Every decent football supporter was outraged by the Liverpool chief executive Ian Ayre’s repugnant call for changes to TV rights that would divert more and more money to a handful of “big” clubs. Jeremy Robson is surprised more attention was not given to another corporate threat to the national game, this time from Suits of the imported variety …

Ten of the 20 current Premier League clubs are foreign owned. This would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.

Of the current crop it was Fulham who were the first to be taken over by a foreign investor (Mohammed al Fayed), in 1997, when they were in the third tier. Much has changed in a short period (and that’s no pun or reference to our owner and chairman).

Why is this significant? What difference does it make where the money comes from?

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There’s a big maybe, or series of maybes. First of all, Tangerine dreamers, Hammers and Latics straying this way should take comfort: Pete Sixmith‘s specialist subject is geography not maths. But he’s done the calculations using the BBC predictor page (see footnote*) and very much wanted the headline to read: “It’s official – we’re safe.” To M Salut, that sounded too much like tempting fate …

Whiling away an hour at work this morning, as my Year 11 group negotiated a tricky Media Studies assignment by comparing the online version of Bliss magazine with the printed one (cutting edge of academic education at Ferryhill – we annotated in Latin!), I turned to the BBC predictor page and worked out the rest of the season’s results.

And the good news is we will not go down. Indeed, we will finish with the princely total of 42 points, a real tribute to the effort and determination shown since January.

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Photo: K G Stone

Alan Fulcher* is a Wearside-based Hull City fan whose belief that the Tigers can stay up was shaken but not destroyed by what he calls a “bugger of a result” in Wigan v Arsenal. Salut! Sunderland‘s links with Alan began when we ran a piece (after Phil Brown’s sacking) that was essentially affectionate towards the club but which he found condescending, not least since we had little to shout about ourselves at the time. Alan was promptly invited back to preview this weekend’s game in our Who Are You? series: it’s a big match for us as we seek to put earlier woes behind us with a storming finish, but even bigger for City as they fight desperately against relegation …

Let’s start with the obvious one: what’s a bloke in Sunderland doing supporting Hull City?

Dead easy, I have lived in Washington since 1992, but was born in Kingston-Upon-Hull and lived there until 1973. Always support the team where you were born; there’s more than enough ‘Glory Hunters’ around football!

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Arsenal fans** will probably not care a hoot, but this part of Salut! Sunderland hopes they have a championship to toast at the end of the season. As for us, the next few games, mostly at home, will define our season, admits Steve Bruce. In how many recent years have we heard a similar refrain? Is it time for Sunderland AFC – and perhaps especially Niall Quinn – to realise the extent to which our collective patience is being tested? …

Whatever they are not, Sunderland fans are realists.

No one looked at the arrival of Ellis Short as owner, or Steve Bruce as manager, and thought: “That’s it. A top four place is there for the taking. This season.”
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David Sullivan’s warning that everyone at West Ham, the club he now co-owns, faced a 25 per cent pay cut did no harm to the players’ mood, the Hammers dismissing Birmingham City with a minimum of fuss to put more pressure on us at the bottom of the Premier. As our own aversion to winning gathers strength, we wonder whether there might be a lesson in this for Niall Quinn and Ellis Short …

Two stories about Sunderland and full backs tell us a lot about the nature of football.

Mickey Gray was a decent if unspectacular SAFC player, admired both for being a local lad made good and for the exciting partnership he forged down the left flank with Allan “Magic” Johnston. He is remembered less admiringly for his woeful penalty miss in the Charlton play-off final in 1998, and for a restaurant altercation with Wayne Rooney.

As everyone who supports Sunderland probably knows, he also won a star prize for insensitivity when, on the day several members of the SAFC staff were laid off because of the team’s failures on the field, he arrived for training in his gleaming new Ferrari.
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Colin Randall appreciates David Sullivan’s obvious and genuine commitment to West Ham – backed up by tears on TalkSport – but hopes any revival in the club’s fortunes is modest …

Without holding the slightest thing against West Ham or most of its supporters, I make no secret of my wish that the club David Sullivan has inherited remains locked in a relegation scrap for the rest of the season.
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You have been warned. Pete Sixsmith has been in better moods. Sunderland-supporting readers of a sensitive disposition may wish to lock themselves into a small padded room and listen to the collected works of Jedward. If you’re built of stronger stuff, this is Pete’s verdict on a Sunday by the Thames made so dismal by Steve Bruce’s dunces that he wishes he’d stayed in the White Horse and ordered a £9 pint of Thomas Hardy ale. What on earth did Niall Quinn’s guest, Martina Navratilova, make of it? …

As I dragged myself from a warm bed this morning, still groggy after a long journey back from the latest away shambles, I heard the BBC newsreader say that the Government were worried about an increase in depression and anxiety.

One way to prevent this malaise among the red and white army, I snorted, would be to teach defenders to attack the ball when it is punted into the penalty box.
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