Posts Tagged ‘Newcastle United’

Sixer’s Soapbox: Beating the Mags, a rare but pleasurable occurrence

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

OK, it was only a reserve game, but it’s always nice to rub their noses in the dirt, and it’s even better when a Sun’lan’ lad rattles in an eight minute hat trick. Our man at the Stadium of Light was Pete Sixsmith, taking in his second reserve game of the day. He was wearing his new anorak.

A cold night at the unsponsored, unsullied Stadium of Light, but the cockles of the heart were warmed by Ryan Noble’s hat trick to see off a previously unbeaten Mags second string. Premier Reserve League it may be, but after our recent dismal run against the representatives of The Great Satan, it’s good to put them in their place.

He scored them in eight minutes as well. The first one was a strong shot which Jak Alnwick, brother of wannabe porn star Ben, should have saved. For the second, he picked up a rebound from the keeper who had failed to hold a strong Jordan Cook shot, but the third was an absolute cracker.

The impressive James McClean played in Michael Liddle with a very clever back heel and his through ball set Noble loose in the box and he crashed it past Alnwick to earn a standing ovation.

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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

A Soapbox sermon to Newcastle supporters: what’s in a name?

Friday, November 11th, 2011


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.

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The collapse of Manchester United: Man City today, us soon?

Sunday, October 23rd, 2011


Were Newcastle United the last team to go down as heavily at home as Manchester United did today and still win the title?

Well that was in 1908, when we hammered the Mags even more comprehensively – 9-1 – at St James’ Park and they just shrugged it off to finish top anyway.

Things have changed in football. Surely after today’s mauling by Man City, 6-1 (going on 9-1 from what I saw of the procession of City chances following Jonny Evans’s correct sending off), United’s odds on keeping the Premier title will lengthen a bit. Probably already have.
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Salut!’s week: a Chelsea build-up and a Newcastle putdown

Saturday, September 10th, 2011


Another of those retrospective looks, for the reader in a hurry, at what has been served up in recent days …

Breaks for internationals act a little like “slow down” signals for Salut! Sunderland.

Occasional contributors do not think of tossing anything our way. M Salut was away in Rome in any case, for a long weekend devoid of football unless you count a look round the Colisseum, a model – in terms of the building rather than original purpose – for the stadiums of today.

And for once, not even Pete Sixsmith could be trusted to return from some non-league backwater with flashes of entertaining prose. It remains to be seen whether he chooses to write about his own trip, a few days in Antwerp.

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Tyne twaddle: thin slices of Sunderland life through Newcastle eyes

Friday, September 9th, 2011

… in which an intrepid Geordie penetrates the iron defences surrounding Sunderland and presents a brave account of life behind enemy lines. And he manages it all without seeing more than the Bridges centre, a pub and a bit of the museum …

Although he supports Newcastle United, Dave Eadevic may well be a decent lad, hard-working, loyal, good company over a pint, bright even. But he also fancies himself as a writer and I am not, if truth be told, looking forward to his first book.

If you are going to compose an epic article with the title Fear and Loathing in Sunderland, and make it stretch over two parts, you really do need to have something to say, even if the forum is no more than a Toon blog, Tyne Talk.

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After Newcastle & Brighton, will Swansea improve on a week to forget?

Saturday, August 27th, 2011

This is the latest edition of Salut! Sunderland’s Week. Pete Sixsmith has worked his not inconsiderable backside off for us in the past seven days. Some of you clearly think he deserves some beer money; he’ll get some, once we’ve recorded our first win of the season, from the proceeds of the mugs and pens already ordered. If you feel like buying something, go to the Salut! Sunderland Shop now …

Most of us have known worse weeks to be a Sunderland supporter. Come to think of it, one 5-1 tonking at St James’ Park was much, much worse than a 1-0 defeat at home followed by our customary exit from as early a stage of the Carling Cup as we can manage.

But it has still been bad. We all know that only a win at Swansea today will restore the faith of lots of those now disaffected with Steve Bruce – and that plenty will remain disaffected even if we are three points better off by 5pm. We also know many SAFC supporters, long suffering or short, are some way short of confident that we can actually record our first win of the season. We shall see.

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Brighton v SAFC: disillusion and faith after the Newcastle letdown

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011


Don’t want anyone else to feel worse but I just read this, from the BBC report of Man Utd 3 Spurs 0, with heavy heart: “With England coach Fabio Capello an interested observer, Danny Welbeck headed in Tom Cleverley’s cross just after the hour and the young striker then produced a wonderful instinctive flick to set up a second for Anderson” …

Passion comes in different forms, even among Sunderland supporters.

For the majority, maybe the vast majority, losing to Newcastle United- above all at home – is as bad as it gets. I loathe it, too, but it does not plunge me into quite the depth of despair into which so many fall.

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Music to get you over being beaten by Newcastle

Saturday, August 20th, 2011

It seemed as good an idea as any.

Blocking the more mindless Toon comments was quite enjoyable, delighted as I am that literate and/or decent NUFC supporters come here in such numbers (AGAIN: only have to mention NUFC and you get a swarm of them).

But I needed more.

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Bruce’s Banter: ‘disappointment’ over Newcastle defeat is not enough, Steve

Saturday, August 20th, 2011
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This was the day we wanted revenge for that humiliation – two humiliations really – of last season. Losing at home is always bad, and we did plenty of it last season. To lose at home after all the assertive pre-match talking up of our determination, our desire is worse. And to lose at home to Newcastle United, with an abject second half display that wouldn’t have threatened Hartlepool Reserves, is the stuff of despair. Steve Bruce e-mails us, and a few others, with his own post-debacle thoughts …

Dear Colin,

We’re massively disappointed.

The domination we had in the first half and the chances we created; we needed to score and take advantage of the opportunities we had and if you don’t score you don’t win a football match and we’ve been punished.

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