Mark Freeman

Andy Humble, out in Oz, was among the first to raise it, deploring at Salut! Sunderland the reported comment of Fabio Capello to the effect that Darren Bent had improved his chances of playing for England by moving from Sunderland to Aston Villa.

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When a Mag loves a Mackem ...

A break from meaningful football – Fabio Capello would know what I mean – sets the mind wandering. Mine strayed to Abu Dhabi and two colleagues from my time there who have just tied the knot, producing another mismatch in the history of Mackem/Mag marriages …

It may be Valentine’s Day but no one has ever accused Salut! Sunderland of being an incurable romantic.

We were deeply moved all the same by the story Georgia Lewis told here in April last year about the appalling event that brought a tragic end to her relationship with a Sunderland fan, whom she had met while both were working in Dubai, and the happiness she later managed to find – also in the UAE – with a Mag.

Well, the love story that transcends tribal differences has had its logical conclusion.

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There is unlikely to be appetite for dwelling much longer on the disappointment of three successive defeats in games we led from the early stages and ought, in two cases out of three, to have gone on and won.

So let us delve instead into the Salut! Sunderland archive for another blast of nostalgia.

Sir Tim Rice was the first celebrity follower of Sunderland to be interviewed in my series for what was then 5573 – think of the date of our last FA Cup Final win – and soon afterwards became Wear Down South, newsletter of the London & SE branch of the SAFC Supporters’ Association.

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It may be a taxing time for Harry Redknapp, but Pete Sixsmith sees his Spurs team show Sunderland exactly what you need to be a Champions League team.

T S Eliot (not a renowned football fan) wrote that “April is the cruellest month”. For Sunderland fans, replace April with February and you have a truism if ever there was one.

February sorts out the teams who will and the teams who won’t. Go into March top of the League, be it FA Premier or Northern, and the chances are that you will finish the season there. Ditto at the bottom.

Hit a slump in February and you can wave goodbye to a top six finish – it happened in 2000 with 2 points out of 9 and again in 2001 with a similar return and with an FA Cup exit thrown in.

This year we have played three games in February and have lost all three. We have scored some good goals, played some neat and tidy football – and have defended like Stockport County on a bad day.

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Mrs Logic

Who’d be a defender?   Forwards make mistakes, midfielders make mistakes, but when the defence is at fault, there’s no hiding.  As a former defender, Steve Bruce had comments on our failures at the back that raise some interesting questions …

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Almost every week Pete Sixsmith offers his inimitable seven-word verdict on our games. When, rarely, Pete is absent, a supersub does it for him. The full archive – see link below – encapsulates the matchday experiences, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, of a fan who is usually there …

Feb 12 2011 SAFC (1) 1 Tottenham Hotspur (1) 2 Beaten by side one step above us

Feb 5 2011 Stoke City (1) 3 SAFC (1) 2 Take your pick: Horrible result against a truly horrible team or A refereeing performance that defies reasonable analysis

Feb 1 2011 SAFC (2) 2 Chelsea (2) 4 Cracking game deservedly won by arrogant Blues

Jan 22 2011 Blackpool (0) 1 SAFC (2) 2 Excellent first half but tight at end

Jan 16 2011 SAFC (0) 1 Newcastle United (0) 1 Bacon saved by Gyan but scarcely deserved

Jan 8 2011 FA Cup Third Round: SAFC (0) 1 Notts County (1) 2* No excuse for failing in such fashion 

To see Sixer’s Sevens in full, click here. If an asterisk precedes the comment, the words that follow are the work of someone else because Pete is for once absent from the game or his verdict has been delayed …

Mrs Logic

Spurs fans heading for tonight’s game may like to read this Tottenham preview, but not this piece about transfer speculation. Sunderland fans worried about my headline – will it prove a hostage to fortune? – can be reassured that it refers to a contest already won …

Salut! Sunderland said a couple of weeks ago that it would award a prize to the writer of the best comment posted between then and now.

Monsieur Salut is delighted to announce that we have a winner.

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Monsieur Salut answers a question raised by an eminent SAFC supporter on these pages. See the original debate by clicking on Niall Quinn: love means never having to say ‘I despise you’ ….

Did Niall Quinn really use the word “despise” to describe his feelings towards fans who watch currently illegal live broadcasts down the the pub instead of paying to see the games at the Stadium of Light?

Or, asked Tom Lynn with perfectly good reason, was the word put into his mouth by the SAFC corporate press people?

Now we have the answer, and it’s from the horse’s mouth, as this link provided by BBC Radio Newcastle’s Martin Emmerson shows.

Despise ‘em he does.

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Pete Sixsmith extends a hearty welcome to Spurs, conceited though he feels they may be, and steps down from his Soapbox to enter the Salut! Sunderland confession box and admit to a boyhood infatuation …

Funny club, Spurs. I’m never quite sure how to take them. I’m pleased that they are at Sunderland on Saturday evening, principally because they are not Stoke City and I know we should get a decent game, but they do annoy me at times, with their rather superior attitude and their “Spurs Way” conceit.

I have a confession to make: Spurs were the first football team that I was attracted to. Being brought up in the mean streets of north Leeds, I was a dyed in the wool Leeds RLFC supporter and attended Headingley regularly with father and grandfather until an enforced move to the non RL playing County Durham.

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Elliott Brown

Andy Humble, SAFC-supporting Aussie exile and stalwart of the Blackcats list,, took the words clean out of our mouths after reading Darren Bent’s staggering comment that Fabio Capello had told him his chances of playing for England had improved because of his move from top-seven Sunderland to struggling Villa …

Having heard about this the other day, and just read more about it, I was surprised to see no further comments.

I was at least expecting Jeremy Robson to have passed comment. As no one has mentioned it, I thought I needed to vent my spleen …
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