To be honest, we really don't know. We haven't kept a list. More to the point, this section of the FAQ will inevitably change over time, so some of what we have said below will almost certainly be out of date in a few months time. We have tried to keep to the more permanent questions rather than "why was X dropped last week?", though there is probably a place for some of these in an archive.
Anyway, here goes.
If you are going to discuss the day's results or update latest scores, then please don't post the score in the subject header. People may have taped the match or be waiting to watch it on TV, so don't spoil the suspense for them. Bear in mind that we have fans all over the globe, and it can be rather more difficult to get live TV coverage outside the UK ("live" coverage can be at 3am anyway!). A good subject header would be:- "[Result] SAFC v Man. Utd" implying the result is included, so if you don't want to read it you can look away.
Try also to bear in mind that latest score postings (particularly those with associated comments) can look rather odd when downloaded well after the match has finished, as most of them are bound to be.
England F? You all remember the Likely Lads sketch, don't you?
SAFC provide live audio feeds via PlanetFootball; for details see the official website at www.sunderland-afc.com. Last season this was a subscription service, and there were adverse comments about the cost, quality and reliability of the service in this newsgroup and elsewhere.
It is now a free service, as are the equivalents provided by most Premier League clubs.
(Any more information on other sites would be appreciated)
Live IRC comms are being provided this season for specific matches, and info about this is generally posted on the newsgroups. You can find out more about IRC in Section 19 of this FAQ
Visit the official website for up-to-date information on forthcoming matches. The club has adopted a policy of keeping a proportion of tickets available for general sale, however even for comparatively unattractive opposition all home league matches last season sold out for home supporters.
Things eased temporarily with the opening of the extension to the North Stand, though demand is now exceeding supply and it would be wise to make sure that you get your applications in quickly.
Away tickets are allocated according to "loyalty points", calculated on the number of away game already attended over the past two seasons, and only rarely go on general sale. It's still worth keeping an eye open, however.
By the consensus of the current users of the SAFC newsgroups, any spare tickets for Sunderland matches can be offered for sale on the newsgroups provided that this is a private sale and that the ticket is offered for sale at face value. Sellers must make this clear in their posting, should provide contact details, and should inform the group when the ticket has been sold.
The message must be posted once only, must be no more than four lines in length and its subject header must commence with the keyword "ADVERT: ".
Anyone trying to make a profit out of tickets on these newsgroups by, for example, charging above face value or using premium rate phone numbers as a contact will, at the very least, have an extremely rough ride here.
In the past, we'd have had no problem writing loads in this section. Unfortunately, however, the recent antics of some of our so-called "supporters" have made us rather reluctant to publish any venues which may become targets of the braindead minority.
We're happy to say that, in general, visiting supporters should not have any problems in enjoying themselves before and after the match. Most pubs are welcoming (if rather full), and the Good Beer Guide and the various fans' guides that have been published should give you some help.
A degree of caution in openly wearing colours may be necessary, though, particularly when going to and from the ground, and it is definitely not advisable to wear black-and-white stripes!
Anyone asking this question is either from overseas or a troll, and probably both. There is a long-standing rivalry between the clubs, which can be traced right back to the start of the 20th century (before then, Sunderland were playing Newcastle in regular friendlies to keep the Tynesiders going).
Even if "hate" is too strong a word for everyone, there are few, if any, Sunderland supporters who console themselves if we lose and the Mags win.
Not necessarily. If their contribution is intelligent and rational, then there is no reason whatsoever why Newcastle supporters shouldn't post their opinions here. However, postings from Neanderthal Mag demonstrating an IQ smaller than their hat size are probably best ignored.
At the moment, Newcastle. For the last two seasons, Sunderland. For most of the 1990s, Newcastle. Before that, over the history of both clubs, it works out pretty well even. Because of the continuing arguments over this, I've written a separate FAQ on this topic alone, which can be found at www.oocities.org/safc_faq/att.html.
Fuck the Mags. Has been used by Sunderland supporters since the 1960s. Any attempts to claim that the "M" stands for mackem are the product of a deranged mind.
An inhabitant or native of Sunderland, more generally Wearside. Derives from local pronunciation; people from Sunderland mak things rather than make (or myeak) them.
Up to the mid 1970s, mackem was a derogatory phrase, however since then it has become an accepted description and one that separates us from our neighbours.
No. You are a pathetic little individual, aren't you? (There are plenty of Sunderland supporters on Tyneside, anyway).
It is widely suspected that this is because some cocaine-addled marketroid decided it would be a good idea if we had a new name. There was a vote on the official website; as the alternatives included "The SOLs", "The Miners" and "The Light Brigade", it's not too surprising that Blackcats came out the winner.
Having said this, though, there is a genuine historic SAFC connection with the nickname "Blackcats" going back over 90 years, as follows.
In January 1909, Sunderland were going through what was for them a relatively lean spell, only halfway up the First Division and having just lost a home game 1-4 to Liverpool on New Years Day. It had been seven years since we had won the League, and the team which was to win the Championship and get to the Cup Final in 1913 was only just starting to come together.
When the players came into the dressing room for the next home game against Bury, they found a stray black cat there. A 3-1 win that day (despite missing a penalty) basically started the "lucky black cat" story, and a fortnight later when we went to Bramall Lane and won 3-2 in the FA Cup after being 0-2 down the mascot was offically adopted.
By the end of that month, the Sunderland Echo reported of the cat: "there has been a big demand for its portrait, more having been disposed of than of all the players put together", and the thousands who went to Newcastle for the Cup Tie that season had black cat mascots with red and white ribbons.
Ever since then the black cat has featured with Sunderland AFC at all times, whether in early portraits and badges, oversized cardboard cutouts (particularly between the wars) those wretched plastic inflatables or even the name of the current SAFC Internet mailing list, which started in 1994.
So, it's not a "made-up" nickname, though it was always an unofficial one until the recent vote. Well, there you go.
"Have you tried looking behind the sofa? That's where I usually
lose things" -
Camel J in uk.sport.football
There are numerous places on the internet that offer these services, however these sites are probably the best.
| FA Carling Premiership | www.fa-carling.com |
| Soccernet | www.soccernet.com |
Both of the above sites give live scores and quite up-to-date reports.
Three newspapers give detailed match reports:-
| The Electronic Telegraph | www.telegraph.co.uk |
| The Times | www.the-times.co.uk |
| The Guardian | www.footballunlimited.co.uk |
You must register for these, but they are free of charge.
Another newspaper is The Sporting Life which gives reports and news but doesn't require any registration. The Sporting Life's page is recommended on match days since it has a live java vidi printer during matches, which gives scorers, sendings off and final results daily.
| Arsenal | www.arsenal.co.uk |
| Aston Villa | www.astonvilla-fc.co.uk |
| Bradford City | www.bradfordcityfc.co.uk |
| Charlton | www.cafc.co.uk |
| Chelsea | www.chelseafc.co.uk |
| Coventry City | www.ccfc.co.uk |
| Derby County | www.dcfc.co.uk |
| Everton | www.evertonfc.com |
| Ipswich Town | www.itfc.co.uk |
| Leeds United | www.lufc.co.uk |
| Leicester City | www.lcfc.co.uk |
| Liverpool | www.liverpoolfc.net |
| Manchester City | www.mcfc.co.uk |
| Manchester United | www.manutd.com |
| Middlesbrough | www.boro.co.uk |
| Newcastle United | www.nufc.co.uk |
| Southampton | www.saintsfc.co.uk |
| Tottenham | www.spurs.co.uk |
| West Ham | www.westhamunited.co.uk |
The following is a list all the SAFC related sites that I know of. If your site is not listed, or you know of a site that is not listed, then pop the url in an E-mail to me so that I can get it added. We would also appreciate links to this newsgroup and the FAQ from your own site.
The official site can be found at www.sunderland-afc.com.
The following are all "unofficial" sites, but some contain as much if not more information and relevant content as the main site, particularly since this was taken over by PlanetFootball.
Some personal / unofficial sites were excellent when first created, but have fallen by the webside. Any views on whether we should continue to list cobwebby sites, or information on any of the sites listed that are now defunct, would be welcome.
Note: I've taken an axe to the many outdated sites (such as the one with the "latest crack" about Bally's performance at Wolves) that were previously listed. If you're planning to resurrect your previous creation, please let me know.
| Name | Address |
|---|---|
| Alec Hall SAFCSA Online | www.alechall.freeserve.co.uk |
| A Love Supreme | www.als.sunderland.com |
| Eric Roy Online | www.icons.com/roy/ |
| Emerson Thome's official site | www.sportprofile.co.uk/football/emersonthome |
| Julio Arca's official site | argentina.superjugadores.com/players/arcaeng |
| Kent SAFCSA | members.tripod.co.uk/kentsafc |
| London SAFCSA | members.tripod.co.uk/safclondon |
| Niall Quinn's Disco pants | www.discopants.freeserve.co.uk |
| RTG | www.readytogo.net |
| SAFCnet | www.safcnet.co.uk |
| SAFC Points Predictor | www.predictables.co.uk/safc |
| Stand Up If You Hate The Mags | www.stand-up.fsnet.co.uk |
| Sunderland Fans Against Racism | www.sfar.org.uk |
| Sunderland Til I Die | www.sunderland-till-i-die.co.uk |
| Sunderland Together | www.shaun.sheppard.btinternet.co.uk/st |
| The Sunderland Saga | www.sunderland-saga.de |
| The Wearside Roar | www.the-wearside-roar.com |
| Website of Light | www.websiteoflight.co.uk |
There is a thriving mailing list, Blackcats , which has over 300 subscribers and generates lively and wide-ranging discussions about SAFC (between 20-100 messages a day). To subscribe, just send an e-mail to blackcats-subscribe@topica.com or visit www.topica.com/lists/blackcats .
SAFC Newsletter is a relatively new mailing list: visit www.egroups.com/group/safcnews or send an e-mail to safcnews-subscribe@egroups.com
There are literally hundreds of football newsgroups; try a search on "football" or "soccer" in your newsgroup list, but bear in mind that you will get a lot of American Football groups, and groups who do not discuss in English.
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. To use it you need a program such as mIRC which is available at www.mirc.co.uk .
On IRC you can chat to people from all over the world - live. There are several soccer channels on various IRC servers, these are the ones that we know of:-
| #soccer_quiz | (Undernet) |
| #man-utd | (Undernet) |
| #footy_quiz | (Undernet) |
| #soccer | (IRCnet) |
| #football | (IRCnet) |
| #soccer | (DALnet) |
| #soccer | (Austnet) |
| #football.uk | (IRCnet) |
There is also an SAFC channel; to access this just follow the instructione below (as provided by Ian Hamilton, to whom many thanks)
When you've installed the program (by running the file you've downloaded from the website), you will need to access the Wrecked.net server. If you have got the latest version of mIRC, simply select "Wreckednet" from the list of Servers on the option screen. If you're using an older version of mIRC, you will have to add the Wreckednet server yourself...
To do this, on the options screen click on ADD (server). Then enter this information:
Description: Wrecked.net
IRC Server: irc.wrecked.net
Port(s): 6667
You do not need to enter any passwords.
When you have entered the server into mIRC, select it from the list, and click OK on the options screen. Then click the connect icon (it looks like a bolt of lightning), and you should be connected. When you are connected, click to the text box at the BOTTOM of your mIRC window and type:
/join #safc
Including the forward-slash! Live commentaries of Sunderland games are provided, and details are generally posted on the newsgroups and on www.safcnet.com. All you need to do is to click the "#safc chat" button from the main menu of SAFCnet, and follow the instructions there.