When Saturday Comes

Sheffield United Who are You?: The Full Monty, Ched Evans, miners’ strikes

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Dave Eyre: the Blade who lifted the Champions League trophy**

 

On a train somewhere during a long trip to the United States, our Sheffield United interviewee Dave Eyre* will try to find wifi access to events at the Stadium of Light. He predicts an uneventful season for both clubs, a win on Saturday for the Blades. United are an interesting club and Dave, an academic and folk music broadcaster, is an interesting man. These are fascinating and thought-provoking responses to the Salut! Sunderland questions though we can surely quarrel with his assertion that the United-Wednesday rivalry is more intense than Sunderland-Newcastle …

Salut! Sunderland:  So how will Sheffield United do on their return to the second tier and can they ever return to the top?

Dave Eyre: I expect this year to be one of consolidation. It’s taken a while – six years – to get back into this division. Looking at the money being spent by some clubs we will not be competing via the transfer stakes and buying our way further up. But we have a great academy with some superb prospects and if Huddersfield can do it why not? We have a history as a First Division/Premiership club; brilliant facilities ready for the Premier League; and the first ever goal scored in the Premier League was at Bramall Lane – Brian Deane against Manchester United. We won 2-1.

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Haway! It’s awards time again with Bournemouth, Middlesbrough, Swansea making early running

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Jake: ‘with thanks to all opposing fans who participate’

Monsieur Salut introduces our annual HAWAY awards, with thanks to the supporters of all clubs played by Sunderland in league and cup this season who contributed to the series …

Cinema does it with Oscars, BAFTAs, Cannes and the rest. Pop has the Brits and Grammys. Salut! Sunderland brings you the HAWAYS, honouring the best interviews with opposing fans – the Highly Articulate Who are You? awards.

We are delighted once again to have a trio of generous sponsors. The rough-and-ready shortlist is with judges but I shall extend the process this year to allow a popular vote, using the same criteria including the fact that my suggestions are intended as no more than a guide.

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Wickham’s ‘£13 million’, Salut! Sunderland’s one million

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WSC: sponsors of the Who are You? awards


Nothing official on Connor Wickham, but today’s developments and eyebrow-raising estimates of £!3m as the size of our bid suggest genuine manoeuvres even if the lad still fancies that Anfield bench (read the footnote*), so first let us deal with a smaller number of millions …

If you scroll far enough down the left-hand sidebar, past all the links to other items at Salut! Sunderland or its sister sites, you reach – as I start writing this article – the figure of 995,769. In fact, for reasons unknown to me, you also see 995,770 just above it.

In other words, we are within a few days of hitting the million mark.

Now I am sure there are loads – millions? – of websites that attract a million visitors a minute, if not a trillion hits a second. Even so, it seems a milestone worth crowing about a little.

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When Saturday Comes, so do some ‘virtual gongs’

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When it comes to awards and honours, Salut! Sunderland has been happy to stick to the back seat.

That is usually becasue no one nominates us, or we hear about invitations for entries too late to give it a bash.

But we get kind words here, as well as the brickbats, and this encourages those of us who fill the site’s pages to believe we occasionally get something right.

Now comes modest confirmation from outsiders, in the shape of the excellent people at When Saturday Comes, well-known for its self-description as a “half decent” football magazine.

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A winner from West Brom – plus a Bent/Gyan competition

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Image: Mrs Logic
The boss has taken to the hills. I have abandoned computer screens and the Med for a long weekend in the Alps.

There may or may not be any new postings in my absence. Rather depends on whether Pete Sixsmith or any of the other regular or occasional contributors writes anything – and whether Joan Dawson finds time to make them appear here.

Sixer is embarking on a quick course on how to post articles for himself but threatens to be a slow learner, so don’t hold your breath just yet.

So how about a spot of fun just before anything nasty happens at Wigan to spoil all the excitement of the past few days?

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Salut!’s Nice corner: Eric Roy 4 Jean-Louis Triaud 0

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This old clip, starting with Eric Roy waltzing through the Chelsea defence to set up Niall Quinn’s first goal in that 4-1 hammering of too long ago, seemed as good a way as any of illustrating a quick look at events in French football over the weekend.

The team Eric now manages, Nice, who therefore qualify for Salut! Sunderland support in the way Paraguay and Ghana did in the World Cup. came back from the long trip to Brittany with three points after an excellent 2-1 win over Lorient. Loïc Remy, for whom each game is described as probably his last for Nice (Marseille have joined the clubs wanting him but Spurs look favourites) got the winner.

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