From Arsenal via Hull to Wolves: our honours shortlist

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Who are you? The winners, that is, in Salut! Sunderland‘s grand Who Are You? competition. Could it be Fatima al Shamsi (pictured with reading matter prescribed by us to cure her of supporting Arsenal)? Or the others shown below? The results won’t be known until the season ends. Read on to see if your contribution – or your club if you don’t support Sunderland – made our awards shortlist …

Judging has now begun. The famously half-decent football magazine When Saturday Comes is on board among prize donors. And some time soon, just after the end of the Premier League season, we will announce who has been chosen in first, second and third places for the wit, warmth or wisdom of their replies to the questionnaires we present to at least one opposing fan before each Sunderland game.

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Soapbox: when West Ham should have been one under the eight

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Gnome’s had his say – not for the first time. Now it’s the turn of Pete Sixsmith to recall his relief that paper round money didn’t stretch to a particular football outing to London in the year of the Prague Spring, Martin Luther King’s assassination, student and worker revolt in France – and West Ham 8 Sunderland 0 …

Once upon a time, I considered living and working in London. In the 1970s, the leftward leaning ILEA was offering houses, cars and probably caviar and champagne for any teachers brave enough to face the capital’s schools.

I seriously considered it and decided that if I did take the plunge, I would watch West Ham as my “London” team. They were similar to Sunderland – a working class club, although without the history and tradition that attached itself to Roker Park.

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The Hammers hate Bolton: we just fear them

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West Ham 1 Bolton 2. Highly unwelcome news from the East End. Please let that be the end of the Wanderers’ revival …

Rapidhammer, one of my partners in crime at FootballUnited.com, has just posted a match report headed “I hate Bolton”.

Since I had come to regard the Hammers as certainties to climb out of trouble, I hate them tonight. This was surely a home banker. How could they do it to us?

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