Southend Football

[Wowbagger]

Good grief! FGR had 62% of the possession according to the stats I saw. Is it a judgement on Dale Vince working with the D. Express? 

Curiously, all of the bottom 3 (Southend, Barrow and Grimsby) won their last game. I wonder how often that happens?

[Peter]

Good grief! FGR had 62% of the possession according to the stats I saw. Is it a judgement on Dale Vince working with the D. Express? 

Curiously, all of the bottom 3 (Southend, Barrow and Grimsby) won their last game. I wonder how often that happens?

Or supporting the Green Party??

[Jaded]

Or <unprintable - ed>

[Peter]

J, you may remember I started following FGR because they were a bit of a fairy story and after years of supporting Newcastle (which I still do) I needed a fairy story in black and white stripes, which they wore back when.  I'm also a veggie.  But you are much closer than I.  The Southend result seems to me like the strangest thing that's happened in the long story?  What's your take?

[Jaded]

I think they would have been promoted before with a different manager, I think Cooper has his moments, but more importantly he has his favourites. Having said that credit to Vince for sticking with managers, Cooper is the 6th longest serving manager in the Football League. They play badly against lower teams, and also they struggle if someone plays them at their game. Not often a Plan B.

I love the Vegan food, it is very tasty, which one or two from here could testify to, and the club ethos. It is helping to change the world. Great stuff!

What I do not like is the Rushden and Diamonds approach to football club ownership. I have said to him that in order to truly show greenness, the club should be making the New Lawn a paragon of sustainability, not knocking it down, replacing it with 90 houses and no jobs, and relocating in a brand new stadium by a motorway junction. I get that the catchment area includes south Gloucester, but hey, how are fans coming to a stadium by a motorway going to arrive? Plus why build a 5,000 seater stadium for a club that is pushing for promotion, when you already have a stadium with 5,000 capacity?

Many clubs have no parking and poor road access - that's a challenge for sustainability, not rebuilding them miles away from town.

Community is important in football - real care needs to be taken to avoid turning a small community club into a franchise.

I've been to MK Dons. Might as well have been anywhere... (I never went to Plough Lane, but have been to lots of grounds of that ilk)

[Peter]

Agree with all of that.  The rot set in when Middlesbrough (my then-nearest team) moved from Ayresome park (walking distance from anywhere in Middlesbrough) to the "Riverside" - only accessible by helicopter.  They didn't need the extra room (Middlesbrough will never have a capacity crowd - except in the 66 world cup) but now Ayresome Park is houses, just like your scenario.  And the new shirts are awful - lime green, orange and pink should all be banned in football!

[Jaded]

I could also tell you about the pro-bono consultancy work I did for them with the aim to get them maximising the financial take on match days, but I won't. 

[Wowbagger]

Good grief! FGR had 62% of the possession according to the stats I saw. Is it a judgement on Dale Vince working with the D. Express? 

Curiously, all of the bottom 3 (Southend, Barrow and Grimsby) won their last game. I wonder how often that happens?

Or supporting the Green Party??

The last political donation Dale Vince made of which I am aware was £200000 to the Labour Party.

Edit: £250k to the Labour party. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/10/ecotricity-gives-250000-to-labour-amid-existential-threat-from-tories

According to Wikipedia, he also endorsed Labour in the 2019 GE.

[Jaded]

He did. And Jeremy Corbyn visited the New Lawn during his campaign. The former MP, Labour's David Drew, is on the board of FGR. We have aTroy now, but that was probably more due to an ex-MEP standing for the Green Party.

[Wowbagger]

Agree with all of that.  The rot set in when Middlesbrough (my then-nearest team) moved from Ayresome park (walking distance from anywhere in Middlesbrough) to the "Riverside" - only accessible by helicopter.  They didn't need the extra room (Middlesbrough will never have a capacity crowd - except in the 66 world cup) but now Ayresome Park is houses, just like your scenario.  And the new shirts are awful - lime green, orange and pink should all be banned in football!

Southend's owner, Ron Martin, has been pushing for an out-of-town 26000 seat stadium for at least 20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossetts_Farm_Stadium refers, but the 21000 is smaller than originally proposed. Planning permission was granted once, but it lapsed because (IIRC) of the financial collapse of 2007-8. It's utterly bonkers. Southend's current ground, although scruffy and needing to be rebuilt, is in exactly the right place. The current capacity is 12000 - although >30000 of us crammed in to watch Southend draw 0 - 0 with Liverpool (and the snow) in the late 1970s.

The proposed new ground will be on the east side of the town, which is notoriously inaccessible for road traffic: the Liverpool Street - Southend Victoria railway line runs N-S at that point and, combined with the pedestrianised high street, neatly bisects the town. There are only 3 crossing points other than the sea front, which is "shared use" (or a given value thereof) all of which are problematic.

I'm sure that Southend is far from unique in that its council is expected (by central government) to build a whole load of new houses but with a Victorian infrastructure just not designed to cope with the amount of traffic that is expected to be generated by all the people who live in those houses. But I suspect that that particular problem affects Southend far more acutely than most other towns of a similar size, i.e. almost 200000.

[Wowbagger]

He did. And Jeremy Corbyn visited the New Lawn during his campaign. The former MP, Labour's David Drew, is on the board of FGR. We have aTroy now, but that was probably more due to an ex-MEP standing for the Green Party.

This Troy - would it be worth inserting a wooden horse into him?

[Jaded]

He did. And Jeremy Corbyn visited the New Lawn during his campaign. The former MP, Labour's David Drew, is on the board of FGR. We have aTroy now, but that was probably more due to an ex-MEP standing for the Green Party.

This Troy - would it be worth inserting a wooden horse into him?

  It's female.

[Wowbagger]

A draw today, but Barrow unsportingly won 2 - 0 so Southend are back in the bottom 2.

Colchester seem to be sinking rapidly so that could well spur on the Southend fans... if they had any.

[Peter]

Rochdale have just soared to the bottom of League 1 (formerly known as Division 12), so if you survive, our conversations in this thread may become more "interesting"!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Agree with all of that.  The rot set in when Middlesbrough (my then-nearest team) moved from Ayresome park (walking distance from anywhere in Middlesbrough) to the "Riverside" - only accessible by helicopter.  They didn't need the extra room (Middlesbrough will never have a capacity crowd - except in the 66 world cup) but now Ayresome Park is houses, just like your scenario.  And the new shirts are awful - lime green, orange and pink should all be banned in football!

Southend's owner, Ron Martin, has been pushing for an out-of-town 26000 seat stadium for at least 20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossetts_Farm_Stadium refers, but the 21000 is smaller than originally proposed. Planning permission was granted once, but it lapsed because (IIRC) of the financial collapse of 2007-8. It's utterly bonkers. Southend's current ground, although scruffy and needing to be rebuilt, is in exactly the right place. The current capacity is 12000 - although >30000 of us crammed in to watch Southend draw 0 - 0 with Liverpool (and the snow) in the late 1970s.

The proposed new ground will be on the east side of the town, which is notoriously inaccessible for road traffic: the Liverpool Street - Southend Victoria railway line runs N-S at that point and, combined with the pedestrianised high street, neatly bisects the town. There are only 3 crossing points other than the sea front, which is "shared use" (or a given value thereof) all of which are problematic.

I'm sure that Southend is far from unique in that its council is expected (by central government) to build a whole load of new houses but with a Victorian infrastructure just not designed to cope with the amount of traffic that is expected to be generated by all the people who live in those houses. But I suspect that that particular problem affects Southend far more acutely than most other towns of a similar size, i.e. almost 200000.

A 21,000 capacity stadium for a team facing relegation from League 2? Hmmm....

[Wowbagger]

Rochdale have just soared to the bottom of League 1 (formerly known as Division 12), so if you survive, our conversations in this thread may become more "interesting"!

I always find your contributions deeply fascinating, Peter!

[Peter]

 

[Wowbagger]

Agree with all of that.  The rot set in when Middlesbrough (my then-nearest team) moved from Ayresome park (walking distance from anywhere in Middlesbrough) to the "Riverside" - only accessible by helicopter.  They didn't need the extra room (Middlesbrough will never have a capacity crowd - except in the 66 world cup) but now Ayresome Park is houses, just like your scenario.  And the new shirts are awful - lime green, orange and pink should all be banned in football!

Southend's owner, Ron Martin, has been pushing for an out-of-town 26000 seat stadium for at least 20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossetts_Farm_Stadium refers, but the 21000 is smaller than originally proposed. Planning permission was granted once, but it lapsed because (IIRC) of the financial collapse of 2007-8. It's utterly bonkers. Southend's current ground, although scruffy and needing to be rebuilt, is in exactly the right place. The current capacity is 12000 - although >30000 of us crammed in to watch Southend draw 0 - 0 with Liverpool (and the snow) in the late 1970s.

The proposed new ground will be on the east side of the town, which is notoriously inaccessible for road traffic: the Liverpool Street - Southend Victoria railway line runs N-S at that point and, combined with the pedestrianised high street, neatly bisects the town. There are only 3 crossing points other than the sea front, which is "shared use" (or a given value thereof) all of which are problematic.

I'm sure that Southend is far from unique in that its council is expected (by central government) to build a whole load of new houses but with a Victorian infrastructure just not designed to cope with the amount of traffic that is expected to be generated by all the people who live in those houses. But I suspect that that particular problem affects Southend far more acutely than most other towns of a similar size, i.e. almost 200000.

A 21,000 capacity stadium for a team facing relegation from League 2? Hmmm....

In 2006-7, when Southend were a "Championship" team, their highest home attendance was occasionally over 11000, but ISTR that the ground capacity was set at 12000.  By contrast, some of their opponents were attracting well over 20000 to home games - teams with a much longer history of being decent clubs (Ipswich, Norwich, Derby, Southampton). Perhaps their most impressive run of results then was in the League Cup, when in consecutive rounds they played Bournemouth, Brighton, Leeds, Manchester United and Tottenham, losing to this last 1 - 0 after extra time.

When the Football League consisted of 4 divisions, Southend very often played their home matches on a Friday so that their supporters could watch them on a Friday night and then get the train into London to watch their "main" club, which was usually West Ham, Chelsea, Arsenal or Tottenham, on a Saturday. I don't think they do that quite so often now, but it sort of ingrained their status as quite definitely lower than their more prestigious neighbouring clubs. Ipswich and Norwich are both considerably smaller towns/cities than Southend but their football teams have occasionally (not often) competed on level terms with some of the best in Europe, but, despite Ipswich being not a great deal further from London than Southend, at least, in train-minute times (the track from Ipswich has a higher speed limit) I gain the impression that their fans don't divide their loyalties in anything like the same way.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I just had a look and Bristol City (currently 12th in the Championship) last season had an average attendance of 17,000 in their 27,000 capacity Ashton Gate. Bristol Bears Premiership rugby club, in the same stadium, have an average attendance of 18,000, which surprisingly makes them the best supported club in the rugby premiership (or so their owner, who also owns City, claims). I guess our nearest Premier League team is probably Southampton, which is a bit far for ever-other-Saturday travel, not to mention feeling like a completely unconnected place. I don't suppose many people were travelling to see Cardiff either when they were in the PL!

[Wowbagger]

Never having lived in Colchester, I can't be sure, but I don't think their fans have divided loyalties either. There is relatively little of Southend which is much more than 100 years old, and many of the residents' grandparents will have moved out here from London, so I think there is more likely to be family attachments. This is more so when one considers that Basildon is only a little over 10 miles closer to London, and according to the latest figures Ive seen, it is now bigger than Southend (185k > 183.5k). Basildon has a football team, but they are at the level that the play against local villages. I have no idea whether many of Southend's supporters come from Basildon - presumably some do - but to have two such large towns so close together, neither of which possesses a decent football club, must be pretty unusual. Bradford, of course, is bigger than both combined and is stuck with Bradford City, also League 2. It seemed that when they last had crowds turn up, their home matches typically attracted >13k supporters. In the 2019-20 season, Southend's biggest crowd was a little over 8000, at home to Ipswich, and they were then a League 1 team, albeit doing incredibly badly.

[Wowbagger]

Barrow won away v Walsall this evening. That gives them quite a nice points cushion over Southend now, having won 3 of their last 5 games, and they have two games in hand. Grimsby are bottom, so the Mariners and the Shrimpers seem to have been cast adrift. I think there is little chance now of those two escaping the drop.

Southend have been in the Football League since 1920, according to Wikipedia.

[DuncanM]

There are loads of games left, so it's not a foregone conclusion that Southend will be in the bottom 2.
Also, no-one knows what's going on with the National League, so there's also the possibility that a SNAFU at that end might save them.

[Peter]

Southend Not Altogether F***** Up, then?

[Wowbagger]

Barrow, two places above bottom team Grimsby, and with only 32% of the possession, just beat Cheltenham 2 - 0 away. Cheltenham are still top, but Barrow is the only team in the division to have won their last 3 games. They still have 2 games in hand over Southend, who are now 5 points adrift.

[DuncanM]

Port Vale (20th) also beat Newport who are 4th. There are lots of games, but Southend need to win some.