Sunderland

Salut! Sunderland’s week: Budapest memories, hopes of beating Hull

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Jake: donlt mind who scores the winner - Hughes, Tueart, Defoe, Watmore, PVA, Anichebe
Jake: ‘do the honours in M Salut’s absence, Lads’

 

 

Monsieur Salut writes: as many readers will know, I am off to Budapest for the weekend to celebrate my 45th wedding anniversary.

Whatever happens at the SoL on Saturday afternoon, I shall almost certainly have to rely on Pete Sixsmith’s texts to my mobile phone to make me happy or gloomy. I try to be philosophical, especially this early in a season, but it can be tough.

Before I go, let me remind those who have not necessarily been paying attention that it has been a good week on Salut! Sunderland.

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Sunderland v Hull City: aim to be a Defoe, SuperKev or Bobby Kerr winner

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Jermain Defoe's superstrike vs the Mags
Jermain Defoe’s superstrike vs the Mags

This week’s Guess the Score is attracting plenty of entries, which is hardly surprising given
the importance of Saturday’s home game against Hull City. Bottom versus third-bottom is not the stuff of dreams for supporters of the brands – Man Utd/City/Chelsea/Arsenal etc – but it’s got the look of our Cup Final, or maybe the first of several.

There is, perhaps, another reason for the rush of interest: the quality of this week’s prize for whoever is first to predict the correct score.

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Duncan Watmore’s challenge: score a (winning) goal like this against Hull City

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With thanks to the YouTube pages of ExplosiveLemonz

All season, many of us have watched in admiration some of Duncan Watmore’s approach play, his tenacity and his sheer enthusiasm only to be disappointed, as he clearly is, by the lack of end product.

That wasted final ball, the missed opportunity to shoot, the tendency to run a shade too far or let the ball roll beyond him – each of these has happened in games and a bright lad like Watmore did not need Monsieur Salut to tell him so.

So just click on the clip above and savour a moment of finesse he produced in an England Under 21 game.

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Winning becomes a habit as Sunderland beat Notts County. Wolverhampton Wanderers next

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Pete Sixsmith and memories of a cup run, as opposed to el Alamein
Here’s one we made earlier: no prizes for guessing which of these gents is Pete Sixsmith

Snow in South West Durham ruled out Pete Sixsmith‘s first choice of football on Tuesday evening, just up Busty Bank and along the road from him at Shildon’s own threatre of dreams, Dean Street, but didn’t stop him making his way up to Sunderland for the Under 21s or whatever number you choose at home in the cup to Notts County …


Two games and two wins.

After the triumph against all the odds in Dorset, the Under 23s, or 21s or whatever they are restored pride to the club by battling back to beat our old friends and rivals from Nottingham in a pulsating thriller of a game at the Stadium of Light last night.

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Wrinkly Pete tells boo boys: ‘you don’t know what you’re doing; please stop’

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Peter Lynn: a hearty boo for the boo boys
Peter Lynn: a hearty boo for the boo boys


Stop Press Update: there’s a lively debate at Ready to Go’s Pure Football forum after someone posted a link to Wrinkly Pete’s piece – http://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/sault-taking-a-pop-at-the-fans.1295474/

Here’s something to take minds off wretched news from Out West. The e-mail from Peter Lynn – Wrinkly Pete to us – read: ‘I don’t always agree with Malcolm Dawson but his comments in the thread on one of the Bournemouth game articles struck a chord and prompted me to get this off my chest.’ He’s thinking of the new aggression detected from a section of our generally magnificent support towards our own players. We’ve all witnessed it and, while it should not be exaggerated, it is an issue worth discussing …

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The only whinge from Bournemouth 1-2 SAFC: don’t drive Lamine Kone away

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OGB
OGB

On Saturday, as remarked upon by everyone including Bournemouth fans, Sunderland’s support was magnificent.

I came across one little Cherries snipe about the one-minute silence being interrupted at our end and even that was simply wrong. The noise wasn’t much and came entirely from the concourse, where no referee’s whistle signalling a tribute was about to begin could have been heard and no one can have had any idea what was happening on the pitch. And even then, people near me went “shhhh …” as if the innocently noisy could hear.

But I do have one whinge …

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Bournemouth banter: (2) just one win but already part of Sunderland folklore

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Olivia
Rob’s daughter Olivia would have loved this souvenir, but had to make do with dad taking a photo of another girl’s prize acquisition

use this e-mail address

Bournemouth away was an occasion to remind supporters of Sunderland AFC, from nippers to long-in-the-tooth codgers, why they care so much about football. And this lovely piece from Rob Hutchison, the perfect complement to an excellent Chapman Report, captures our part of a special day …

“Which is the away end mate?” asked Colin, aka Monsieur Salut, as we approached the stadium. “Follow the voices”, the young friendly steward replied “They sound nothing like us!”.

We’d just been putting the world to rights in the Sir Percy Florence boozer with a few hundred other Mackems who had started drinking when the coaches left at 6am by the sound of the place.

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Bournemouth banter: (1) even the home fans acclaimed Jordan Pickford

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Robert Chapman: 'can we keep doing that?'
Robert Chapman: ‘can we keep doing that?’

Monsieur Salut writes: in the absence of Sixer, almost recovered from surgery but giving this long trip a miss, Robert Chapman was given the Soapbox-ish commission as we stood waiting outside the Sir Percy Florence pub in Bournemouth, which was operating a one-in-one-out entry policy. Maybe wiser counsel should prevail: one win in 11 is not exactly top six form. But hey, it was our one win in 11 and the fabulous support was for once rewarded, so this is the first of two special reports from the south coast

The Observer’s Alan Smith was good player, is good company (I sat beside him the press box for an England game at Europe 2000 and once saw Niall Quinn’s face light up on meeting him at the SoL) and a good analyst. But he was hopelessly wrong to say Sunderland were ‘second best in every facet of the game’. Unless that is, superb goalkeeping, backs-to-the-wall resistance when a player short and robust hold-up play are not facets of the game. Yes, Bournemouth had possession and chances galore and looked smarter on the ball for most of the game, but we were well on top in the second half until Pienaar’s dismissal and had been a match for the home side for what remained of the first half after Anichebe’s equaliser.

Now over to Bob …

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Bournemouth Who are You?: ‘doomed SAFC, know-nothing Lord Sugar, Cherries delight’

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Tom Latchem with Howe
Tom Latchem with manager Eddie Howe after the 2013 promotion to the Championship

Monsieur Salut writes: by the time we’d counted to three the Bournemouth fans we might approach for this week’s Who are You?, and then added ones we interviewed last season, we probably had the entire home support covered.

But what the Cherries lack in numbers, their team makes up for with football that sometimes ‘sparkles’ and produces results, according to Tom Latchem*, presenter of talkSPORT’s Extra Time, our man in the hot seat. Tom describes himself at Twitter as a ‘journo, republican, electoral reformist and old school raver’ and sounds a bloke you’d enjoy a pint with. A long read that I thoroughly enjoyed …

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