It’s not that the Premier League fixture list, as published in June, is utterly useless. It just doesn’t have a strong enough relationship with the truth. With scant regard for travelling fans, in some case long-distance travellers needing plenty of notice to obtain the best deals, matchdays are switched at the TV moguls’ whim. Jeremy Robson has a tongue-in-cheek idea for injecting fun into the uncertainty …

Every summer there is mild excitement when next season’s fixtures are announced.

When will we play the Mags, whether it is home or away first? Opening fixture, final fixture and whether we are at home on Boxing Day.
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Well, a competition I feared would be ignored attracted some cracking responses.

How, I asked, do you caption the following photograph? It was taken by Rob, all round good man and inspiration for this little contest (he suggested it, having snapped the hapless, lifeless magpie in his office car park) …

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The blurb that comes with the clip explains that is a competition in which contestants dream up their ultimate World Cup 2010 football-watching experiences.

The prize is a Visa Fixer, ie a card with £20,000 credit that you don’t have to pay back, to turn the dream into reality. Seven winners will be chosen by Visa will for each of England’s group matches against USA (so you havre to be quick), Algeria and Slovenia, and then for one game in each round leading to the July 11 final.

The film features Chris Kamara, ex-manager of Stoke City as well as Bradford City, and something of a calamitously cult figure on TV, radio and the internet, plus Jeff Stelling from Sky Sports. Hartlepool’s best-known fan since Peter Mandelson was able to stop pretending to be one.

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David Jaymes, who occasionally sends information in my direction for use at Salut! Sunderland’s folk and roots music offshoot, Salut! Live, may well be unaware that Ready To Go and Republica – whom he manages (he is not, as I suggested when first posting, their publicist) – are inseparable from the recent history of Sunderland.
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Our boys, Paraguay, had an off night in their friendly with Ireland, beaten 2-0 with Sunderland’s signing Cristian Riveros showing few encouraging signs but lots of misplaced passes according to Salut! Sunderland scouts. It can only get better. But in the meantime, maybe you will need cheering up …

Nike is behind Write the Future, a film – click here if there is a problem with the clip above – assembling some of the world’s top players “on a journey that dramatically captures that one moment when headlines are written – from a single pass or one strike that brings a nation eternal happiness, while bringing others to their knees”.

The Hollywood director and producer Alejandro G Iñarritu’s short film features Cristiano Ronaldo, Darren Williams, Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Fabio Cannavaro, Franck Ribery, Andres Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Patrice Evra, Gerard Pique, Ronaldinho, Landon Donovan, Tim Howard and Thiago Silva. Late news: Darren couldn’t make it after all.

I am posting it unseen while on the road near the French-Italian border, because I’ve heard good reports about it from other sources. Let me know if they were right.

Colin Randall

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It was a weekend for champions: the Champions’ League final, the Championship playoff final, a fitting finale for southern-based Sunderland supporters who won their own league – and even some reflected glory for Salut! Sunderland …

Chelsea’s Florent Malouda popped up on the French TV news yesterday, beaming as he rejoined Raymond Domenech’s Wolrd Cup squad at their training camp in the Alps – are we expecting snow in South Africa? – after a quick return to London for the birth of his fourth child.
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If Pete Sixsmith can swan off to Scotland in his traditional FA Cup Final avoidance mode, I can be allowed to indulge my passing interest in French football. Can’t really speak for the Queen, though …

… un grand bienvenue aux supporters de Marseille en provenance du site OM Planete

Well, we should own up that we can only guess the emotions of the English monarch as OM step out tonight to celebrate their first Ligue 1 title for 18 years in what should be party style, top versus bottom with poor, relegated, 20th placed Grenoble as lambs for the slaughter.

Of course, there could be a shock away win. But Marseille have the championship and while Salut! Sunderland has no idea of the travel plans of Lorik Cana and Bolo Zenden this weekend, we couldn’t be remotely surprised to hear they at least considered a trip to the stade Vélodrome for old time’s sake.
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Top versus bottom. The super-rich and the paupers. Worlds apart, the Two Blues of this weekend’s FA Cup Final, Chelsea and Portsmouth, will surely produce a game that remains true to form and shows that the faded old competition isn’t really a great leveller after all. Colin Randall gets Salut! Sunderland’s Wembley build-up underway but return on Thursday and Friday for the fans’ views …

The Two Blues, if you grew up in the County Durham of which Sunderland was part, were Bishop Auckland.

They were the kings of amateur football and there was a time, when they had the ultimate showman goalkeeper in Harry Sharratt and such stalwarts as Bob Hardisty and Derek Lewin, that it seemed they were hardly ever away from Wembley.
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Nathalie, as I have said before, has failed me as a daughter.

Knowing full well, Fulwell even, how important Sunderland are in my life, she only went and chose to support Liverpool. Something to do with fancying John Barnes, I always reckoned.
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It has become almost the stock phrase of every fan who doesn’t support Chelsea. Whatever they think or thought of Manchester United or anyone else, they especially hate Chelsea.

In truth, the attitude predates the moneyed years of Roman Abramovich, whose £7.4 billion fortune puts him in second place (ie after Lakshmi Mittal) among the wealthiest characters in Britain. There was always a feeling that despite its fashionable name and location, there was something spivvy about the club. Going to the Bridge was almost always an unpleasant experience.

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