Colin Randall | Salut! Sunderland

Archive | Colin Randall RSS feed for this section

Spurs v SAFC Who are You?: ‘top four beats staying above Arsenal’

No shortage of self-confidence on the Tottenham Hotspur front. Too big a club for Darren Bent and Martin O’Neill, home bankers versus us on Sunday and heading for a third top finish at least two places ahead of Arsenal. That’s as seen by Jamie Currie*, the man behind White Hart Pain site and a regular [...]

Martin O’Neill, Box Fox and being a winner at 59

A few nights ago, I had after-show drinks with a Sunderland supporter who has recently taken over the role of Songman in the highly – and deservedly – popular West End production War Horse. Bob Fox is someone I know well from my folk music pursuits. He is, like the new manager at the Stadium [...]

Martin’s Musings: O’Neill speaks and a column is born

The title for the sayings of Martin O’Neill, as they are collected for these pages, has been chosen and you see it above. That means a Salut! Sunderland mug – is there no limit to our generosity? – will be heading the way of “Rob”, whose suggestion it was.

Bendtner and Gary Speed: no case to answer

Salut! Sunderland hopes that when Martin O’Neill presides over his first press conference as Sunderland’s manager this afternoon, he is not drawn into pointless discussion of Nicklas Bendtner’s supposedly disrespectful body language during the pre-match tribute to Gary Speed at Molineux. With carefully manufactured outrage, the website 101greatgoals.com declares that the on-loan forward was seen [...]

Peter O’Toole, a hell-raising dad and a lost Sunderland passion

Readers who find this a familiar tale are asked to bear with me. I need to check whether the link to the redesigned site is working in all the ways it should; posting something – anything – is one way of doing that. New readers may find what follows interesting … A few years ago, [...]

New look for Sunderland, new look for Salut!

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 luck, make its blushing debut tomorrow [...]

MON day: a fine start?

M Salut offers some advice to Martin O’Neill on the fines he may wish to consider imposing after yesterday’s defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory at Molineux … The competition – click here – to come up with a new name for Martin O’Neill column at Salut! Sunderland is still open. OK, the new manager does not yet know he’s [...]

Salut!’s week: Wigan woes, Bruce goes, Wolves foes

Monsieur Salut looks back on a momentous week for all who care about Sunderland AFC … As I began to write this review of the week, we were a day into the post-Bruce era of Sunderland AFC, three days from an important game at Molineux. By the time I finished the first draft (these are [...]

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

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 [...]

So we can score goals: Reserves hit 7 past Scunthorpe

The last time I saw Sunderland get seven was against Oxford United under Peter Reid in 1998. Two apiece for Bridges, Dichio and Rae and one from Mickey Gray. Well, the Reserves did it again today, whacking seven past Scunthorpe, as in the Oxford game without reply.