Posts Tagged ‘Colin Randall’

New look for Sunderland, new look for Salut!

Monday, December 5th, 2011

Salut! Sunderland has news of its own to announce …

It seems somehow fitting that as the appointment of Martin O’Neill ushers in what we hope will be a successful new era for Sunderland AFC, Salut! Sunderland should also present its new face to the world. It should, with a little luck, make its blushing debut tomorrow (Tuesday Dec 6).

As a reader of newspapers since childhood, and as someone who has written for them for far too long (without ever once thinking of hacking anyone’s phone or bribing a cop), I have lost count of the times I have frowned or worse at redesigns.

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Bruce’s Banter silenced, let’s hear it for O’Neill On Us

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011


Welcome Martin O’Neill. The new manager of Sunderland AFC takes charge with an enormous fund of goodwill from, at a guess, the overwhelming majority of supporters. As results continued to disappoint, Steve Bruce’s post-match e-mails became one of the rods with which he was beaten. Bruce’s Banter has been seen here for the last time. We must wait to see whether O’Neill On Us* – look on it as O’Neill’s Onus if you prefer – is as regular a feature …

So, the new managerial reign begins with the briefest of statements from the incoming boss.

“It’s a very nice feeling to be back in football and to be the manager of Sunderland. It’s a big moment for me. I’d heard about what a good club it was but coming here, seeing the stadium and training ground, I’ve been bowled over. It’s absolutely fantastic.

I hope I can help Sunderland to very successful period. That’s what I’ve come for and that’s my driving ambition.”

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Wolves ‘Who are You?’: (2) football’s longest-suffering fan?

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Mick McCarthyImage: Danny Molineux

While we await news that Martin O’Neill is indeed our new manager, get this: Steve Bishop*, founder of the Cannock branch of the Wolverhampton Wanderers Supporters’ Club, has not missed a game for 35 years. Every gloryseeker in the land should stand back and salute, or pity, his astonishing loyalty and stamina. In the second Wolves “Who are You?” features, we get Steve talking about Mick McCarthy, Jody Craddock, trips to Roker and much more (oh and yes, he thought when writing his responses that Steve Bruce would stay …


See also: McCarthy Out, say young supporters …

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Wolves v SAFC: (1) McCarthy Out too, says voice of youth

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

Oliver Graves

The season before last, Salut! Sunderland dedicated a “Who are You?” feature for one of the games against Wolves to David Graves, a great friend and colleague of M Salut’s who died in a diving accident in 2002. Today, in the first of two Wolves “Who are You?”s, David’s sons Oliver and Nathan* – who have kept the Wolfie roar loud and clear in the Graves household – jointly handle the customary pre-match questionnaire, making them the youngest supporters to take part in the series. The questions were set and answered before Steve Bruce’s dismissal but the boys made clear their disenchantment with another manager with SAFC connections …


Tomorrow: the Wolfie who hasn’t missed a game in 35 years …

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Official: Bruce Out – dismissed in Sunderland’s ‘best interests’

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011


So Steve Bruce has gone, fired today as the inevitable casualty of his team’s abject failure to get results to match Sunderland AFC’s spending and the supporters’ reasonable expectations. It is not a great day for SAFC, which remains for now in a mess. Salut! Sunderland finally and reluctantly came off the fence after the Wigan debacle and acknowledged the need for change. We had promised to reserve judgement until the end of November; our deadline, the last of the month’s games, passed without trace or hope of improvement.

Now Ellis Short has taken the required action. Or part of it. We wanted the club to have a replacement ready, not run the risk of a leaderless chasm. That was a tall order and no one appears to be lined up to take charge with immediate effect, unless Short has a trick up his sleeve and it is merely a case of dotting Is and crossing Ts. We’ll be watching and praying …

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Steve Bruce: why change shouldn’t wait for Wolves and Blackburn

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

For most proper supporters of Sunderland, or indeed any other club, the commitment is unconditional. We may be scattered around the world, and the team/s we follow may experience varying fortunes, but we broadly want the same thing, week after week: success at whatever level we happen to be playing.

Younger Sunderland fans have known only the Premier League and upper end of the division below. The codgers have seen the old Third Division for one season and been close enough to another dose. Our allegiance has survived intact, and would do so again in the event of yet another relegation.

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Salut! Sunderland’s makeover: a plea for patience

Sunday, November 27th, 2011

Monsieur Salut




M Salut thanks
the readers of this site for their angry, acerbic, amusing and appreciative comments received in recent days, weeks and months. There may be important SAFC news in the day or days to come and there may not; either way, that will inspire more comment.

But I do need a degree of patience and understanding from you all during the same period.

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The Wigan ‘Who are You?’: (2) better off with Martinez than Bruce

Friday, November 25th, 2011

Bernard Ramsdale (far left), and others, meet the Wigan boss Roberto Martinez

Yesterday, a lot of readers came this way to read a tremendously moving article by our old friend and Wigan Athletic stalwart Bernard Ramsdale on the struggles he and his wife have made, ably backed by an army of professional and lay supporters, to give quality of life to their brain-damaged son. Somehow it seems inconsequential that when our two clubs kick off at the Stadium of Light tomorrow, both teams and arguably at least one manager should be striving for somewhat lesser aims, those of Premier and job survival. Even so, Bernard agreed to answer a slimmed-down version of the “Who are You?” questionnaire …

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Fulham ‘Who are You?’: Sweden to Craven Cottage via Pompey

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

Nick Bylund, left in picture

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.

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Salut!’s week: Newcastle Matty gets his say, Bruce’s rocket

Saturday, November 12th, 2011


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