West Bromwich Albion

SAFC v West Brom ‘Who Are You?’: memories of SuperKev, dreams of McEnroe

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Jake asks the question


We had that wonderful pair of Boro supporters of a certain age recently – one remembered seeing a 3-0 victory over Leeds on Boxing Day, 1946 – but today is the turn of youth. Matthew Evans*, 18, an aspiring journalist, is another of Monsieur Salut’s colleagues over at the ESPN site where he writes the West Bromwich Albion blog. He shares our enthusiasm for Kevin Phillips, loves the football he’s seeing from his team and tries to imagine how that sometime WBA supporter John McEnroe might remonstrate with referees if he were a regular at the Hawthorns …

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Soapbox from West Bromwich Albion: when experience triumphs over hope

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Sixer by Jake

Pete Sixsmith cannot rewrite Saturday’s result. He cannot make it seem as if we were a little unlucky. There were no Sunderland performances of the sort that won The Artist five Oscars. In fact, Pete struggles to find anything remotely positive to say. Just sit back and try to enjoy what follows for what it is, as fine a piece of writing as you will find in any of today’s sports pages …

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Salut!’s week: cup fever, Niall’s farewell, map to Newcastle, McClean/Campbell glory

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This has been a week of great happiness – beating Arsenal to reach the FA Cup quarterfinals, welcoming Fraizer Campbell’s inclusion in the England squad and James McClean’s Irish call-up – and much sadness, Niall Quinn’s decision to end his links with SAFC. Oh, one more happy bit: Salut! Sunderland reached ninth, its highest ever position, in the Soccerlinks hit list (though we may have fallen by the time you click on that link) …

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The West Brom Who are You?: ‘those rose-tinted Sunderland glasses’

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Not every photographer who visited Roker Park did so on behalf of Pravda, albeit the Slovak equivalent of the official Soviet daily. Dave Hewitt*, lifelong Baggie, explains the background, tells of the day he photographed Kevin Ball holding a damaged trophy aloft and describes gathering disenchantment with Mod€rn Football …

Jake again ...

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West Brom Soapbox: with Arsenal next, was this fightback or failure?

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The script is depressingly easy to write. Two clubs go into battle with similarly pressing needs to lift the early-season gloom, but one of them is Arsenal, they’re at home and unlike us, they’ll probably have an established PL striker to call on (Bendtner, of course, being unavailable). Pete Sixsmith wonders whether the fighting spirit we showed to get a draw, though no more, against West Brom can help us prolong an unbeaten record in London that stretches back to April 2010 …

At 3.06 on Saturday, the knitting needles were out as 35,000 of us contemplated a very public execution of Steve Bruce, preferably on the pitch at half time. The first draft of the Seven (Sixer’s seven-word matchday verdict – ed) had been written (“Inconceivable that Bruce can survive after this”) and, although we basked in glorious autumn sunshine, the atmosphere was icy cold.

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A West Brom postscript: ‘Dear Steve … reach for the Sky’

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Visit the Salut! Sunderland Shop

Sunderland showed character to turn a shocking start into a game we might have gone on to win. But it was against WBA at home and, and with respect to a likeable club, that is not quite like Arsenal and Man Utd away, two of our next three games on the road. Relief at yesterday’s equaliser hardly banished discontent. Ian Porter shared this response to Steve Bruce’s post-match message (see Bruce’s Banter) with fellow subscribers to the Blackcats list …

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your post-match e-mail.

It was good to see The Lads suck with it and dug deep instead of huffing and puffing again.

It amuses me watching your team nowadays, as it reminds me so much of watching many other games at the Stadium of Light and I regularly draw similarities between players of yesteryear and today.

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