Sunderland

Lee Cattermole and Liverpool’s Sebastian Coates: two cracking signatures for Advocaat

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Jake: 'when he keeps his head, he's a class act'
Jake: ‘when he keeps his head, he’s a class act’

For Metro, it was the signing of the summer, or at least Dick Advocaat’s summer.

Then you look to see which foreign star has been lured to the Stadium of Light and realise they meant the new six-year contract for Lee Cattermole. To be fair, the Metro piece was one of its club-by-club blog postings and the writer, Gary Johnson, is one of us.

And he is right. The close-season progress may seem leisurely, but it is progress. Tying Cattermole to Sunderland until 2021 is a good move. It means that even if Roy Hodgson suddenly woke up and did what he’d have done already, if only Catts played in London or the North West, our tenacious midfielder would be a very valuable asset should another club come sniffing.

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Thomas Sorensen, of Sunderland, Stoke, Villa and Denmark: a well-earned Sixsmith tribute

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Donate to the KidsAid charity supported by Thomas Sorensen at http://kidsaidacrossamerica.com/
Donate to the KidsAid charity supported by Thomas Sorensen at http://kidsaidacrossamerica.com/

Just as the players (Coates included) were due to report back Pete Sixsmith’s extended season came to an end. But, unlike those on international duty, he doesn’t get extra time off. No sooner has he put his pen down from his other job than he has to pick it up for M Salut and take us on a journey down memory lane:

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Transfer news: there isn’t much, but should we really worry?

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Jake: 'has Messi signed yet?'
Jake: ‘has Messi signed yet?’

Others clubs are doing business and when that happens, and your own is – publicly – doing none, it is natural to wonder what is going on.

I have argued repeatedly over the years since Roy Keane led Sunderland back to the Premier that the best thing to do with most transfer speculation is to ignore it.

There are exceptions. Jordan Henderson’s departure was well flagged for some time, as were the pursuits of Steven Fletcher, Adam Johnson and – though it ended unhappily – Fabio Borini. No journalistic hype was necessary to keep readers, listeners and viewers informed with what turned out to have been reasonable accuracy.

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Danny Graham on the brightest, thickest, fastest, slowest, funniest and worst-dressed

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More midsummer madness.

Safc.com has had some fun with quickfire Q+As, posting the resulting clips at YouTube.

Here – broadly speaking, not word-for word (some answers were slightly unclear) – is what Danny Graham, clearly speaking just after his deflected goal set Sunderland on the path to victory at Goodison, made of his questions. See the whole clip – you’ll hear his answers to a couple of other questions (best player played with, best advice given – neither answer Sunderland-related). He seems a decent lad …

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Chelsea out West: from R&W stripes to Las Vegas blues for Poyet

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'Is that my bus out of here that I see yonder?'
Jake: ‘tell us Gus, is Sunderland now just a bad dream?’

David Millward – universally known as Sid, after his band-leading uncle (Salut! Sunderland’s own Pete Sixsmith was very fond of Sid Millward and the Nitwits) – is a Chelsea fan who has graced at least two Who are You?s at this site.

When Sid, now exiled in New England, said he was heading west to Las Vegas for a convention of football’s most lovable fans – all based in the USA so presumably untarred by the Paris Metro brush – and that Gus Poyet would be the guest of honour, we felt a piece coming on. ‘Sure,’ he replied, ‘but it will be rather Chelsea focused. We went last year, the player who showed up was Michael Duberry, a lovely guy. This year we get Mario Melchiot as well as Gus.’

Well, he did warn us. All the same, here – for some midsummer quiet-time madness – is his account. He did try to mention us, but couldn’t quite suppress the temptation to be snooty …

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The Lars Word: from Keano to Advocaat – and then Big Sam?

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Lars Knutsen
Lars Knutsen

Lars Knutsen has had about as much ‘excitement’ as a Sunderland supporter can take. He wants the S word – stability – along with enhanced Premier status. Here, he looks back with some admiration on Roy Keane’s time at the club and ponders Dick Advocaat and succession. His choice for the Dutchman’s successor, assuming his stay is limited to one season, will divide fans …

Well we have had yet another “exciting” end to the campaign, and obviously all Sunderland fans are delighted that we stayed up, after what has become our usual late run.

Dick Advocaat did well for us, and won the hearts of the fans. Those tears at the Emirates told us that the club had got under his skin. With the right signings and his more attacking tactics we can do a lot better in 2015-16.

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One woman’s view: playing for Arsenal, Brentford and QPR; supporting Liverpool and Sunderland

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Nathalie is second from the left
Nathalie is second from the right

It’s not just Stephanie Roache with that goal, the one that won her second place in the 2014 Fifa Puskás Award and an invitation to Barack Obama’s White House St Patrick’s party. Nor is just the exceptional progress of Sunderland Ladies, against unjust official odds, to the Women’s Super League top flight.

Despite the curmudgeons who still cannot see merit in women’s football, the game is on the rise. And when you’ve seen it played well, and also seen Sunderland at Southampton, you begin to see why public perceptions have begun to change. Monsieur Salut’s daughter Nathalie Randall may not play for Sunderland or with Stephanie but her team, Old Actonians has just risen to Women’s Premier League status (SAFC Ladies are in the WSL now but were in the WPL until not long ago). Here’s her story …

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Do they mean us? An ‘unsympathetic’ Arsenal view of Sunderland

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Jake says "Right - where's me pipe and slippers?"
Jake says: ‘boring, boring? Not a bit of it’

What is it about Arsenal? Some of us like them as a club, certainly by comparison with the rest of the London mob, and a few of us think the world of Arsène Wenger, myopia and all.

But when it comes to talking about us, some Gooners do have a special way with condescension. Forget the relatively recent times when Arsenal’s greatest ambition was for the clean sheet and single-goal win; anyone else doing it these days is “parking the bus”, worse still doing it “proverbially”.

We may make more clear-cut chances than them – Fletcher, twice or three times in the 0-0 draw at the Emirates and they came early in the second half, not late – but if the emphasis was on at least avoiding defeat, because that was utterly crucial to our survival, we must be anti-football and undeserving of sympathy.

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Mrs Advocaat’s flowers and Sunderland’s blooming expectations

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portofino stripes


How can you buy flowers for someone whose name you don’t even know?

This is how The Northern Echo reports the story of Dick Advocaat’s about-turn on his decision – attributed to wifely demands – to leave Sunderland after his Red Adair rescue gig, and the response to that decision of quite a few fans …

Grateful Sunderland fans have raised more than £2,000 to buy flowers for their manager’s wife after he returned to the club with her permission. Dick Advocaat had said that he’d leave at the end of last season because his wife wanted him to retire …. Sunderland fan Tom Sproates set up a GoFundMe page for online donations for his wife, which topped £1,300 seven hours after being started.

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