Which current Spurs players would have been fit to play in a Bill Nicholson side? Come back tomorrow – or just click this link – for Part Two …

Salut! Sunderland: Well placed at fourth: you must be pretty pleased with the way things are going.

Bernie: It’s been a good season but there’s a way to go yet. We Tottenham fans can always see trouble around the corner and the Evening Standard columnist and Spurs fan Matthew Norman summed it up last week by quoting from Michael Frayn’s Clockwise: it’s not the despair that does for you, it’s the hope. That said, we have done well and we are hopeful that it might all, for a change, go right …

David
Pleased, but not that pleased. I would feel an awful lot happier if we didn’t have Chelsea, Man U and Arsenal in successive games. Not the easiest run-in to the end of the season. At least, though, Harry has brought back much of the attacking flair Spurs have long been renowned for. Pity about the return of the defensive frailties that Spurs have also been long renowned for.

Most neutrals and all Sunderland fans considered us unlucky at White Hart Lane. But our recent mini-revival came to a thumping end at Anfield, so you presumably fancy the double.

Bernie: Continuing my theme, one is always nervous of games like this, especially going into it as we do having won five in a row. But with the three EPL games that follow being against the top three, we HAVE to win.

David:Sunderland has not been a happy hunting ground for us in recent years, so I’m never confident. The home game against your lot was one of the most dire I have seen at the Lane this season – we looked ragged in defence and that was at a time when we had some central defenders who were fit. Were I a betting man, I’d put money on a draw.

Spurs, once massive of course, have been in Arsenal’s shadow for many years. Given the intensity of North London rivalry, how hard has that been – and are you on the point of emerging from it?

Bernie: What’s with the “once massive”? We don’t like their shadow, but we’re used to it. Though we’ve won more trophies than them in the last five years and I reckon we’ve got a better chance of winning something than they have this season too. I’d really rather not talk about them.

David:
Not yet we’re not. Buy maybe next season – my perennial prayer since the 60-61 season. With the likes of Bale, Huddlestone, Modric, Lennon (if he’s fit), Palacios (if he stays) and the just-signed Sandro, we should have the nucleus of a team capable of matching anyone. As for Arsenal…let’s just say that I’m still hopeful of their moving back to their true home in Woolwich.

Can we take any comfort from Defoe’s absence (except that at least Craig Gordon will stand a better chance of not being badly injured!)?

Bernie: JD could be fit, though I think Redknapp might keep him on the bench at the start. But with 17 different scorers this season and Pav bang in form no, you can’t.

David:

The only comfort you can take from it is that it means Crouch will be on the field. Oh God…

What are your own greatest – and worst – memories of supporting Spurs?

Bernie: How long have you got? A Thursday night at Wembley in 1981 when some bloke called Villa bagged a pair is arguably still the greatest of all, though St Hotspur day 10 years later (Gazza beating the Arse in the semi-final), the penalty shoot out in the UEFA Cup final, beating Chelsea in the CCF two years ago, a UEFA Cup semi-final against AC Milan (Steve Perryman scored two crackers in a 2-1 win) all run it close … and maybe the best is yet to come. Worst? Losing 8-2 at Derby and 5-0 at Man City in our relegation season, or 2-1 at Bolton and 5-3 at home to Derby in extra time FA Cup replays, or some real humiliations in the 3rd round in the last decade or two. Plus of course various defeats by the Woolwich Nomads.

David:
Well, the 9-1 win against Wigan this season wasn’t bad. But my best memories must be in the early sixties when the likes of Blanchflower, John White and Cliff Jones were weaving their magic. The worst memory? Apart from every season since then, probably the stunning goal that Ricky Villa scored in the 1981 Cup Final. Why? Because I was at the other end of Wembley and had forgotten my glasses so I didn’t see any of it.

Name this season’s top four in order, and the bottom three.

Bernie: Chelsea, Man U, them, us. Portsmouth, obviously, Burnley and Hull, though I’d rather West Ham replaced one of those two

David:
Chelsea, Manchester Utd, Arsenal, Spurs (even though, in my heart of hearts, I don’t really believe it and fear that a Torres-led Liverpool might still do it). Going down – West Ham, Burnley and poor old Portsmouth.

* Bernie Kingsley on Bernie Kingsley: former co-producer of the currently inactive site Cock-a-Doodle-Doo, co-founder of TISA 20 years ago, present chairman of the Tottenham Supporters Trust, regular scourge of successive THFC chairmen! (Though I now get on OK with Daniel Levy.) Professionally I’m head of HR for a major property group (we own the Metro Centre among other things). I’ve been a regular at WHL for 43 years, now a season ticket holder in the North Stand Upper, been to every cup final and semi-final since 1971, missed about three north London derbies home or away in the same time and I regularly wonder why I do it.

** David Sapsted has worked for Yorkshire Post, The Times, Sunday Express, The Daily Telegraph and even Spitting Image during his journalistic and writing career. He is currently UK correspondent for The National, Abu Dhabi and is a lifelong Spurs fan.

Colin Randall

In the second part of our look at Colin Irwin’s visit to the Stadium of Light – in the depths of the 2005/2006 relegation season – for Sing When You’re Winning, his book on journeys into the “soul of soccer” (good alliteration, but he meant football), we hear a potted history of our club’s ups and more plentiful downs …

Sunderland were actually founded in Glasgow by an Ayrshire man, James Allan, in 1879 and their current travails are nothing new in the long and winding road that’s brought them to the Stadium of Light.

One of the giants of the early years, they hit the rocks after the Second World War. Blighted by an illegal payments scandal, they slithtered down the league and in 1958 were relegated from the top flight for the first time in their history.

They restored some pride, of course, in 1973, with one of the most startling FA Cup finals ever.
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No, we’re not having a go at the geographical disposition of United’s support, or trying to wind up the occasionally oafish Gary Neville or his professionally grumpy (and phenomenally succesful) manager. We’re actually sympathising with the club’s travelling fans …

Being refused permission to stand up at football is not something that should, in all honesty, bother me.

When the chant goes up to “Stand up if you … ” love or hate this or that, him or them, and is most commonly followed by “hate the Mags”, my heart is with the rival group that responds with “Sit doon if you hate the Toon”.

But there are times, even after rather too many decades of watching the game, when I am moved to rise to my feet because something is happening on the field to bring hope, fear or excitement – or maybe just because I need to be high enough above fans ahead of me to be able to see at all.
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The two questions I asked myself on the long journey home were simple ones. How good were Liverpool? How poor were we?

Answers: very and pretty.
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The mini-run is over, for now. Maybe we did get carried away with a couple of wins and a few draws. Liverpool not only brought us down to earth with that thud. They hammered us …

This was not a good weekend to come up against top four sides in decent form, as Villa, Bolton and Pompey discovered yesterday and we had rammed home to us today.
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During years of exile from the North East, Malcolm Dawson has developed, along with a duty to watch Sunderland at every opportunity, a fondness for games involving non-league visitors from the region. No Sunderland yesterday, for today’s obvious reason, but Whitley Bay were within striking distance …

My flirtation with this season’s FA Vase began with a trip to Gresley to see the South Derbyshire side’s clash with Spennymoor.

Then a trip to Roker Park, Stotfold to watch Shildon, at the behest of Salut! Sunderland‘s Mr Sixsmith appealed as much as the thought of forking out over forty quid to see us tonked by Chelsea didn’t.
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Colin Irwin is best known as a music writer, with a passion he shares with Salut! Sunderland, folk music. But in 2006, he brought out a smashing book, Sing When You’re Winning, based on travels into the heartlands of football. They were grim times when his odyssey reached Sunderland. We were on our way down and visiting the Stadium of Light brought to mind “an official observation of the last rites”. It’s a treat to see how well he managed to make it sound the great place it is …

I can’t think ill of Sunderland, who are the only Premiership club to respond to my plea for information, encouragement, tickets and dusky handmaidens when I am researching this book. They return phone calls, e-mails and cinvivial banter and furnish me with a press pass for their local derby with Middlesbrough.

The days of Roker Park are long gone since Sunderland moved into this gorgeous space age stadium on the outskirts of town, so close to the Wear that you fear it may topple in and get us all wet.
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Are we getting carried away? I have rarely known Sunderland fans in such upbeat spirits ahead of what is, on paper, a really tough game. Ian Lynch*, our latest guest writer, is another Mackem who believes we can claim at least a point yesterday. Let us hope our gutsy display the other night is not placed in perspective by this scoreline: Chelsea 7 Aston Villa 1 (at least we managed two consolation at the Bridge).
Ian belongs to the Blackcats e-mail loop but does not post often – annually, on his own calculations. But this amusing and predominantly optimistic State of the Team assessment cried out for a wider audience …

At the moment, it seems clear that we have the makings of a first XI for next season that has a world-class keeper, experience and strength at the back, pace and invention in midfield and goals up front.

All we need is a left back who can attack as well as defend. And for our young midfielders to get better, not worse. That would be nice.

Consider the evidence:
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It’s not exactly that Luke Harvey‘s heart is torn by two footballing passions – Sunderland, of course (otherwise he probably wouldn’t be here), and Carlisle, his home town. He is red-and-white daft, but feels a sense of local duty and will tomorrow be trying his best to urge on both his teams – one in person, the other in spirit – to famous victories …

If the four unbeaten home games in a row, where we – Sunderland – finally snapped our no-win streak, wasn’t the turning corner, then surely a point at Villa Park was. The question is whether we can now move on from that encouraging display to show sufficient strength and quality to get something out of the visit to Anfield tomorrow.

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Our Liverpool guests, Peter Hooton, rock singer and leading light in the Spirit of Shankly union, and Neil Jones, a Reds-supporting football writer, have dealt with some of the on-the-field issues affecting their club, who began the season hoping for the title but now have to settle for being just one of a cluster of clubs vying for fourth place. But let’s stop the pussyfooting: what do the fans really think of the owners? What, come to that, do they think about the lad who threw the beachball, whether cheating is OK provided it delivers the title and who will win Sunday’s match against Sunderland? And what do we think of Peter’s band, The Farm?* …

Salut! Sunderland:
Your club has an immense history, with triumph and tragedy, glory and disappointment, but what would Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley have made of the current owners and their impact on LFC?

Peter (SOS):
I think they would be horrified at what is happening. One of Bill Shankly’s most famous quotes is ‘At a football club there is a holy trinity- the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques.’ The problem with these cowboys is that they have run out of cheques; in fact they never had any in the first place!

Neil:It’s the million dollar question I suppose, I’m sure Shankly in particular would have plenty to say. He was a man who despised any interference from above, so he would not take kindly to some of the stunts pulled by the current owners. I’m sure he would be very much behind the supporters’ union which bears his name.

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