The brilliant Telegraph cartoonist Matt produced three drawings for me during my career. This was one of them, marking my posting by the newspaper to Paris. My friend John Clark ('Jake') added colour
In 52 years as a journalist, I have witnessed the closure of several newspapers as an outsider. I was deeply involved in one launch - The National in Abu Dhabi - but have been fortunate to escape the sadness and pain of a closure directly affecting me.
Today I have an idea of how that last experience feels. Less than three weeks from the 13th anniversary of its creation, I am closing my football site Salut! Sunderland.
The site does not die altogether. Two fellow supporters of Sunderland AFC whom I have never met will take over from tomorrow, New Year's Day, my roles as owner (Dean Cruddace) and editor (Eve Sayers).
They know I wish them well.
But however conscientiously they preserve the archive - 6,187 posts though that figure undoubtedly includes a fair number of unpublished false starts - it won't be my Salut! Sunderland.
It won't even bear the same name, since Dean and Eve are quite logically rebranding the site, which shall be known as safc.blog.
The name change is logical for one obvious reason. As people who have been visiting Salut! for any length of time will know, even if the subject matter of the football site held no interest for them, Salut! Sunderland was an offshoot of this modest blog, itself the infant of the one I contributed from Paris to The Daily Telegraph before that newspaper decided that 29 years Colin Randall was quite enough.
Along the way, I also launched Salut! Live, devoted to my folk, folk-rock and allied musical interests, and Salut! North, which offers nostalgia from the North East of my childhood. Both continue, as will Salut!, though updates are infrequent and, in the case of Salut! North, almost non-existent.
Since this small empire is to be diminished as the clocks strike midnight, I felt it appropriate to record the event here.
Among my last words were these:
It would be dishonest to pretend the handover is a matter of no special importance to me or to my friends and colleagues Pete Sixsmith, Malcolm Dawson, John McCormick and John Clark (“Jake”). We will feel our own forms of cold turkey as we withdraw from a site of which we all feel proud.
For those who wish to read more, the words are taken from the very last post under my ownership and editorship. You may see it in full at at this link.
And the idea seems to be catching. Stewart Donald, the beleaguered owner of Salut! Sunderland's raison d'être, Sunderland AFC, has let it be known that he has decided to sell the club.
He clearly cannot imagine life without us.
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