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Sulley Muntari, Inter Milan and us: I am the greatest, or not

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Long ago, the much-missed Sunderland fanzine It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand ran a funny spoof interview imagining SAFC’s direct negotiations on a new contract for Allan “Magic” Johnston. With each reply, the player’s asking price went up. I thought of that piece when I read two other spoof interviews, this time with our own – for now? for longer? – Sulley Muntari, much in our affections for his winner at Bolton.

From deep in Thailand, Phil Johnson*, a Mackem exile who clearly has far too much time on his hands, was trawling Inter Milan fan sites when he came across this; it’s hardly a dependable portrayal of our on-loan player’s character, but at least gives an idea of how some Inter fans saw him. This was the work of a young supporter who invented Muntari quotes about being on €6m a year, paying the club €10,000 for each red card he received and showing no shortage of self-esteem. Steve Bruce talks of a decision being made at the end of the season on whether to extend or convert the loan; perhaps this will help SAFC prepare for the negotiations

At the ForzaInter fan site – where you will also find some anti-SAFC banter, plus a poll showing 75 per cent of Inter fans in favour of offloading Muntari – the author is described in his profile as an 19-year-old Israeli who calls himself Inter Siamo Noi. These are edited extracts from the piece that so amused Phil ..

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Sitting on my hands as Whitley Bay beat Coalville to FA Vase

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IMG_2718editImage: Jason Bowler

Part Mackem Diaspora, part Cup Final report, this is broadened football writing as compelling as it gets. Malcolm Dawson traces the life journey that took a committed Sunderland supporter from Eppleton to Leicestershire and, implausibly, a seat among the Coalville Town fans (who may like the photo, especially now I’ve changed it to one from Coalville) trying – in vain – to urge their team to victory at Wembley …

See also: Wembley Soapbox: Whitley Bay beat Coalville and I hug a Mag

Back in those pre-Thatcher days of early ’79, my 25th birthday coincided with my first proper full time, permanent job. During what is now called a gap year, I had spent the first 12 months of my graduate status in the long hot summer of 1976, enjoying the views of Eppleton Colliery from the garden of my parents’ house, listening to Steely Dan and the jazz-influenced pre-Born in the USA Springsteen and taking the occasional walk around the Bull Wells, even occasionally going as far as Seaham to get a glimpse of the North Sea.

A temporary job in Sunderland working with young offenders, was followed by a Post Grad teacher training course in the Fylde. (A few years back on an in-service course, we were asked to write down why we had decide to become teachers. Truthfully my response was …”the ratio of women to men at teacher training college was 7:1”.)

I then had another stint, working with the disaffected youth of the North West, before my 149th application for a teaching job bore fruit and I became the youngest member of staff at Ashby de la Zouch CE Primary School. Little did I know that I would still be resident in the East Midlands, 32 years later!

After 18 months in the job I felt secure enough to buy my first house – a terrace in the nearby town of Coalville. I felt sure I would be at home there. As the name suggests the town was built on the extraction of the black diamond. Robert Stevenson (son of George) opened a mine at Snibston, in the 1800s. That was half a mile from my new house and there was another pit in between.

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