The poor mite has no reason to know it but he’s been born a Mackem. An adopted one, by all means, but I bet the first Premier League game his dad takes him to involves Sunderland and that is a qualifying act in Monsieur Salut’s criteria for Proper SAFC Fandom.
Voice of America
Voice of America: hardly on the Armstrong scale but now target football cheats
The downfall of Lance Armstrong has set people thinking and talking about sporting cheats. Salut! Sunderland has banged on about it for years, earning the admiration of some readers but irritating others. Trying to con the referee is admittedly on a different scale to the systematic use of performance-enhancing drugs*, but it is a scourge of modern football all the same. For a partisan site to campaign on such issues and keep a straight face, it has to be willing to recognise the blatant Gyan (often), Bent (sometimes) or Larsson (at Wolves) dive just as clearly as it sees it in opponents, and we have tried to be consistent. Our friend out west, Robert Simmons, believes football could learn a useful lesson from his side of the pond …
Voice of America: Fletcher’s goals make a point at Swansea
An American(SAFC-supporting) view of yesterday’s game, from our regular columnist Robert Simmons …
Voice of America: Sessegnon contract extension underlines Sunderland ambition
Robert Simmons chips in the from the other side of the pond with his own thoughts on the news that Stéphane Sessegnon is going nowhere …
Voice of America: the club you support
Monsieur Salut’s very lenient ground rules for deciding whether it is OK to support this or that club – see http://safc.blog/2012/08/chelsea-manchester-united-sunderland-the-rights-and-wrongs-of-choosing-your-club/ – have sparked lively debate. Robert Simmons, from the US of A, rose to the bait and responded in the form of a personal letter. This is all entirely light-hearted (Robbie is, in fact, mightily welcome here) and here he proposes some additional rules …
Voice of America: you cannot be serious about supporting Sunderland
Robert Simmons has already made his mark at what one Arsenal supporter has called our ‘eloquent’ site. Here, he describes the experience of being an American who chooses to follow the Lads and offers thoughts about how Ellis Short might drive up interest in SAFC in their native land. You almost hear John McEnroe asking Robert why …
Voice of America: he couldn’t help falling love with us
Image: Don KennedyYesterday, we had Rob Hutchison telling of a wonderful trip to Canada to stay with our own Jeremy Robson, a man he’d only met electronically though both are from the North East and support Sunderland. Today we cross the Atlantic again for the first column by Robert Simmons**, an American who describes how he acquired a passion for a far-off club. Once on these pages I told the story of my encounters in different parts of the world with people who, for a variety of reasons, stood out for me because they were wearing Sunderland tops. I look forward to being able to add a photo of Robert in his ….