Relegation

Three years ago, Southend United finished 17^th in Football League Division 3. The highlights of that season were an FA Cup 3^rd Round replay away at the Theatre of Chips in Scarborough, with the promise of a lucrative fourth round tie against Chelsea for the winner.

We lost.

Towards the end of January, Southend’s supporters began to get excited about the Meaningless Cup as, on beating Division Two leaders QPR 4-0, we reached the southern area final.

We needed something to get excited about: the team had been second from bottom of the Football League since 29^th November.

After losing the LDV Final 2-0 to Blackpool, in front of 34,031 fans, the club had a crunch tie against its bogey team. If we lost to Carlisle, we could well have been relegated and, frankly, we had lost almost every time we had played them at Brunton Park for thirty years.

Carlisle were having a terrible season. They had only amassed five points up until the season’s half-way point and were still at the bottom after three months playing on championship form.

We beat them and the fifty or so steadfast Southend supporters who had made their way to Cumbria were rewarded with being locked in for our own safety as an army of ten teenage tearaways attempted to pelt us with projectiles. Their aim was about as good as Carlisle’s forwards’.

The following season began worse than the previous one. By 27^th August we were bottom of the newly renamed, rebranded, far more exciting Coca-Cola League Two. It looked once again as though we were doomed.

We were used to it by now. We had been watching dodgy football for years.

Our fortunes were about to change. A slow rise up the league was highlighted on 16^th October 2004 when, seven seconds after the kick-off against League Two leaders Swansea City, a new young striker from Grays Athletic scored Southend United’s quickest ever goal. That striker, who went on to get a hat trick, was listed in the programme and registered with the FA as Fredy Eastwood.

In typical Southend United style, his name had been wrongly registered. Later, it was noticed that he was actually called Freddy.

The season continued in style. On Tuesday, 19^th April we played Macclesfield Town away. Nine days previously, 36,216 fans had seen Southend beaten by Wrexham in another LDV Final but this time we had our priorities right. When Alan M^cCormack, on loan from Preston, scored the injury time winner against the Silkmen grown men, including me, cried. We were top of the League, needing only three more points from the next three games to guarantee ourselves promotion and the Championship.

So we lost the next three games and finished fourth, two points short of the required tally, doomed to the play-off lottery. It took until extra time in a nervy match against Lincoln City at the Millennium Stadium, in front of only 19,000 fans, most of whom were wearing red and white stripes, for Freddy Eastwood to open up the scoring. When Jupp slotted the second goal in, on 110 minutes, we knew it was our day.

One year later, Southend won the League One championship. The journey to the confusingly named Football League Championship saw us playing attractive, passing football. Sadly, it didn’t last.

This season we have beaten some of the best teams in the Football League— Stoke City, Sunderland, Southampton, West Brom, Birmingham, Ipswich and Preston— six of those teams are in the top eight of the Championship right now. There was also that little matter of the Carling Cup, with victories over the mighty Manchester United and the once mighty Leeds.

It was fun while it lasted. We’ll be back. I’ve no idea when.

Possibly related:

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• So farewell then…
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