Sunderland

Manchester United: the gods – and divers – of Old Trafford

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Who are You? That’s the question we ask before each Sunderland game. Paul Eccleston*, our first visitor this season from the ranks of Manchester United followers, is that rarity: an unblinkered football fan. His lifelong support for the club does not stop him recognising Nani as a diver who has effortlessly inherited Ronaldo’s crown. Leaving aside that aspect of their play, how do such men compare with top Red Devils of the past? Paul, whose self-description – “Fleet Street journeyman” – does scant justice to an exemplary career as reporter and news editor, reflects on the flawed giants of Old Trafford …

To read part two of this week’s edition of “Who Are You?”, click on The Republik of Mancunia speaks

Salut! Sunderland (question posed before last night’s United win in Valencia): Let’s start below the belt: are Manchester United already out of the title race and has Sir Alex, great a manager as he’s been, gone past his use-by date?

I think it will have crossed the mind of most United fans that we have to start thinking about life after SAF. We’ve already had some very dodgy draws against teams we should have beaten – Fulham and Everton in the Premiership and Rangers in the Champions League. Does this have anything to do with our failure to make any headline signings for the second successive season? Does SAF genuinely see no value in the market or is he being denied funds by the Glazers? Another failure in the Champions League and finishing behind a rampant Chelsea in the Premiership this season will inevitably lead to claims that Ferguson is past his sell by date – but how many times has he confounded the critics before?

I suspect that he has already decided when he will go – possibly at the end of next season – and has already played an active role in deciding who his successor will be – probably Jose Mourinho who by then will have completed two seasons at Real and is really the only manager with the track record and the arrogance to think he can take over from Ferguson.

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The day they knew Brian Clough’s career was doomed

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Our magnificent man in his flying machine is Bill Taylor, who lives in Canada these days but is a Sunderland-daft Bishop lad. He has never lost the passion despite living thousands of miles from County Durham and even becoming a naturalised Canadian. Older fans will identify with his nostalgic memories of an early introduction to Roker Park; younger ones will get an idea of what it was like. You’ll guess from the ending that it was written before Saturday’s game when Cattermole not only remained uninjured and unpunished but had a blinder …

I first heard the Roker Roar from a distance, a backyard a couple of streets away from the Fulwell End. I can’t have been any more than five at the time.

“What’s that?” I asked. And my dad replied: “Sounds like the Lads just put one in.”

The Lads?

“Sunderland,” he said, a bit testily as if I should’ve known without asking. “The team. OUR team.”

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Soapbox in Liverpool: not a fair Kop

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Pete Sixsmith had a good day out on Merseyside, watching Sunderland play their best football of the season, enjoying some decent ale and admiring the fine sportsmanship of Kuyt and Torres …

The Brucester made the point last night that all the talk would be about Stuart (“Winifred”) Attwell’s performance and/or the looming crisis in Anfield Road, L4 0TH and not about the excellent performance that Sunderland had put in.

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Liverpool v Sunderland Observed: simply our best

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Things have reached such a state at Anfield that Liverpool fans now hail as a “good start” an extremely dodgy early goal, in which the spirit of fair play was singularly absent whatever the letter of the law may say (and always leaving aside how far Torres was from the ball when the “free kick” was “taken”). On the other hand, Turner may just have been a prat! …

In any case, Stephanie Jones, an Observer-reading Red, saw it in a positive light – her team’s start, that is, not their overall performance – in her fan’s report for her Sunday newspaper of choice.

Salut! Sunderland was again called upon to give its own verdict, but let Stephanie speak first:

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The Liverpool verdict: on its way

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THIS REPORT NOW SUPERSEDED: CLICK HERE

Image: Mrs Logic

Today, I am away from Gary Bennett and Nick Barnes, always a sound matchday listen on BBC Radio N**cas**e, and from all those dodgy internet streams, because work requires me to interview the French band Moussu T e lei Jovents in Marseille.

Pete Sixsmith will, as usual, be at the game and will send his Sixer’s Sevens verdict soon after the final whistle.

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Liverpool v SAFC: the voice of America

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It was from the judge I mentioned yesterday that I first heard the expression “up and down like a harlot’s drawers”. It was a reference to his football team’s yo-yo existence and I suppose there are County Durham variations of the phrase I have known and forgotten. Anyway, it also applies to Salut! Sunderland. Ever since our pals at footballunited.com announced a new server, it’s been hit-and-miss as to whether anyone out there can actually come here and see what we’re up to. The site has been up and, with frustrating frequency, down. I desperately hope the techie wizards are right to say we are nearing the end of this frustrating period – it always seems to happen just after something especially interesting has been posted – though the past week has seen continuing problems.

One result of was that out in the Mid West of the USA, Ed* – short for editor, of the Liverpool Offside fan site – was unable for long periods to see how we’d handled his responses to the Who Are They? questionnaire (he was a welcome contributor after one Gerry Marsden and his manager ignored overlooked polite, even grovelling approaches). So here, for a matchday audience and with fingers tightly crossed, is a repeat of Ed’s analysis of events at Anfield, offered before Liverpool’s plucky Carling Cup exit. And I am sure that if Titus Bramble plays, Liverpool fans will keep our judge happy by ensuring their chants faithfully observe the Contempt of Court Act …

Ah, to be a Liverpool fan. Memories of standing on the Kop as a lad, that overpowering emotion stirred by the first words of You’ll Never Walk Alone with every home fan raising scarf aloft, a pint or two in the Ship & Mitre after the match. Ed* – our latest contributor to seek semi-anonymity (good reason) – can only take our word for it. He’s a keen enough supporter but lives on the other side of the Atlantic, has never set foot in Liverpool and knows nothing of the Anfield experience at first hand. Ed offers his thoughts on the Reds’ slow start to the season, the Liverpool hero who has been known to cheat and the corporate chaos engulfing his adopted club …

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Judges of character

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Originally uploaded by Image: Shayne Kaye

An inconsequential tale of football folk, coincidence and life in (and outside) the law …

Ten years ago, I met a man on holiday in Peru who turned out to be a judge.

He thought I was cool because on the day of the group’s homeward bound departure, I let everyone else take the tour company bus and stayed behind to watch Sunderland v Leeds (in Spanish) in the hotel before racing to the airport by cab to catch up. We lost 2-1.

We became friends and I came to think of him as even cooler, especially for a judge, because we shared obscure musical tastes: Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Sandy Denny and the like. And as well as sharing my fondness for football and leftish political ground, he had a most unjudgely T-shirt showing a boy aiming a peashooter at a car (slogan: Lee Harvey Oswald aged three).

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