Football’s back; we play Fulham on Saturday and urgently need a win. They need one, too. And where would you go to find the co-founder of the fan site that claims to be Fulham’s biggest? You guessed it: an island in the Baltic Sea. Nick Bylund* helped to create www.hammyend.com. He is also chairman of the Swedish branch of the Fulham supporters’ association. And he turns out to have deep knowledge of his adopted club, qualified admiration for al Fayed, tainted affection for Steeeeeeeeed and, well, lots more to say for himself … he predicts another draw

Salut! Sunderland: Fulham and Sunderland find themselves at the wrong end of the table. Is it too early for either club to worry or is this an indication of a tough second half of the season to come?

I personally think it is way too early to worry, at least for Fulham. My insight and knowledge about the Mackems this season is too limited to really pass any judgment. As for Fulham we have a quite small, but very vocal group that I like to refer to as the “anti-Jol-brigade”, but most of us see improvements under Jol and are willing to give him quite a lot of time still.

We’ve played well in many games, were we have deserved a lot more than we got from them. The second half’s versus Everton, Man C and Spurs were all fantastic and we played them off the pitch. Still, we only got one point from those three games so it is quite worrying that we can play so well, create so many chances but still fail to score.

In conclusion, I think we’ll turn this around sooner rather than later.

(more…)

Salut! Sunderland always takes pleasure in drawing readers’ attention to other corners of the web where the passion for matters Sunderland can be fuelled.

Some will recall the fascinating Mackem Diaspora series – click here if you missed it – in which Sunderland supporters scattered around the world, from all part of the British Isles to far-off places, gave their potted life stories.

One of those who contributed was Gerry McGregor, who lives as far north as it is possible to go on the UK mainland without falling into the sea.

(more…)

Another review of the week has Salut! Sunderland looking back over the past few days – and, for ruby-tinted reasons, a little bit forward, too …

This, my friends, is how the young and trendy of the North East dressed and did their hair back in 1971. Or not, as the case may be.

Trendy or not, it is how the Anglo-French couple who were soon to become Mr and Madame Randall looked when the Stanley News and Northern Echo sent a photographer (just one: both papers belonged to the same company) to get some pictures. I think they were taken in Lanchester.

The wedding was on November 16 1971, in the city of Le Mans where Stéphane Sessegnon played for a couple of years, which means that the ruby anniversary is looming. So we’re off to Bali to mark the occasion; it is for you to guess whether this is being done on the proceeds of the millions of Salut! mugs sold.

What this means is that for the next fortnight, until just before the Wigan game, M Salut will have little or no access to the site. These things are beyond Pete Sixsmith so Joan Dawson will handle what needs to be done as best she can and I have excellent “Who are You?” interviews (actually, one of them is an article in its own right, and a very special one) already in the bag and ready for use before the forthcoming two games.

Now, we should look back over the past week.

Starting with the most recent, the aforementioned Sixer had some fun – click here to see it - with the fuss being made about the St James’ Park name change. It brought in large numbers of Newcastle supporters, whose mischievous reminders of our respective positions in the Premier wiped the odd smile from face.

Only one of the Mags wishing to post comments, someone going by the name of Matty, tried the foul-mouthed approach before realising this really isn’t that kind of site. He made two further attempts and both were free of abuse; they were also very similar, suggesting he desperately wants us to hear his view so here it is:

Mags 15pts up on the mackems u thought this would of been a bigger talking point ???

The week had begun with lots of Sunderland supporters reflecting on the defeat at Manchester United. Ian Porter’s Defeat not the whitewash I feared was a very fair appraisal and this was followed by Sixer’s own analysis in which he also mocked the dynamics of penalty calls at Old Trafford.

This all prompted Ken Gambles to cast his mind back to some of the refereeing howlers – the reversal of the penalty decision last week was, of course, 100 per cent correct – that have tormented us in the past. Read it here and you’ll probably think, as I did, of those he missed out.

M Salut found a Ghanaian website’s interview with Asamoah Gyan which got very close to an admission that he moved for the money. No great surprise there, but to have it – nearly – in the horse’s mouth was a departure from the usual nonsense about these things always being done for footballing reasons. Click here for the full article.

To Birflatt Boy, it had clearly seemed an age since anyone had demanded Steve Bruce’s head on the executioner’s block. A silence he shattered into a thousand pieces with a strident rebuttal of the Postivos’ case. It drew the usual heavy postbag, as you can see by clicking here.

Pete Sixsmith took an affectionate look at the lives of Jimmy Adamson and Florian Albert, recently departed.

There was more, notably Sixer’s Sevens and Bruce’s Banter.

But now it’s time to go. Please let us be three points better off by the time I get back.

Colin Randall

War clouds may not yet be gathering in Europe, but the financial system nears meltdown. Crisis is everywhere. Recession bites deeper. Tom Watson calls Murdoch junior a mafia godfather. People starve in Africa. And which of these is the hot news in the North East? Pete Sixsmith is up on his Soapbox to fulminate …

Well, I woke up this morning and I found that the world had not come to an end.

Outside the gates of Sixsmith Towers, people made their way to work, Arriva buses ran late and the cat demanded to be fed every 40 minutes.

(more…)

Pete Sixsmith uses Sixer’s Soapbox to deliver warm eulogies to two great characters of the game who have died in the past week or so …

The death of Jimmy Adamson at the ripe old age of 82, makes me think, with some fondness, of the days when managers were not subject to the intense scrutiny that the likes of myself, Birflatt Boy, M Salut and many others put them under. How many current managers would have survived Adamson’s first months at the club?

For those too young to know or too forgetful to recall, he was appointed in December 1976, with the club in 21st position in the old First Division.

(more…)

Originally used here to deplore the anti-Steve Bruce sentiments expressed at Salut! Sunderland, while overlooking the strong voices raised in his defence, cauldron of negativity is a phrase that has stuck. The shadier and shadier Birflatt Boy, a fully paid-up member of the “Negativos”, invokes the debuts of Led Zeppelin and long-forgotten German urban terrorists in support of an assault on the loose band of “Positivos” and fencesitters, M Salut among them, holding out with varying degrees of conviction against dismissal …

Over the past four decades it would be hard to find a time when Sunderland’s support has been so sharply divided into two distinct camps.

(more…)

If, like me, you’re drawn to the headline “Gyan admits: I left Sunderland for the cash!”, you’ll be dusting down the fitting, if innumerate, chant “There’s only one greedy b******”.

Then you’ll scour the article, at Ghanaweb.com, for the killer quote. “I did it for money.” “I left to make myself richer.” “Stuff Sunderland; gimme more money and I’m anyone’s.”

(more…)

M Salut’a brother is a rugby ref, having previously played at a decent club level. You may think he therefore knows all about the selective indignation of supporters. It didn’t stop him joining in the “don’t know what you’re doing” chant at one grim London game when Sudnerland were on the receiving end of diabolical refereeing calls. Without the least mention of Steve Tanner (Gordon saves, goal given at Reading); Graham Barber (the McAllister dive) or Paul Danson (sending off Paul Stewart for being fouled at Arsenal), Ken Gambles works himself into a rage over past injustices …

Another Saturday another set of controversial decisions. Let me make clear at the outset that to be a referee is a highly demanding task and being a human one will obviously be prone to error.

(more…)

On one level it doesn’t matter, indeed it is entirely correct, that no rules were changed to enable Sunderland to win a penalty for handling the ball. But if another level exists, you can trust Pete Sixsmith to find it before lauding a giant of football …

Let’s imagine the conversation between the referee Lee Mason and his assistant Jake Collin round about 4.30 on Saturday.

Collin has put his flag across his chest to indicate a penalty for Sunderland.

(more…)

As he tends to do after every game, Ian Porter from the Blackcats list has come up with an astute summary of the positives and negatives of yesterday’s 1-0 defeat …

Tomorrow: Pete Sixsmith’s Old Trafford verdict …

Well, this wasn’t the total whitewash I was anticipating.

It was what I’d hoped for though, which was to give a good account of ourselves. I don’t think we were playing ManUre at their best, but that shouldn’t detract from what was a very good team performance.

We were on the defensive for long periods, but we closed down well and Westwood wasn’t troubled that often. Equally though, we created a couple of chances ourselves to score.

Westwood pulled off the nearest I’ve seen since Monty’s save in ’73. I was really pleased by Westwood’s performance. I think the writing’s on the wall for Craig Gordon, but I think if he isn’t offered a new deal in January, he can leave on a free ? TBH, I think whatever he’s offered, he’ll turn it down and leave anyway, so we’ll lose out on a couple of million I guess.

(more…)