Still not the start of ‘Wembley and Bust’, the series in which our contributors will discuss what went so drastically wrong. But Jeremy Robson feels it in his bones that Gus is about to hop on a one-way bus trip. Who would come in to pick up the pieces, rebuild for a different task (gaining promotion as opposed to perpetual relegation avoidance) and please the fans? …
Some of the most thought-provoking analysis of things that matter to Sunderland AFC supporters comes from the great Mackem diaspora. This comment on the Blackcats e-mail list – “the older I get the more I become convinced that it really is a simpler game than the coaches, tacticians and (especially) pundits would have us believe” – emanated from the region (Mick Goulding in Co Durham) but set Jeremy Robson, over in Canada, thinking about some of the basic failings of the Martin O’Neill regime and the equally basic remedies Paolo Di Canio is applying. In an interesting riposte, Moscow-based Andy Potts sees similarities in the early achievements of both men …
Every cloud … you know the rest. One silver lining is the return from self-imposed exile of Jeremy Robson. To the immense relief of many, Salut! Sunderland imagines, here is an almost exclusively back-to-basics assessment of past failings and the hefty challenges facing Paolo Di Canio. Next, we’ll be getting medals or brownie points in the post from SAFC’s corporate machine for nobly sticking – or reverting – to football …
In the second of Salut! Sunderland‘s look back at Martin O’Neill’s first year in charge – visit the home page salutsunderland.com to see the first – Jeremy Robson wonders whether our manager will still be at the helm 12 months from now. He has his doubts…
We hear often enough of football’s darker side, perhaps not enough on the good works many players willingly perform (honest: the juxtaposition of Catts and Gardner is purely accidental!). Jeremy Robson plants a fully deserved pat on the back of Craig Gardner and could probably persuade the kids of Biddick Junior, Washington to make the back quite sore. Oh, and no prize this week but have a go anyway at guessing the SAFC v Wigan score in Comments below …
Long experience of coroners’ courts has persuaded Monsieur Salut that depression can afflict the most successful, normally intelligent of people. We do not yet know what drove Gary Speed to suicide. Jeremy Robson offers a little more than the sympathy everyone feels …
Only Ryan Giggs and David James have played more games in the Premier League than Gary Speed who, sadly, was found dead yesterday at the age of 42.
Steve Bruce looked a broken man on Match of the Day. Some of the abuse lobbed at him, Salut! Sunderland believes, was unacceptable, but it had hit home. To a large degree, of course, he is the author of his present misfortune. Jeremy Robson, hardly a born again convert to the Bruce Out cause, discusses this latest calamitous era of Sunderland’s managerial history …
For followers of this fine club of ours there has been a sorry history of underachievement apart from the two seventh placed finishes under Peter Reid and the solitary FA Cup win in 1973. I watched it again last night and for the very first time experienced the realisation that this was a long time ago.
Did John Terry mouth a racist insult in “conversation” with Anton Ferdinand, or was he merely enquiring as to whether Anton erroneously thought he had done so? A number of players insist that Terry is not a racist; the facts have yet to be determined. Billy Sharp’s gesture, however, needed no interpretation. Jeremy Robson applauds Sharp, the bereaved father who scored a “goal from heaven”* (see clip below); you judge whether he is unduly harsh on JT …
Bill Shankly’s oft cited quotation about football being more important than life and death was mentioned again as recently as last week on Salut! Sunderland, in the title of the Rev Leo Osborn’s “Who are you?” article prior to the SAFC v Aston Villa game.
Leo, a staunch Villa fan but also a prominent churchman, said Shankly was wrong. I for one would not disagree. How can any sport, or game be considered more important than life itself?
Image: vagueonthehow