Remember the fans who appeared, with varying success, in the fly-on-the-wall television documentary, Premier Passions, which revealed in excruciatingly fine detail the behind-the-scenes goings on at Sunderland under Peter Reid?
From Martyn McFadden, editor of A Love Supreme, comes news of another project aimed at capturing the support of SAFC on film.
Midweek. Sunderland (proper) haven’t a game for a week and a half, butPete Sixsmith found banter, nosh and an entertaining game as the Reserves took on Man City at Hetton. The Blues won, but didn’t do all of the shining …
A damp Tuesday meant the local games on offer were perused very carefully for grounds with plenty of cover to shelter from the pouring rain.
However, by 5pm, the evening was dry, the temperature chilly but not unpleasant and the Sixsmith limo pointed in the direction of Eppleton CW and the Barclays Premier Reserve League clash: Sunderland versus Manchester City.
Continuing his story of an unequal contest between passion for club and, when it comes to football, loyalty to country, Colin Randall describes the lengths he’s prepared to go to in order to keep up with Sunderland, and not just the first team. One bonus from caring little about internationals: the row over lack of TV coverage of Ukraine vs England has simply passed him by …
The upshot of the severe culture clash between football-mad or, more accurately, SAFC-mad husband and football-loathing partner is that throughout my marriage I have had to organise games around family duties and wifely expectations as well as work.
She’d tell you I have been to endless matches; I’d tell you about all those I’ve missed.
England play Ukraine on Saturday, depriving us of a Premier match to worry about or, in our mood of new-found optimism, one to look forward to with relish.
******
Darren Bent did not make the squad. But is Colin Randall alone in saying he couldn’t care less about internationals and that Bent’s inclusion would not have increased his appetite to any great extent? He is not. Some Salut! Sunderland readers are familiar with this expansion of his reasons for placing passion for Sunderland miles ahead of anything felt about the national side. But for our many new readers, here is the first part of a chapter written for A Love Supreme’s book More 24 Hour SAFC People (our share of the proceeds were donated to charity) . If anyone feels like getting stuck into a debate, we’ll come up with a prize for the best entry …
Looking back, it was as golden an opportunity as Daniel Dichio’s sitter in the Wembley playoff final against Charlton, or indeed the chance of his at Upton Park that would, if converted, have put us top of the Premiership. And I missed mine just as glaringly as Danny had missed his.
In one of the love letters that passed between us long ago, Joelle, then my wife-to-be, wrote that she could think of only one fault in me that she would change. I smoked too much. She might have added others: permanently broke, holes in my socks and underpants, coming from Shildon, being lousy at her native language, French. She has certainly added plenty since and while the French has improved, there isn’t much I can do about coming from Shildon. But back then, it was the fags that concerned her. If only I would cut down, she wrote to me from Le Mans, her home town, she would in return do anything I asked of her.
Talk about open goals. There it was, my cue to secure a lifetime of pass-outs to watch Sunderland !
Moving home is said to be among life’s most stressful activities. Colin Randall has moved seven times in five years …
If only. If only Kieran Richardson hadn’t done football’s equivalent of Roman Polanski making a high-profile visit to a country with a massive extradition treaty with the US. If only Malbranque had got to that ball before Carrick and made it 3-1. If only Anton … but no, this is the way to even higher blood pressure. It was still a resounding performance, the result as predicted by Bill Taylor (ex-Bishop, now Canada) on these pages and the game as described here by Pete Sixsmith …
One of my first Soapbox pieces was after our 3-2 defeat at the Emirates two years ago. I said this was the first time we had looked like a Premier League side since Reidy was in his pomp and that it was something we could build on.
Alas, since then, we have done very little except beat weaker teams and scrabble around the nether regions, prompting commentators to dismiss us as also-rans and one of those sides that act as cannon fodder for the big boys.
Well, that was effectively brought to an end on Saturday as we gave Manchester United a lesson in how to retain possession, how to mark tightly and how to score goals. Yes, Sunderland gave Manchester United a lesson. Never thought I would write those words, but, dear reader, it is true. We did. So there!!
Great draws yesterday – for us at Old Trafford and, er, Bristol City at St James’ Park. Stand by for Pete Sixsmith’s verdict on our cruelly denied win over Man Utd. First, there’s some unfinished business for
Colin Randall to attend to …
Len Shackleton had the measure of Newcastle United. When it comes the Mags, he said, “I’m not biased; I don’t mind who beats them.”
On that basis, Kevin Keegan will do. Shack’s soul can take mischievous pleasure in Keegan’s £2m victory at the Premier League arbitration panel over Mike Ashley’s ducking-and-diving regime of questionable taste and morality.
When Sunderland wanted to buy Marouane Chamakh from Bordeaux, the answer from Laurent Blanc, manager of the French side, was …
That’s more like it, Salut! Sunderland said mischievously: a Manchester United supporter in the Red Devils’ heartland of – you guessed – Denmark. But Helge Conradsen* is not just another far-away, never-been-to-Old-Trafford gloryseeker. He heads Denmark’s branch of the MUFC supporters’ club, has 47 years’ service as a United fan, owns a dog named after Cantona and is probably the best-known and most knowledgeable of all the club’s Danish fans. We love the way his brother “was once” a supporter of Sunderland (how can such an allegiance be fleeting?) …
Salut! Sunderland How does a Danish person end up supporting Manchester United fan? Why not Hull City or Derby County, for example, or your local club in Denmark?
I was 10 when I saw my first FA Cup Final on Danish TV. It was in 1963. Manchester United played Leicester City. I didn’t know anything about the teams but the team in the dark shirts (there was no colour TV then) played really well. A small striker caught my eyes. I found out that the name of the team was Manchester United and that the name of the player was Denis Law. Since then Manchester United have been my passion and Law my favourite player. I follow both English and Danish football but nothing can compare with Manchester United.
This may be a first. A fan from the City of Manchester has been found, verified as a United supporter and persuaded to preview the game at Old Trafford on Saturday. That was cheap and grossly unfair, or at least United fans would say so. Of course there are Man Utd supporters in Manchester and the surrounding area; it is just that there are so many of them in far-flung corners of the word that the global glory-seeking jibe comes naturally to the lips or keyboard. Liam Bradford*, assistant editor of United first fanzine, Red News, and press officer for the Independent Manchester United Supporters’ Association (IMUSA) puts us right. Next stop? Denmark! …
Salut! Sunderland:
The last United fan in the Who Are You? series at Salut! Sunderland was a 100 per cent Manc who gets very irritated when people say they’re a world brand, not a proper club. What say you?
HOW VERY DARE YOU!!!!!!! We are both! As much as we hate to admit it, we are a successful football club that got turned into a worldwide recognised brand. What you do have to consider is that no football club means no brand where no brand means that there’s still a football club. We have to be a proper club don’t we? How do you define “proper club” anyway? founded in 1878, but we aren’t a proper club? It’s difficult isn’t it? The long and short of it is that we have to understand now that we are both customer and fan to a team that is both football club and world brand.