England play Ukraine on Saturday, depriving us of a Premier match to worry about or, in our mood of new-found optimism, one to look forward to with relish.

******

Darren Bent did not make the squad. But is Colin Randall alone in saying he couldn’t care less about internationals and that Bent’s inclusion would not have increased his appetite to any great extent? He is not. Some Salut! Sunderland readers are familiar with this expansion of his reasons for placing passion for Sunderland miles ahead of anything felt about the national side. But for our many new readers, here is the first part of a chapter written for A Love Supreme’s book More 24 Hour SAFC People (our share of the proceeds were donated to charity) . If anyone feels like getting stuck into a debate, we’ll come up with a prize for the best entry …

Looking back, it was as golden an opportunity as Daniel Dichio’s sitter in the Wembley playoff final against Charlton, or indeed the chance of his at Upton Park that would, if converted, have put us top of the Premiership. And I missed mine just as glaringly as Danny had missed his.

In one of the love letters that passed between us long ago, Joelle, then my wife-to-be, wrote that she could think of only one fault in me that she would change. I smoked too much. She might have added others: permanently broke, holes in my socks and underpants, coming from Shildon, being lousy at her native language, French. She has certainly added plenty since and while the French has improved, there isn’t much I can do about coming from Shildon. But back then, it was the fags that concerned her. If only I would cut down, she wrote to me from Le Mans, her home town, she would in return do anything I asked of her.

Talk about open goals. There it was, my cue to secure a lifetime of pass-outs to watch Sunderland !
(more…)

Moving home is said to be among life’s most stressful activities. Colin Randall has moved seven times in five years and knows all about it. Now he’s moved a football fan site (Salut! Sunderland), so knows that even an electronic change of address isn’t without its moments of tension …

Slowly but – just about – surely, Salut! Sunderland has completed, with enormous help from Sam and his colleagues at Football United, its housemoving exercise, shifting the site and its whopping archive from Typepad to WordPress.

The result of this move, and a rare bit of self-promotion, has sent readership levels to heights known only during the week we stayed up and Newcastle United went down (save for the odd deluge when the Who Are They? feature attracts the fans of other clubs, notably Pompey, West Ham and Nottingham Forest).

We hope you have found and will continue to find items here that interest or amuse you, or provoke thoughts of your own. Football thrives on controversy and Salut! Sunderland is happy to stick its neck out from time to time, usually though not always on topics of at least indirect interest to Sunderland supporters.

One example: this coming week being football-free, as in being merely an international break, I will give another airing to my Club vs Country reflections (subtitled “an easy home win”).

The move has not been completed without hitches. Not all images seem to have accompanied the text on its way over from Typepad (click on the Denise Robertson item in the Salut! Smiles feature and you will probably see what I mean). Some files may have been corrupted – one of my rants against Laurent Blanc appeared in much shortened
form until I spotted it. Our Soccerlinks football site ranking has slipped from a high of something like 65th to its recent, pitiful 261nd – though that is only because it has been recording only visits to the old site, which means virtually none at all, since the move was completed. At least qe are climbing again …

In addition, we are a long way from restoring all the sidebar links to other sites, and to our Amazon bookshelf, which some will remember from the original Salut! Sunderland.

All will be accomplished as time permits. It goes without saying that we will pay careful attention to any suggestions or comments concerning the site.

Your patience during the move has been appreciated, and we will do our best to live up to our new slogan: Premier League writing for a Premier League club. But bear in mind that lofty (cl)aim does not imply any guarantee against the typos, mistaken assumptions and blind faith that are the staples of any self-respecting football site.