OK Father Christmas, père Noël, Papá Noel, 英国、法国的圣诞老人, Άγιος Βασίλης – this completes Salut! Sunderland’s Christmas wishlist. We’ll leave your usual bottle of beer and cigar by the Christmas tree …

R is for Roker Park. We wake from the dream to find ourselves back on/in the (much modernised) Fulwell, Clock Stand Paddock, Roker End, wherever it was we used to stand (or, for those who already did in those days, sit). The Stadium of Light’s great and all that, but can you actually fall in love with the East Stand?
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For the second part of our letter to Santa, we name a few more of the things we’d like to see over the coming months. Come up with the best or funniest alternative wish for any letter – as judged by Salut! Sunderland – and we’ll send a tenner (up to one prize for each of the three parts of the series) ….

J is for Joan’s cafe, named as the venue for a Jedward concert after the nearby Stadium of Light is judged too big considering the likely turnout. Tickets narrowly fail to sell out.

K is for Roy Keane, who leaves Ipswich “by mutual consent” in May as relegation confirmed. When Grant Leadbitter and Carlos Edwards send text messages in commiseration, Keano replies saying: “I refer you both to what I told Dwight Yorke when he sent a similar SMS after I left Sunderland.”
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