Sunderland

Salut Sunderland’s End of Season Reviews: (1) seeing the bright side of life

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Above, our illustrator Jake manages to adapt the late Jackson C Frank’s brilliant Blues Run the Game and create a song for Sunderland at Wembley. Bravo.

And now Salut! Sunderland kicks off its annual series of end-of-season reviews even before the season’s quite over.

Our deputy editor Malcolm Dawson wants to make the point that come what may on Wembley Way, Sunderland AFC is in a much better place at least since the short-lived spell of optimism after Big Sam’s great escape and probably since the glorious part of the Peter Reid era.

If you feel you have something worth saying by way of your own review of the season, follow the link in this piece …

OK, I know the season isn’t  officially over until sometime after 5pm UK time on Sunday, but whatever the result I feel it appropriate to post my thoughts during the lead up to the game.

Many people live in the moment and events change those peoples’ perceptions whilst others look back to the past, reflect on former glories and perhaps have an unrealistic perception of where things are today.

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Ha’way Sunderland against Charlton, hear Sixer’s words of wisdom and add your own

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Jake: ‘make the Mackem army happy,

Forget the conspiracy theories in the Daily Mail’s report on our owners’ intentions.

In fact, while the timing is rotten, the piece itself (as I have said at Twitter) is journalistically legitimate, thorough and reasonably balanced. Read it or ignore it as you wish. For now, just get behind the Lads for the final, utterly crucial game at Wembley this weekend.

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Sunderland vs Charlton Athletic at Wembley: let’s get it right this time

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Jake: ‘make the Mackem army happy, Lads’


Charlton finished the League One season in style and ended up two places ahead of us, writes Monsieur Salut. Until that poor return of four points from three successive home games, I was confident we would go up in an automatic top two place.

It wasn’t to be. We did not end the season in style and and now we start the playoff final at Wembley, after gritty semi-final displays against Portsmouth saw us through, technically as underdogs.

Before I invite readers to predict the outcome of Sunday’s Wembley encounter, I shall reflect on the 1998 version of this momentous tie in May 1998. That was for the greater prize of Premier League and we had, of course, finished above Charlton only to fail to overcome them in the playoff final.

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Sunderland bound for Wembley with nothing to fear from Charlton

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Jake and and Jack capture the moment

Who would have thought? Wembley not once but twice and in the same season.

Monsieur Salut is old enough to have been at the famous Bob Stokoe/Jimmy Montgomery/Ian Porterfield FA Cup final on May 5 1973. Sadly, the promised ticket didn’t materialise so the game was watched with plenty of beer to hand in a first-floor flat in Uxbridge.

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The Salut! Sunderland Haway awards: Peterborough, Wycombe, Rochdale and Bristol Rovers in the running

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Jake: ‘thanks to all who participate’. Click this image to see all of this season’s interviews


It has become a bit of a stuck old gramophone record, Salut! Sunderland‘s pride in a tremendous season of Who are You? interviews with opposing supporters.

Judging is at an advanced stage for our HAWAYs – annual awards for Highly Articulate Who are You?s – and with only a couple of sets of votes still awaited, front-runners are emerging.

League One has been a goldmine for the series (not forgetting our cup-game interviewees from other divisions)

As Monsieur Salut put it when writing to the judges: “I could have put them all in a hat and drawn three at random, so good have so many of the interviews been.”

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Michelle My Umbrella: Ian Mole and memories from the heart of Sunderland

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Michelle front
Michelle back

Not much more than a year ago, Mike Dennison wrote about an utterly fascinating book by the exiled Sunderland supporter and wit Ian Mole on life on Wearside in the 1960s. Treat yourselves and read it, as a companion to what follows, at https://safc.blog/2018/02/the-heart-of-old-sunderland-remembered/.

Yes, there is a follow-up. Ian gets to produce another book barely a year on while Monsieur Salut labours on getting a first one finished. The title’s a gem but Mike – unwell recently so, we hope, fully recovered – signals an explanation rather than providing one, though it’s not hard to guess if you know anything about pop song lyrics. A Love Supreme offers it at this link and Mike suggests eBay for those who use it but I cannot find it on Amazon …

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Portsmouth vs Sunderland: crunch time at Fratton Park with Charlton looking set for the final

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Jake: ´Pompey yet again – but by far the most important of the five times we’ve met this season’


Talk about doing it the hard way.

We knew the playoffs would be tough and that is how it is turning out, at least for us.

To no great surprise, we take a narrow lead to Portsmouth while Charlton grabbed a straightforward 2-1 win at Doncaster – forget the away goals, or absence of them, since these do not count in the EFL playoffs – and the finalists will be known by the end of this week. Our game is first up, on Thursday night, with Charlton completing what ought to be a formality 24 hours later.

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Sunderland and playoffs. Part two: Bramall Lane and Sheffield United

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Before the Wembley heartbreak

Monsieur Salut writes: Pete Sixsmith‘s habit of suggesting all manner of Sunderland-related series has been as beneficial to Salut! Sunderland as it has been exhausting for him. This is another rod he made for his own back, a look at playoff joys and sorrows of the past. The first instalment covering the opening act of a dramatic tragedy – when we had to beat Gillingham to avoid dropping to the third tier in 1987 – and the home leg of an exhilarating tussle with the Mags three years later can be found here.

I have patchily vivid memories of both the 1998 semi-final legs against Sheffield United (and, of course, the final). At Bramall Lane, I remember Kevin Ball’s goal putting us ahead to the accompaniment of a short but nasty outbreak of bother up in or near one of the hospitality boxes, United yobs reacting violently to the cheers of a few Sunderland supporters – an incident I was reminded of when I condemned an attack on a Pompey fan in a SoL home section recently.

Pete will now take you back 21 years to the first act in a gripping drama. There’ll be more next week, including video footage of the second leg, one of my own and Pete’s greatest nights at any Sunderland game (I couldn’t locate a clip from the Bramall Lane match though one must exist; Pete’s mention refers to a full review of the Blades’ 1997-98 season which includes highlights of both games; it cannot be embedded but is seen here). Meanwhile, don’t look at this season’s final tables (Championship and League One unless you want an annoying reality check …

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Taylor made: amid the playoff jitters, transatlantic goodwill from a satisfied Sunderland supporter

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Bill by Jake

Monsieur Salut writes: today’s post – snail mail and electronic – brought two messages from people called Bill. By proper post, from Sunderland, came a new album, Wonderful Fairy Tale, by one Bill – short for Belinda – Jones to which I am hugely looking forward to listening, not least because it cost her £2.60 to send it. Then came an uplifting piece on Sunderland AFC and how the playoffs look to a long-exiled Mackem with solid Wearside roots and a Bishop Auckland youth. Bill/Belinda is for another time and place, the somewhat neglected Salut! Live site. Here, conjured up on a flight home to Toronto (not the one near Bishop) from Seville is Bill Taylor’s slice of optimism …

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Sunderland vs Portsmouth: round one in the battle to face Doncaster or Charlton

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A quick glance at our fellow-contenders for promotion via the playoffs shows we have Wembley previous against two of the three – and it’s not encouraging. Portsmouth beat us there in the Checkatrade Trophy final in March and plenty of us will never forget the anguish of 1998 against Charlton.

So if hoodoos exist, they need to be broken. Here’s your chance to say whether and how we’ll make a start on Saturday night.

Act Four

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