Last season, we got one. It took a fabulous (for us) miss from Tevez and other wasteful City play to keep us in it, but Darren Bent’s last-gasp penalty brought us a massive win. Just imagine what a similar scoreline tomorrow would mean for morale at the Stadium of Light. It is a big, big ask but here’s to the immense performance needed to pull it off.
Ten years after starting the Manchester City blog Bluemoon as a quick project for a web design course, Ric Turner* is still at it. He loves his club’s new-found success, has no wish to return to underdog days, quite likes Sunderland again now Steve Bruce has gone and predicts a result going to script …
For all Salut! Sunderland knows, Leon Osman is a regular at church, helps old ladies across the road, spends hours daily feeding the homeless and plays Scrabble without even thinking of snatching a sneaky glance at everyone else’s letters.
He also stands accused of being a prize cheat.
Over recent seasons, I may have exhausted the supply of Everton fans willing to answer the “Who are You?” questionnaire in the customary e-mail exchange. Finding a Toffeeman or woman to preview the Boxing Day game was a tough one. In the end, someone at the Toffee Talk website suggested just sticking the questions on there. It is unsatisfactorily anonymous, though I did like the replies on Peter Reid (Avinalaff doesn’t tell us what kind of pounds he needs to lose) and the Man City bags-of-money project …
If you judged QPR by the price on the away ticket – £45, with scant concession for pensioners, for deeply …
No shortage of self-confidence on the Tottenham Hotspur front. Too big a club for Darren Bent and Martin O’Neill, home bankers versus us on Sunday and heading for a third top finish at least two places ahead of Arsenal. That’s as seen by Jamie Currie*, the man behind White Hart Pain site and a regular on Ian Wright’s Absolute Radio programme, Rock ‘N’ Roll Football. He did the honours here two years ago** and we welcome him back – even if he does casually predict a 4-1 outcome …
Mike Delap*, editor of The Wild Blackburn Rover fansite and a Geordie’s son with curiously little time for Newcastle United, is pessimistic about his team’s immediate prospects under the current manager Steve Kean. But he loyally predicts an away win to spoil Martin O’Neill’s day …
While we await news that Martin O’Neill is indeed our new manager, get this: Steve Bishop*, founder of the Cannock branch of the Wolverhampton Wanderers Supporters’ Club, has not missed a game for 35 years. Every gloryseeker in the land should stand back and salute, or pity, his astonishing loyalty and stamina. In the second Wolves “Who are You?” features, we get Steve talking about Mick McCarthy, Jody Craddock, trips to Roker and much more (oh and yes, he thought when writing his responses that Steve Bruce would stay …
The season before last, Salut! Sunderland dedicated a “Who are You?” feature for one of the games against Wolves to David Graves, a great friend and colleague of M Salut’s who died in a diving accident in 2002. Today, in the first of two Wolves “Who are You?”s, David’s sons Oliver and Nathan* – who have kept the Wolfie roar loud and clear in the Graves household – jointly handle the customary pre-match questionnaire, making them the youngest supporters to take part in the series. The questions were set and answered before Steve Bruce’s dismissal but the boys made clear their disenchantment with another manager with SAFC connections …
Tomorrow: the Wolfie who hasn’t missed a game in 35 years …
Yesterday, a lot of readers came this way to read a tremendously moving article by our old friend and Wigan Athletic stalwart Bernard Ramsdale on the struggles he and his wife have made, ably backed by an army of professional and lay supporters, to give quality of life to their brain-damaged son. Somehow it seems inconsequential that when our two clubs kick off at the Stadium of Light tomorrow, both teams and arguably at least one manager should be striving for somewhat lesser aims, those of Premier and job survival. Even so, Bernard agreed to answer a slimmed-down version of the “Who are You?” questionnaire …
Image: Danny Molineux