This edition of Guess the Score will involve a level of effort equivalent to that shown by Sunderland AFC at Birmingham the other night.
There will accordingly be nothing until we reach about the two-thirds stage of the article. Instead, readers are invited to imagine an expanse of blank space between the last word of this sentence and the first word of the next since it’s beyond Monsieur Salut’s technological skills to achieve the look for himself.
Monsieur Salut writes: what was the transfer window like for you, Chris? Did you recruit an inspiring mix of flair and solid experience, the sort needed to get Sunderland out of the present mess? Or a bunch of journeymen hardly better than what we already have and available at the bottom end of the market because they cannot get a game anywhere else? Time will tell – and we can count on Pete Sixsmith to cast a clinical eye on the ins and outs at the Stadium of Light.
But first some unfinished business. Sixer was absent from St Andrew’s, his place on the old post-match Soapbox taken as usual by Robert Chapman, who approved at the ground apprehensive and left a seriously worried man, having seen one more wretched Sunderland collapse …
Monsieur Salut writes: here’s a quiz on football anthems. I managed only eight out of 10; it seemed a doddle until the questions about songs by the England squad I have spent years trying to forget. ..
Wouldn’t we love the problems of 2008 just now? Needing to beat Birmingham City to keep up our Premier League survival hopes on track, we did just that with goals from Daryl Murphy – a “neat finish from Kenwyne Jones’s knock-down,” said the BBC – and Rade Prica.
Ten years and a day on, the two teams meet again. It’s away and we still need points for survival, humiliatingly from the Championship. The 2008 win got Sunderland out of the bottom three and we finished 15th. Can we do it again? Our Birmingham City Who are You? interviewee went for 2-0 again, but in his sides favour. This is how Pete Sixsmith captured it back then, in a much shorter early manifestation of Sixer’s Soapbox …
Monsieur Salut writes: James Jenkinson is a breath of fresh air: a home and away regular with a burning passion for his club, Birmingham City. He is still studying – at University Degrees in Football, Sport and Events Industries in Wembley – -but hopes to became a TV presenter. We have only two quarrels: he thinks City will win on Tuesday night and also suspects we will go down …
NB Guess the Score appeared twice by mistake. One or two entries appeared at the second item before I closed comments. Check below and at https://safc.blog/2018/01/birmingham-city-vs-safc-guess-the-score-two-in-a-row/ to make sure your choice has not already been taken – Ed
Given how rarely Sunderland win, it is worth noting that we have had SAFC-supporting winners of Guess the Score for each of the five Championship games where we’ve ended on top.
One of these was Mike Holligan, with whom I met up (with his brother-in-law Jim Ballantyn, already an acquaintance) during his recent brief visit from the Irish Republic to London.
Monsieur Salut adds some belated lines in homage to Jimmy Armfield – footballer, manager, sports reporter, NUJ member, broadcaster, church organ player, absolute gent …
The two news items seemed unseemly if read one after the other. Sanchez moved from Arsenal to Man Utd on a new weekly pay rate of hundreds of thousands. And word reached us of the death of Jimmy Armfield, whose biggest pay packet was £70 a week, as he told Salut! Sunderland back in 2011 (see the interview here).
Since the victory against Hull City, Chris Coleman has said his players – from young prospects such as Jake Clarke-Salter and Joel Asoro to the old pros John O’Shea and Lee Cattermole – deserve pats on the back. ‘I have stood here after a poor performance or a defeat [but] we look at it now – it is another win, five clean sheets in 11 games. It’s not all bad’. Sunderland supporters know all about false dawns but could this be the start of the way back and can Coleman succeed where so many predecessors have failed? Simon McFall, a freelance sportswriter, traces the pain of SAFC’s post-‘Bank of England club’ years but recognises the enduring passion and desire of the fans …
Monsieur Salut looks at the case study in eccentric football management that is Watford FC – a rarity among clubs in making Sunderland look stable and serene – and wonders whether sacking Marco Silva and installing yet another new boss will make the slightest difference to their prospects …
Let us be cruelly blunt. It is not how football should be but no one outside Watford bothers too much which of the main English divisions – Premier, Championship or Leagues One/Two – they play in. Remember how little the rest of football truly savours a Wear-Tyne derby and multiply the couldn’t-care-less-factor by a dozen.
Monsieur Salut writes: Martin Crow* is a welcome addition to our ranks of contributors. He is an aspiring freelance writer and hardly unknown among Sunderland fans (check his work for ALS). In his first offering to Salut! Sunderland, he provides an astute appraisal of Saturday’s performance that properly complements Pete Sixsmith’s brilliant Soapbox, and concentrates on the generational aspects of Chris Coleman’s (OK, patchy so far but think what went before) revival.
And on a day when any proper football supporter will be mourning the death of Jimmy Armfield, a quite magnificent voice of radio, Martin starts and ends with reminders of the folly of another player-turned-broadcaster ..
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When Alan Hansen delivered his infamous and dismissive verdict on Manchester United’s class of ’95 following an opening-day defeat to Aston Villa, I doubt Sunderland could have been further from his mind.