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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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This is where Pete Sixsmith captures the glory and shame, hope and despair, excitement and ennui of the Sunderland matchday experience. When, rarely, Pete is absent or delayed, a supersub does it for him and the seven-word verdict is preceded by an asterisk. Pete’s full analysis of the game will usually appear within a day or two.

Dragged to the cinema to see We Need To Talk About Kevin, M Salut expected his gloom to deepen with a lot more goal flash texts from Old Trafford than one. The injury blow to Wickham prompted the first message; half time was a disappointed “Failed to defend a corner and Welbeck scored – had kept our shape up until then”. That it turned out to be a Wes Brown own goal didn’t really help. We await Pete’s considered verdict, but this was not a result to please Bruce-bashers.

The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – sums up what all Sunderland supporters feel, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, in the words one who is usually there …

Nov 5 2011 Manchester United (1) 1 SAFC (0) 0 Decent performance but slipshod defending cost us

Oct 29 2011 SAFC 2 (1) Aston Villa 2 (1) … Determination and effort produced a fair result

Oct 22 2011 Bolton Wanderers (0) 0 SAFC (0) 2 … Team selection vindicated in impressive second half

Oct 16 2011 Arsenal (1) 2 SAFC (1) 1 Defended bravely but attacking options barely existed

Oct 1 2011 SAFC (2) 2 West Bromwich Albion (2) 2 Deserved point after a truly horrendous start

Sept 26 2011 Norwich City (1) 2 SAFC (0) 1 Absolutely no positives to take from this

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 …

Image: Mrs Logic

Whenever we remember to do it, Salut! Sunderland likes to offer a summary of the week just gone by. Most readers know by now that there is usually plenty more than is flagged here. Have a look up and down the sidebars for links to other material you may have missed …

Drawing at home to Aston Villa felt like a victory to some, given our late second equaliser, and two dropped points to others, who felt we had been comfortably held by an average side.

After the points squandered against West Brom in the previous home game, it was not the ideal result to set us up for Old Trafford today even if it stretched our very mini unbeaten run to three.

Pete Sixsmith’s magisterial account of the game – click here – was followed by a reminder that cheating in football is by no means restricted, as xenophobes like to believe, to foreigners. Unless you somehow work out that being born in Erdington, Birmingham to Nigerian and Scottish parents makes Gabriel Agbonlahor any more than being called Gabriel makes him angelic.

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Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, Pete Sixsmith harks back to schooldays (those spent as a pupil, not teaching at Ferryhill) and shares for the young’uns his priceless memories of a winning visit to Old Trafford. There’s even a spot of advice for Steve Bruce on how he might pull off our second surprise win there in a mere 43 years …

May 11 1968 was the last time we won at Old Trafford. I was 17 years old, idling my time away in the Lower Sixth at Bishop Auckland Grammar School, dozing through Miss Wilson’s English History lessons and desperately trying to impress Mr McConnell with my European history essays. What I didn’t know about the Diet of Worms wasn’t worth knowing, believe me.

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Aston Villa, M Salut decided as he walked away from the Stadium of Light, are not a team of thugs. Darren Bent is doubtless “one greedy b******” (there are sensitive souls looking in), though I quarrel with the “only” of the chant; Agbonlahor gives a decent impersonation of a man in training for an Olympics diving medal and Richard Dunne can act like an immature and unpleasant schoolboy, as he did after conceding the foul that led to our second equaliser. For all that, it was not a dirty match and both sides did try to play. But Pete Sixsmith wonders whether “mildly entertaining” football is what both sets of fans must accept as their lot …

Twelve months ago, I was sitting in a darkened room with a cold towel over my head as I tried to get over the 5-1 drubbing at Sports Direct Park. It was probably the worst result in my Sunderland watching experience and, to be honest, I still haven’t fully recovered from it.

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This is where Pete Sixsmith captures the glory and shame, hope and despair, excitement and ennui of the Sunderland matchday experience. When, rarely, Pete is absent or delayed, a supersub does it for him and the seven-word verdict is preceded by an asterisk. Pete’s full analysis of the game will usually appear within a day or two.

After the must-win, did-win game at Bolton, it was back to the Stadium of Light for Villa – and a decent game but only one point in a 2-2 draw. See Pete’s verdict below and come back in a day or so for his match analysis.

The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – sums up what all Sunderland supporters feel, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, in the words one who is usually there …

Oct 29 2011 SAFC 2 (1) Aston Villa 2 (1) … Determination and effort produced a fair result

Oct 22 2011 Bolton Wanderers (0) 0 SAFC (0) 2 … Team selection vindicated in impressive second half

Oct 16 2011 Arsenal (1) 2 SAFC (1) 1 Defended bravely but attacking options barely existed

Oct 1 2011 SAFC (2) 2 West Bromwich Albion (2) 2 Deserved point after a truly horrendous start

Sept 26 2011 Norwich City (1) 2 SAFC (0) 1 Absolutely no positives to take from this

Sept 18 2011 SAFC 4 (3) Stoke City (0) 0 What a difference the right selection makes

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 …

** Want to write to the club about what you’ve seen, heard or read about the way things are going? Do it with the Salut! Sunderland engraved pen. Yours for just £2, post-free in the UK, by clicking here

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Another busy week, another rough guide to Salut! Sunderland for those readers who cannot get here every day … please note that there may be delays this weekend in posting Bruce’s Banter and other post-match coverage. M Salut will be at the game, so will Mr Sixsmith and Ms Dawson and it will be case of who is able to get items posted first (bearing in mind that Sixer wouldn’t know how to) ….

Salut! Sunderland is about to undergo a makeover. It has been a long time coming but soon the home page will more closely resemble a newspaper format. This will bring the benefit of keeping especially good reads prominently displayed for several days rather than slipping ever further down before toppling off the bottom edge and plunging into the archives.

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