The cover speaks for itself. Issue 13 of It’s the Hope I Can’t Stand, way back in April 1999, and Bob – now Sir Bob – Murray was presiding over a club romping to promotion, scoring goals for amusement and drawing huge crowds to the Stadium of Light. The same SoL that some in the [...]
The Ithics Files: the last post, or can someone help?
Salut! Sunderland is following normal practice and avoiding premature comment on the signings from Manchester United that seem imminent. For now, we have a minor problem – and you may be able to solve it … This, with the previously missing third page of the article (shown on the second image) is a corrected repetition [...]
The Ithics Files: (8) why some unlikely people support Sunderland
Time for another extract from the fund of material to be found in the complete works of It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand, a fine but shortlived Sunderland fanzine from the back end of the 1990s. Nic Wiseman, the co-editor, is the man who came up with the copies for M Salut and then took [...]
The Ithics Files: (7) Hull away, when the going got tough
Click on images to magnify text Salut! Sunderland recovers from the rigours of a busy week on the transfer front to resume its summer series of classics from the short but edifying life of the SAFC fanzine It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand. This, roughly maintaining the slightly worrying theme of his first article on [...]
The Ithics Files: (6) Craig Russell gets four, Reid wanted five
Goal machine may be putting it high. But Craig Russell’s return on 149 games for Sunderland was 31, not prolific – Darren Bent scored one more in 58 – but certainly respectable. And he played with full heart for the club he loved, just as he now works for it as masseur. In the latest [...]
The Ithics Files: (5) noise, belligerence and Bovril at the SoL
Nic Wiseman has worked like a Trojan to help get this series under way, choosing and scanning and sending cracking extracts from It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand, the SAFC fanzine he co-edited in the last 1990s. Here’s one Nic wrote himself, an entertaining tour of the matchday experience of different areas of the Stadium [...]
The Ithics Files: (4) Manchester United and the fairer sex
If anyone out there thinks we’re overdoing the Ithics Files – reproduction at Salut! Sunderland of gems from It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand – then they should tell SAFC to get a move on with meaningful news.
The Ithics Files: (3) when Everton rained on our parade
Football just isn’t what it was, lad. Back in days gone by, you could stand with a supporter of the other team, bonded by mutual love of the people’s game, in the sure knowledge you were safe from harm. If you were old enough to get in, you’d be in their pubs rubbing shoulders, taking [...]
The Ithics Files: (2) when the jury was out on SuperKev & Quinn
This, the second extract from our near-complete set of the lamented fanzine It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand is a classic mixture of retrospective wisdom and downright mischief-making. Back we go to the 1997/1998 season and the origins of a fabulous Premier League strike pairing … It is not the sort of thing anyone wants [...]
The Ithics Files: (1) when Magic asked for more ‘or I join Rangers’
Someone had the idea of reproducing a few of the best moments of It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand, the shortlived Sunderland fanzine about which Nic Wiseman wrote here yesterday. I can’t promise how many there’ll be, but it was a good shout so here, at enormous effort (I have no scanner), is the first [...]

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Gritty Chelsea and Cech/Drogba heroics overcome deep-rooted prejudice
And thanks to Jake for another gem – and an appropriate colour scheme ******* ******* ******* Salut! Sunderland salutes an [...]