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| If Southend United were a dog, this is what it would probably be... |
When I say that, I'm mainly referring to the date of my last blog, which was back at the beginning of February. Since then, my life has undergone a series of major changes which have ultimately resulted in me spending the vast majority of my time working, with what little time I have left spent sleeping and doing the Dad's taxi thing. Oh, and supporting Southend United, a club which I have had an affinity with since 1969 and which makes it the longest relationship (aside from my parents) that I have ever had in my life.
As this blog primarily started out about dating disasters, can I therefore count the regular "dates" with my football club mistress as potential blog fodder? Rhetorical question, of course. I'm going to.
My love affair at my mistresses home - Roots Hall - started when I was just 8 years old and I remember the day well. My football mad Dad must have longed for the day when I showed an interest in the"Beautiful Game" and on 30th August 1969 that day arrived. I discovered Southend were playing against Crewe Alexandra in league division 4, asked him to take me and he duly obliged, paying for us to stand on the South Bank - a big open terrace behind the goal long since replaced by flats and a small, two tier stand - and we cheered Southend onto a 2-0 victory. Neither of us knew any of the players (he was a Fulham fan) but that day, the names of Billy Best, Phil Chisnall, Gary Moore and Mike Beesley - amongst others - were etched into my memory banks as heroes in blue and white. That was it. I was hooked.
Since then, I have been a fan through thick and thin much to previous girlfriends/wives disgust. I've seen every promotion the club has had and attended most of the "big" games, travelling across, up and down the country to places like Bury, Grimsby and Kidderminster for 90 minute liaisons with the second love of my life. Seasons have been enjoyed and endured in equal measure, through the dark days of the mid 1980's when the club was within a whisker of folding through to the early 2000's when club legend Steve Tilson took the club to two Leyland-Daf Trophy finals and the League Two play off final at the Millennium Stadium Cardiff and then up to the heady heights of The Championship, claiming the League One Title along the way.
But since those days and the immediate relegation from the Championship, the club has been in a downward spiral and now languishes back in League Two where wily Scot and experienced manager Paul Sturrock nearly oversaw a promotion last season by getting the second highest points total in the clubs history that left us one tantalizing point short of success. Our route to a higher division was ended in the play offs by - wait for it - Crewe Alexandra, a team we had already beaten twice in the league that season.
This season therefore should have been the first rung back on the ladder of success but, despite an encouraging run of form up to November when Southend were nicely placed for automatic promotion, a series of injuries, suspensions and wretched home performances has seen this year turn into a bit of a disaster. Promotion now looks extremely unlikely. However, the club has had some decent performances in cup competitions and won through to the Johnstone Paint Trophy Final at Wembley, overcoming two teams from higher divisions along the way and guaranteeing the club a decent payday. Paul Sturrock had never been to Wembley as a manager and was, like the rest of us, looking forward to it greatly.
Club Chairman Ron Martin however decided to swing the axe on Sturrock two weeks prior to the Wembley final and in doing so - via a decision that I'm sure was made with best intentions - turned the club into a laughing stock across the football world by saying that Sturrock could still manage and lead the team out at Wembley for the final as he had earned that right by getting us there.
This was something unprecedented in football history and didn't sit well with new incumbent Phil Brown, ex Bolton, Derby, Hull and Preston manager (as well as being an unsuccessful applicant for every managerial post going over the last 18 months). He was happy for Sturrock to lead the team out, but manage? There wasn't the same enthusiasm for that and so, after several private meetings and while the club had been ridiculed throughout the national media for days, Sturrock decided that he wouldn't press the point and politely declined the clubs offer.
But every dog has it's day, as the saying goes, it's just that if this little club was a dog, it would certainly be the comedy type such as the chihuahua at the top of the page that would stand more chance of a giant killing by sticking in the throat of it's foe rather than actually causing physical damage.
And so this dog of a clubs day had come, at Wembley on April 7th, and yet again bloody Crewe Alexandra were the opponents, so there was a chance for some revenge to be exacted on the team who had pooped on our potential promotion party last year.
There's a little group of us that follow the team (no, I'm talking about the entire crowd) and between four or five of them had pulled out all the stops regarding the organisation and laid on 2 coaches to take us to the National Stadium via a pub in Upminster called "The Crumpled Horn", who had very kindly agreed to open the bar for our arrival at 9:15 and lay on a full English Breakfast for the 77 visitors.
A big thanks to the pub staff who ensured everyone was served with drinks and food before we had to make our way to Wembley, leaving at around 10:40 to ensure arrival in plenty of time for the kick off at 1:15.
Now some people of a certain age who had drunk a certain number of pints of lager in just over an hour weren't really able to last the entire journey...
...but we were soon in sight of the landmark stadium and ready for our dog of a club to choke the life out of their higher league opponents.
The sight of all the Shrimpers fans going up Wembley Way and around the stadium generally was a fantastic spectacle.
The trip to Wembley had caught the imagination of everyone in Southend and over 32,000 tickets had been sold, as opposed to the 11,000-odd from Crewe, meaning that the Southend contingent outnumbered their northern counterparts by almost 3-1. A similar scoreline on the pitch would be nice thank you very much, and our hopes were high when the main Crewe striker was out injured and another of their players, Adam Dugdale, had lost his 6 year old son in the days leading up to the game so wasn't playing either. Word had got around to both sets of supporters that there would be a minutes applause in the sixth minute to show respect for the poor lad.
The nerve ends were jangling as kick off approached. The players came out of the tunnel and were greeted by a sea of blue, which must have been a quite daunting sight. Consequently they froze like rabbits in the headlights as Crewe started out of the the blocks with a proverbial gnashing of the teeth, swallowing up possession and restricting Southend's touches of the ball to hasty and usually poorly placed clearances.
During the 5th minute, Crewe won a corner and Southend were completely undone by a simple training ground routine, with skipper Murphy running 30 yards unchallenged to stroke the ball into the net following a clever dummy. With Southend stunned into silence, there then immediately followed the rather strange feeling of having to break into applause for the Dugdale boy as the 6th minute arrived, when in fact all you felt like doing was throwing the match programme down and screaming at the team to wake up. And wake up they did, eventually, as Crewe started to ease off and then began to splutter. Britt Assombalonga was brought down in the box and on another day - any other day in fact - a penalty would have been awarded. Tamika Mkandawire headed over the bar from 6 yards and a Ryan Cresswell knock down was unable to be touched into the net.
But at half time, Southend had come back into the game and were very much in it, as long as they didn't concede a second goal.
Sadly, that position only lasted 4 minutes, the length of time for maverick and enigma Bilel Mohsni to get caught in possession, allowing the Crewe players to bear down on goal and almost walk the ball in to make it 2-0.
With that, Southend tried to step up a gear. Assombalonga was brought down again in similar fashion and again there was no penalty; then, GavinTomlin put in a cross from the left that Mohsni and Assombalonga both went for but somehow the ball - headed goalwards from less than 2 yards out - struck a Crewe defender and bounced to safety.
There was more drama - Assombalonga had a goal disallowed for offside and Sean Clohessy was brought down on the edge of the area but yet again no foul was given. The introduction of substitutes Barry Corr, Ben Reeves and Freddy Eastwood failed to get Southend back in the game and Crewe were coasting. They had chewed us up, spat us out and ensured that the Trophy was headed north. Very much in "Crewe's control" you might say.
So it wasn't to be Southend's day yet again. Maybe that day will come on Wednesday April 10th, because, while the first team will be battling a Rochdale team in Lancashire, Southend Council will be meeting to decide on whether the revised proposal will be passed that will eventually allow the new stadium at Fossetts Farm to be built. Much has been written and discussed about this long running saga but, in a nutshell, if we can't move to Fossetts Farm, then the club in it's current form is finished.
But if permission is granted, then does that mean everything is rosy? I think that's unlikely. Nothing surprises me anymore with this club. Following them for nearly 45 years, I am never amazed at their capacity to disappoint. To draw more analogies with female relationships, it is like they are the wife that is having an affair, then you find out it is with your best mate. However, the pain doesn't stop there; she throws you out, moves him in and finally you discover that the kids have started calling him Dad. It eventually wears you down. One can only hope that at least the battling performance and injustice at Wembley will have enabled some of the "Day Trippers" - probably 20,000 of them - to come down to Roots Hall in the future just to start following the team, just to see what real football can be like in the lower echelons.
I'm still looking forward to when our Dog can have its day again, because when you follow a team like Southend, there are no expectations whatsoever. Which means that occasionally, just occasionally, when something does happen that is quite mind blowing - like beating Manchester United, Rooney and Ronaldo et al 1-0 in the Carling Cup to become the only team in the world to have a positive record against them - it makes that day so much more satisfying.
Which is the only reason why we all do it.
