All At Sea is an unofficial publication that sup-ports Southend United Football Club. This is notthe official programme and is in no way con-nected with the club.

Disclaimer: Every article published within All AtSea is the opinion of the author of the piece, notnecessarily that of the editorial team. We willpublish anything that is sent to us, providing itdoes not leave us open to libel or is not likely tooffend a large percentage of the readership.Anything sent anonymously will not be consid-ered for inclusion.Not everything said about the club will be posi-tive. However, we will endeavour to keep anycriticism of SUFC constructive. If anybody feelsmaligned by the contents of the fanzine, theyare entitled to a right of reply.With regard to copyright, we endeavour to useour own photographs and material wheneverpossible. Any unacknowledged copyright holdersare encouraged to get in touch.

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Subscriptions: £10 for eight issues (UK)£24 for eight issues (Mainland Europe) Chequespayable to James Forsyth

Back issues: £1.50 inc postage.

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Next issue: Swindon, August 22 (probably)Deadline: Monday, August 17

Editorial team:Ed Beavan (in exile), James Falkingham, JamieForsyth

Front page picture: Peter Miles

editorialWE know it’s tough, June in an

odd-numbered year. Yes there’sthe Women’s World Cup and the

Copa America, but despite these distrac-tions, the football enthusiast is strugglingat this time of year. The only thing man-agers, players and agents are concernedabout in June is Instagramming picturesof cocktails and beaches, which means inthe 24/7 information age, us fans arestruggling to get our fix.

Shrimperzone has turned into a mad placewhere 12 pages of threads about what thenew kit might look like has become accept-able, while social media has been full of pan-icky comments about how we should havesigned half a new team by now and that mo-mentum has already been lost ahead of thenew season.

But don’t worry. We’re here with our firstsummer edition to at least part-fill the void bygiving you something to read and at least dis-tract you for a few minutes.

We’ve taken the decision to offer this uponline only. It has no issue number and no ad-vertising. It does not count as part of sub-scriptions. This is partly because it’s June andthere’s no games to sell it at, and partly to seeif we can attract a few of the online commu-nity, many of whom don’t even know what afanzine is. We have 1,700 Twitter followers,but sell around 300 copies per month. Thatdoesn’t seem right to us, so we’ll see whathappens with this.

One thing is for sure though – we’re notgoing to be abandoning print. This is a one-off, so the traditionalists can rest easy. Normalservice will be resumed in August when we hitthe streets with Issue 56 for the visit of Swin-don on the 22nd.

The bulk of this special edition will betaken up with celebrating promotion. Whenwe’ve brought out post-promotion issues be-fore, it’s been the following August and allthoughts have turned to current matters, so itwill be nice to be able to properly celebrate

Summer 2015 2

3 All At Sea Promotion Special Summer 2015 4

what a feelingIHONESTLY never thought anything

would top the playoff final of 2005.Seeing the net bulge as Freddy

slammed the ball home at the Millen-nium Stadium to send us up was mybest ever football moment until about8.27pm on Saturday, 23rd May 2015.

I didn’t realise Dan Bentley had saved itat first. Like many others around me, it was-n't until Sam Wood flicked his leg helplesslyas the ball came back to him that I realisedthe net had not bulged. It was that and thewall of yellow haring towards the orange-clad goalkeeper that convinced me we hadwon it. And then everything is just a blur ofarms and legs.

That penalty overtook Freddy’s goal. Infact, Freddy’s goal had already been over-taken about 20minutes earlier,when Joe Pig-ott’s angledshot hit the netin front of us aswe waited forthe referee toblow the finalwhistle. My coatwas on, I wasready to leaveWembley in adejected huff.

My brotherinformed me af-terwards that,during the cele-brations for Pigott’s equaliser, he’d neverseen me like it. I was “like an animal”. Awhole season’s joy, frustration and hope allcoming out in a series of tribal roars di-rected into the night sky around north westLondon. The ten-hour round trip to see usblow it on the final day in the rain at More-cambe. The horrible defeat to 10-man Bur-ton, who had cheated their way to victory10 months earlier. Banished in one night

that none of us will ever forget.The day had begun in a rather more

subdued fashion, in the surroundings of Far-ringdon's strategically positioned Wether-spoons. We gathered at 1pm, arriving fromour different entry points into London, butunlike the last game of the season, therewas no boistrousness, no singing, no sou-venir mobile phone videos being filmed inreadiness for glory. Just pure nerves.

I was fine in the pub, but I left alone atabout 2.45pm to meet my best mate Si inJJ Moons, Wembley. Once on my own, thenerves well and truly set in. The overgroundtrain from Euston to Wembley Central, de-void of all but a handful of Wembley-boundsupporters, saw my heart rate double as,away from the distraction of conversation,

the significanceof the occasiondawned.

On arrival,Si was in goodspirits despitebeing irked bydenied initialentry to the pubby “Wether-Nazis” becausehe was munch-ing on asausage roll.Si’s attendancethis season wasnon - ex i s t an tuntil the playoffsemi final sec-

ond leg, for a variety of reasons, not least anewborn son. But let there be no talk ofdaytripping here. He and I spent many aTuesday night away losing to some northernoutfit in the dreadful days of the late 1990s.Before the final appearance had been con-firmed, he had booked this weekend up inLiverpool, to see one of his relatives get, er,confirmed. Having travelled up on Friday, he

getting out of the basement league.If you’re bored of Wembley talk (you’re

not), there’s other stuff too. We delve deepinto the past with Peter Baker on how toughit was to go up before play-offs, and AndrewRoach takes the club to task on arguably themost bizarre missive to appear on theirhomepage since the famous Sturrock-sack-ing “statement”. We pay tribute to BarryCorr, who has decided to move on to pas-tures new, with a look back at his top 10moments in a Southend shirt. And we’ll dishout our prestigious player of the yearaward.

This month, most of the talk has beenabout contracts. Phil Brown has finallysigned his three-year deal and my sourcestell me that because of the length of timethat took, they’re already negotiating on thenext one. Of course, managers rarely lastthat long these days and whether the con-tract will be honoured remains to be seenbut let’s hope it will – it will mean things aregoing in the right direction.

We’ve had our fair share of swipes atBrown over the past couple of years but hedelivered us a promotion and you can’targue with that. The club also seems to bemoving forward with a strong backroomteam and as long as we continue toprogress, there’s no harm in keeping thingsthe way they are.

Michael Timlin is away on his honey-moon and as such has not signed a newcontract yet, but the Echo told us this weekit’s not far from being done. Deegan lookslikely to leave with the parties a fair wayaway on a deal, but Will Atkinson will signhis two-year deal when he returns from hol-iday.

There’s been no new signings as yet, butrecent seasons show this is fairly normal.Transfer activity tends to hot up towards theend of June, and clearly a couple of strikersneed to be the club’s priority, with onlyJason Williams currently on the books inthat position.

Club hero Adam Barrett has been per-suaded to delay his retirement which isgreat news. He proved a lot of peoplewrong with his contribution at the end oflast season and it has to be said, what a

penalty that was. If Alex Lynch had got tothat, he’d still be in hospital now.

The usual stock of pre-season gameshave been arranged, with the highlightprobably the home game with Charlton.Trips to Great Wakering, Canvey and Brain-tree have become annual events but it isimportant to help local non-league clubsout. We all moan at how selfish the PremierLeague clubs have become, shunninggames with Football League clubs in favourof trips to Dubai, the Far East and the USA.Non-league clubs are important in theircommunities and deserve a pre-season payday, so get down to some of those games ifyou can.

Enjoy the issue and the summer.

Jamie Forsyth@Jaimundo_ESX

Summer 2015 65 All At Sea Promotion Special

got back on a train to London on Saturdaymorning, and booked a place on the lasttrain back to Liverpool that night. It was at7.56pm. Extra time would be no good, he’dhave to be out of the stadium by 7.25pm. Ithought that was more than a little ambi-tious with both clubs finishing on exactly thesame points and showing similar form.

It was also nice to bump into a fewother friends and old faces in the pub, be-fore after a few drinks the pub closed up at4.45pm to allow the clearup ahead of theSaturday night crowd.

We split up after the short walk to thestadium and the only negative part of theday came, when walking to the turnstiles, Icould hear an aggressive, clearly drunkSouthend fan singing “fuck off Wycombe” inthe faces of any unfortunate fans in sky bluethat happened to be walking past, includingat least one family with young children. I'mashamed to say I didn’t risk taking him totask – I really hope he was one of thosefans later shamed on national telly for leav-ing early.

The atmosphere in the ground was no-ticeably better than when some 10,000more Blues had turned up for the JPT a cou-ple of years ago. The free scarves left on

chairs made for a great spectacle, even ifsome unscrupulous types had been report-edly hoovering them up and bagging thembefore the fans whom they were meant forhad taken their seats. Not very classy, butfortunately most of them seemed to havemade their way into the right hands.

I thought during the first half, we werethe better side. My main gripe was that thefull backs, especially Coker, had been reluc-tant to support the attack. Marcus Bean,their makeshift right back, was clearly vul-nerable, as was their rookie keeper Lynch,and I felt we should have tried harder tomake inroads down the flanks.

However, you can hardly blame the play-ers for being cagey on such an occasion,particularly as it has been our default stancefor much of the season. Barry Corr had theball in the net and I was a good three sec-onds into a frenzied celebration before real-ising the referee had ruled the goal outthanks to a push by Corr's fellow compatriotBolger.

The game was tense and there seemedlittle in the way of danger for our defenceuntil the latter stages of the second half.Hayes should have done better when putthrough by Holloway but Bentley denied him

and Coker cleared away. Then Bentley madean even better save from Aaron Pierre’sheader, which looked to me like it may havebeen hitting the crossbar.

Southend should have had a penaltywhen Corr was clattered over by Jacobsonwhen trying to meet Michael Timlin's diago-nal cross, a trademark of the midfielder'sthat has led to a few goals this season. Atthe time I appealed but was unsurprisedwhen it wasn't given. Having seen it back, itwas a stonewall penalty.

It was no surprise when the game wentinto extra time. I don't think either team hadreally done enough to win it. Four minuteslater, the tension turned to despair. Jacobsoncurled a free kick off the bar and into thenet. I didn't watch the big screen behind mefor a replay, but it later emerged the ball hadgone in off Bentley’s back. It was not some-thing I was aware of at the time, nor had Imade the connection that Jacobson shouldhave conceded a penalty some 20 minutesearlier. I’m glad I didn’t, as I got frustratedenough watching Wycombe constantly time-waste and feign injury for what seemed thewhole of extra time.

We looked a beaten team. Payne, We-ston and Pigott had been brought on to tryand turn the game in our favour, but welooked tired and bereft of ideas. When Pigottsent a header well wide in the last minute,it was the signal for me to text my good ladyjust one word: “Lost”. It was only fair she beaware of the kind of mood I would be inwhen I returned home that night, seasonover and promotion gone for the third timein five years.

I remember Weston getting the ball andlooking hesitant, perhaps looking for a longball into the box. The crowd pleaded withhim to do something, anything. He did. Hebeat his man and swung a decent cross intothe box, but it was behind everyone. I didn’tsee who knocked it down, nor did I see Pig-ott get his shot away, there were too manyblue-shirted bodies in the way. All I saw wasthe ball suddenly appear from the crowd,and it seemed to be as much as a surpriseto Alex Lynch as it was to me. The goal-keeper never moved as it flew into the bot-tom corner. We, on the other hand, did. I

don’t think I’ve ever experienced such pan-demonium after a goal.

The relief was incredible, but we'd notwon it yet, we had next to no recovery timebefore we would have to watch our entireseason go down to a penalty shootout. Cel-ebrations turned to tension once more asour entire group of mates in our row linkedarms in solidarity with the teams in the cen-tre circle.

Pigott stepped up, Lynch got a hand toit but couldn’t stop it. Murphy sent Bentleythe wrong way. Then Ben Coker stepped up.I’d told everyone who would listen in thepub earlier that he’d be my choice to take apenalty in normal time, with Barry having of-fered up the penalty duties after his semifinal miss. Coker, surely would score. Hewent down the middle, Lynch went to hisright, but saved with his legs. Despair oncemore.

Mawson’s penalty pressed home the ad-vantage – Bentley went the right way but itwas too good. Leonard smashed his into theroof of the net. Hayes sent Bentley thewrong way, the Wickford lad was nevergoing to miss. At this stage, it really wasn'tlooking too good.

Jack Payne, apparently the best penaltytaker at the club, lived up to his mantle.Then up stepped Matt Bloomfield,Wycombe's longest-serving player, who hadlost the ball needlessly in extra time and costhis team. He put it to Bentley's right, a goodheight, saved. He’d cost his team again.

With Southend going first, once MichaelTimlin had sent Lynch the wrong way, wenow had the advantage. It was all on MarcusBean – being a Col Ewe reject I was prayingfor him to miss, but it wasn’t to be: he sentBentley the wrong way. Now we were intosudden death and Adam Barrett walked for-ward. He smashed it into the top corner andwe were treated to the famous double fistsalute once again. Jacobson then sent Bent-ley the wrong way and walked away taunt-ing the young goalkeeper.

Up stepped Myles Weston, I could barelywatch. I’d stuck up for Myles all season inspite of the idiot boo boys and he'd repaidme by setting up that goal in extra time. Ifhe missed, it would be unbearable. He did-

7 All At Sea Promotion Special Summer 2015 8

n’t. Bottom right, cool as you like. Aaron Hol-loway, in off the post. So close Bentley. NowCian Bolger, who had managed to turn hisseason around in recent weeks. Top rightcorner, another fantastic penalty.

This looked like it was never going toend. Up stepped Sam Wood, a left-footerwho had set up the flukiest goal seen atRoots Hall in a long time back in March whenhis volley hit Steven Craig’s heel and bobbledin. His luck was out now. Bentley flung him-self to his left and the rest is history.

I don’t remember much about the cele-bration immediately afterwards, just thenoise. 20,000 Shrimpers fans going beserkin the national stadium. Will it ever get anybetter than that? Up the steps the lads wentto get the trophy, a great moment in anyplayer's career, before the champagne waspopped on the pitch. Fantastic to see Whiteand Barrett, Essex boys and captains pastand present, dancing with the trophy in front

of the fans.I hadn’t realised Brown and Ainsworth

had watched the penalties together withgreat dignity, rightly praised by the nationalmedia the following day. For Brown, this wasredemption for all the people that had la-belled him a figure of fun.

After bumping into several old pals onthe way out of the ground and embracingabout 100 people, many of whom werecomplete strangers, it was back to BakerStreet to celebrate in the only way we knowhow. After a brief dither prompted by thenumber of people outside the Globe, weopted to head for the Volunteer where wemanaged to persuade the bouncers wemeant no harm.

After a few ales, who should we seecoming down the street but Si, who had satin a different tier to us during the game.He’d missed his 7.56pm train to Liverpool,because he couldn’t miss that finish for the

Picture courtesy ofChristopher Nice@Nicey_16

world. He’d booked himself on the overnightMegabus, leaving Victoria at 11.30pm andarriving in Liverpool at 5am Sunday! What astory, dedication well and truly rewardedand he had time for some backslaps and acouple of pints before heading to get thelong bus up north.

The game and the aftermath had goneon so long, our drinking time was curtailedsomewhat but it didn’t matter. If you couldbottle and sell that feeling when Bentleysaved that penalty, you would put every

Colombian drug lord out of businessovernight. A few beers was enough for us,we were exhausted as we headed back toEssex. Home by 1am, hangover dodged. Iwas even thanked the following day by thewife for not getting into the state I usuallyreturn from away games from. I will remem-ber it all, and I’ll remember it forever.

Jamie Forsyth@Jaimundo_ESX

Summer 2015 109 All At Sea Promotion Special

word smithTHE tagline for this book reads:

“Ben Smith, professional footballer.Recognise the name? Of course

you don’t”. Well I do, and many otherSouthend fans will have done in thepast, but may have forgotten him. Un-surprising really as Ben made just onefleeting substitute appearance for theShrimpers back in 2001 because injuryand bad luck decimated his year-longstay at Roots Hall.

This book documents Smith’s entire 17-year professional career as well as an insightinto his struggle trying to make it as a sec-ondary school teacher following his retire-ment and a few words about his formativeyears living in Witham and his youth careerwith Arsenal.

Before reading from cover to cover, nat-urally I cheated and turned straight to thechapter on Southend, which he states “won’ttake long to read” because his time at theclub was “an unmitigated disaster”. Smith

followed Dave Webb to the club from YeovilTown, where he had impressed as a creativeattacking midfielder. I remember being veryexcited with his signing, as I’ve always likedplayers in that mould. Unfortunately a seriesof injuries combined with Webb’s retirementdue to ill-health meant he never had thechance to shine at Roots Hall. Signed on ayear’s contract, he was understandably re-leased by Rob Newman, of whom Smithdoes not hold fond memories. Newman isdescribed as changing from an amiable andinsightful assistant into a manager who con-stantly sniped at him for lacking fitness andstruggled to deal with the distance requiredof a manager from his players. That wholeperiod of our history is best forgotten al-though Newman had been a very popularplayer amongst supporters.

The more interesting side of the rest ofthe book concerns his time at Crawley whenthe reader gets an insight into the characterof Smith’s then-manager, Steve Evans.“Evo’s” temper tantrums and madcap anticsdominate the final few chapters as Smithdocuments the twilight of his career at aclub rising fast through the leagues – toofast as it turned out for the protagonist, whodespite playing a big role in their rise to theFootball League, spent his final season in

professional football being farmed out onloan to glamourous locations like Aldershotand Kettering (incidentally it was the seasonwhen Crawley pipped us to promotion onthe last day after spending suspiciousamounts of money on higher-level playersand their wages).

Any anoraks of the lower leagues, and Iinclude myself in their number, will enjoy thisbook for the insight it gives to some of thewell-known characters of the game. At timesit is a little too meticulous, with almost everyresult detailed throughout long seasons,along with an assessment on Smith’s ownperformance in almost every one. He musthave spent a lot of time on Soccerbase, orhave an amazing memory.

However, Smith is man enough to ownup to his failures as a young professional,too much boozing and late nights and notenough hard work. Although he attemptedto make up for this in later years, adaptingto the required professionalism was too lit-tle, too late to reignite a career which prom-ised loftier heights than those he reached.The thinking behind his decisions on whichclubs to join and how to conduct his contractnegotiations is also interesting and serves asa reminder of how precarious the career ofplayers at our level can be. A favourite pas-sage of mine was when he went to renego-tiate his contract at Yeovil after drinking inthe club bar and slapped a full pint on chair-man John Fry’s desk as he sat down to begintalks.

Smith’s time as a professional had asmany lows as highs, but he rightly mentionsthat he has been lucky to play at Old Traf-ford, enjoyed several promotions and tohave been paid relatively well for 17 yearsin a job he would have done for free. Hisdiary as a struggling teacher will also strikea chord for anyone who has had to changecareer and shows how difficult it can be forlower league professionals to re-join the realworld after they retire. This book is wellworth the £12.99 cover price, especially forthe lower league enthusiast and fans ofclubs Smith has played for.

Jamie Forsyth@Jaimundo_ESX

11 All At Sea Promotion Special Summer 2015 12

cheering from afarAT about 12.40am on Sunday 24

May 2015, a new generation ofSouthend fans in India were inau-

gurated.After sitting through 120 minutes of

dross, Daniel Bentley’s stunning penalty savein the play off penalty shoot-out sentSouthend back to the promised land ofLeague One, and about 20 students andtheir history teacher (me) into a seethingmorass of joy, rolling around the floor of adormitory lounge. “We won Mr Beavan, wewon!”. The first person pronoun used by onestudent for Southend gave me great pleas-ure, as part of my mission here in India wasdone.

Let me give you a bit of context. I am ahistory teacher at Woodstock School innorthern India, an international school in thefoothills of the Himalayas. I teach four sec-tions of Grade 9 (4th year) history, withabout 40 football-mad boys in the classes.Predictably they support the usual suspectsin the Premier League – Man U, Arsenal,Chelsea, and Liverpool (no Spurs fansthough), while others follow the Spanish gi-ants Barca and Real. A few follow therazzmatazz of the Indian Premier Leaguewhich started last year, but ultimately theexcitement of the Premier League is themain attraction.

It’s fair to say lower division English foot-ball was not really on their radar before I be-came their history teacher this year.Therefore every Monday morning, as westudied Genghis Khan, the Renaissance, theBattle of Hastings or whatever, I would putup the Southend result from the previousSaturday on the projector. Over the weeks,they learnt more about the mightyShrimpers, our best players, our most fa-mous results (I took great joy showing themthe Freddy free kick v Man U and PeterClarke’s equaliser v Chelsea), while BarryCorr, Ben Coker et al were often included asmultiple choice options in tests.

As the season wore on I would show

them the goals from our games, while boyswould often come in having seen our resultsfrom the weekend, either congratulating orcommiserating me. One Korean studenteven decided to support Cheltenham Townjust to irritate me (that didn’t end well forhim – and he was also a Man City and BayerLeverkusen fan – so a terrible season allround!). After a trip home at Christmas, Iput up the posters of the players from the2015 calendar. Some of the girls got inter-ested as they thought some of our playerswere attractive (“Ryan Leonard’s really fit MrBeavan!”). Daniel Bentley had also kindlyrecorded a video message for the studentswhen I saw him after the York game in Jan-uary – further building up a rapport betweena random international school in India andSouthend United.

After the gut-wrenching defeat at More-cambe on the last day of the season whichconsigned us to the play offs, I did manageto see one positive. There is a channel herewhich shows Football League games, and allthe play off matches would be shown. Finallythere was a chance for my students to seethe mighty Shrimpers live!

Unfortunately the timings of the semi-fi-nals v Stevenage were not ideal, kicking offat about 11pm and midnight on school-nights. Some of the boys sat through someof the first leg v Stevenage, although like megave up at half time as it was so dire. Thesecond leg was on too late, and in any casethe broadcasters decided to show Wycombev Plymouth instead. I decided to not watchthe game and go to bed, as I knew it wouldbe too stressful. However, I could not get tosleep as I was so on edge thinking about it,so eventually my wife said I should just getup and follow online.

I went to the BBC text updates to follow– quite possibly the most painful way of fol-lowing football available to mankind. WhenI first logged on it was 1-1, then the lastminute penalty came. After what seemedlike an eternity, “Barry Corr misses – hits bar

with penalty” came up, and with it I thoughour chance of progressing. I was in purga-tory. I then managed to find a live streamand see McLaughlin and Tims notch the vitalgoals to put us through.

So it was game on for the final! I told mystudents I’d be coming to their dorm towatch the game which kicked off at 10pmIndian time. About 20 turned up and stuckit out for 120 minutes, as once again itlooked like we would blow our chance in abig final. But when in the 122nd minute JoePiggott (who had been criticised for missinga few chances by some students) controlledthe ball and found the back of the netthrough a sea of Wycombe legs, the celebra-tion was almost as good as being there (forme it was more of relief than anything – al-though the prospect of penalties was stilldaunting). But then Dan Bentley and theboys did the business – and the rest is his-

tory.In those 140 odd minutes of football

those boys went through a microcosm of mySouthend United supporting life in 25 years.They sat through a huge amount of terriblefootball, but then experienced the thrill andsurprise of a amazing victory to send us allinto “dreamland” (sorry for awful cliché).

As Dan palmed out that final penalty, Ifelt these boys had become properShrimpers, and it solidified my great rela-tionship with them. Now it is my hope theseguys will one day get over to watch us in theflesh at Roots Hall.

Now, let’s see, how’s about a medievalhistory field trip to England via Roots Hallnext winter?!

Ed Beavan@edbeavan

Summer 2015 1413 All At Sea Promotion Special

the bumpy road to wembleyStevenage 1-1 Southend

IF there was any doubt aboutSouthend’s travelling support dwin-dling after the heart break of More-

cambe, then that was quashed as earlyas 8am the following Monday as fansqueued the length of Roots Hall car parkto make sure they were at Stevenage forthe first leg of the play-off semi final.

The day and time of the game kept manyof the usual AAS travelling crowd away, butI travelled in hope that we could at least takea draw back to the Hall for the second leg.

Before the game, we headed to the BestWestern Hotel – not the usual pre match kindof establishment but everyone was a little tonervy to really worry about the pub, espe-cially on a Sunday. After hooking up withsome old faces, a few swift pints were hadbefore we made our way to Broadhall Wayfor the second time in three months.

The travelling Shrimpers were in fullforce, and making plenty of noise behind thegoal. The opening was cagey as expected,with neither side wanting to go behind. Thefirst half will be memorable for a clash ofheads that left Michael Timlin needing sev-eral stitches and having to be replaced byGary Deegan.

The home side went in front at the startof the second half, a cracking strike fromDean Parratt flew in past Dan Bentley from20 yards. In truth, Blues didn’t really deserveto be behind and for five minutes after thegoal seemed to lose their composure totally.But a fortunate corner and a deflectedheader from Barry Corr levelled the game upand secured a draw for Southend.

It was only half-time, and 1-1 had prob-ably been fair, but it would be a lie to sayeven the most pessimistic Southend fan wasnot hopeful of securing a place at Wembley.

Southend 3-1 StevenageSO, it was back to Essex for the second leg.Rain all day in the south of the county hadthreatened to make the pitch unplayable and

play into hoof ball Stevenage’s hands, butthe club were quick to cover the pitch andthe game was on, despite the rain.

Blues started better and had several halfchances in the first half, but the game onlyreally came to life on the hour.

It was the visitors who took the initiativeon the night and on aggregate. The ball pinballed around in the box before falling to TomPett who fired past a helpless Bentley. How-ever, there was to be no repeat of Crewe in2012 or Burton a year earlier, and Blues weresoon level with Ryan Leonard smashinghome in front of the South Stand to squarethe tie again.

With the match destined for extra time,Blues were awarded a penalty. Leonard wasadjudged to have been barged over and fromnothing, Southend had the chance to securetheir place in the final. Corr stepped up, andas Roots Hall held its breath, smashed theball against the bar and over. The refereeblew for full time almost immediately afterand another 30 minutes was required.

It would have been very easy for theplayers’ heads to drop and fans to get frus-trated at that point, but the atmosphere in-side the ground remained positive as theplayers piled on the pressure in the first pe-riod of extra time.

Finally, Southend got themselves in frontin the tie – John White crossed for StephenMcLaughlin to head home from close rangeto send the Southend fans into a frenzied cel-ebration, one matched by the home benchand the players.

Westley threw on another striker as thevisitors realised the tie was slipping awayfrom them, and with seconds left, MichaelTimlin’s moment came. Complete with skullcap, Timlin picked up the ball, twisted andturned his marker before curling a left footedshot into the corner of the net to sendSouthend United to Wembley for the secondtime in just over two years.

James Falkingham@easymorninrebel

TALENT spottingTOWARDS the end of last season,

the club announced a new ticket-ing system for next season to be

run by Advanced Ticketing, using their“ecommerce platform” TALENT Sport.The full caps for Talent were used bythe club, not me, and are by far theleast offensive thing about the article.Get your bullshit bingo cards out folks,and follow me for a journey throughbusiness speak not seen since the lastdays of The Office.

The whole thing was an exercise in spe-cialised language and corporate bollocks,promising an “integrated online purchasingjourney” (it will look the same as the rest ofthe website) and a “fully responsive web ex-perience” (if you click a button it will dosomething), littered with “strategic”s andmentions of “the cloud”, offering “solutions”and talking about “devices”. Apparently fanscan now order tickets from any device. Ihave a vacuum cleaner at home. That’s adevice. Can I order a ticket with it? No, canI bollocks.

It reminds me of something I read awhile ago where a beautician asked some-one what products they used, only to be sur-prised when they replied “well, pens,notepads that sort of stuff”. They’ve falleninto the same trap of using industry specificterms and applying them to another field.

Oh, and be fully prepared to receivemore crappy advertising from the club aswell. The new system will allow the club to“analyse supporter data” (look at whatyou’re looking at on the website, see whattickets you buy) and “engage with fans in amore tailored way through its campaigns toreward loyalty with more relevant offers”(send you more shit e-mails flogging youstuff, only this time they’ve got your nameon the top and keep referencing that Bluesruler you bought online three years ago asa stocking filler for your nephew).

The one thing I’ve learnt from this article

though – the board has goals. Yes, they’renot content to sit in the board room flickingpaperclips at each other and drawing strawsto see which one of them has to ring Sains-bury’s to get some more money to stave offthe latest winding-up order. No, at one oftheir meetings it seems they drew up somegoals for the club to advance. And not justfairly obvious ones like “Actually start workon the new stadium” or “get a footpump toblow up that dome we bought”. No, waydown the list, probably about number 36, inbetween “find out if anyone remembers whoMads Ibenfeldt is” and “get around to givingKevin Maher a testimonial”, was “To be atthe forefront of technology changes”. It’sgood to see these captains of industry mak-ing good use of their time. There are, obvi-ously cost cutting reasons behind thisthough.

According to Steve Kavanagh, a “cloud-based solution removes reliance on IT staffat our end which allows us to streamline ourprocesses” – classic business speak for“we’re going to be making some people re-dundant” – “and free up staff to do what wedo best – run a football club”. No, I can’t be-lieve he said that last bit either. And not hav-ing the ticketing system based in the ticketoffice means when it goes wrong, the clubwon’t be to blame. They can pin it on “thecloud” and post some waffle on the websiteabout how all these systems aren’t quite asfully integrated as they hoped whilst somepoor teenager from the ticket office spends45 minutes on hold to a third party helpdeskto try and get it up and running again, onlyto be told to “unplug it and start it up again,that should do it”.

The whole thing looks as though it es-sentially is a press release published by Ad-vanced Ticketing and just slapped onto theclub website without any thought as towhether it’s written for the average fan orfor some industry site where people areforced to spend all day conversing not inplain English but in premium, grade A bull-

15 All At Sea Promotion SpecialSummer 2015 16

shit. They’ve even kept the contact detailsfor some PR company in the article asthough these poor (I say poor, but theychose to work in PR so f**k ‘em) people ac-tually won’t mind speaking to season ticketholders wondering how the new system willoffer them an integrated online purchasingjourney.

I’d suggest that the club’s media officershould have rewritten it, but he’s probablytoo busy gathering pictures for the nexttransfer deadline day so he can pull off more

“Messi Signs”-style “banter” using joke for-mats at least four years out of date andmore suited to when your twitter browserdidn’t automatically load pictures attachedto posts. At least they used the word Sup-porters though, and not Customers. Thatwould have been the final insult.

Andrew Roach@RoachmeisterTo read the original article on the SouthendUnited website, click here

farewell barryTHE departure of Barry Corr to

Cambridge United at the begin-ning of June came as a shock and

a blow to Southend fans.While deep down we were all a little con-

cerned about his ability to adapt to LeagueOne football and the fact he was always off-side, there’s no denying Corr was a fans’favourite at Roots Hall having scored 63goals in five years.

His never-say-die attitude, his link-upplay and ability to ruffle even the most ex-perienced defender’s feathers were alsotrademarks of his play.

The period in which Corr was at the clubwill be remembered in our history as a diffi-cult transitional period, where financial con-straints resulted in a “make do and mend”attitude towards the playing side. Aside fromthat nightmare 18 months out injured, Corrwas a rare constant and without his goals inthis period, particularly his 21 in 2010/11,who knows where we would be.

Barry may have left us for pastures new,but we at All At Sea hold on to some fantas-tic memories from the big man’s time atRoots Hall. Even if you don’t rate him (andplenty don’t) as a striker, there’s no doubtyou’ll read some of these and smile. Goodluck Barry.

10: Stevenage 1-1 Southend Back in November 2010 there wasn’t toomuch to shout about, but Barry Corr was astandout performer in that season of consol-idation. This was probably his best momentthat season (a campaign in which he netted21 times). Having come on as a sub justeight minutes earlier, he sent a crisp angledstrike into the net for an 85th-minuteequaliser in Southend’s first ever visit toBroadhall Way.

9: Southend 3-0 Chesterfield Friday night under the lights at Roots Hall isalways a special occasion, especially when

it’s the week before Christmas and yousmash the league leaders. Corr wrapped upthe points with a deft chip over the advanc-ing goalkeeper, surely one of his best goalsfor the club.

Summer 2015 1817 All At Sea Promotion Special

8: Southend 2-2 BrentfordSouthend looked down and out of the FACup at the 3rd round stage when two first-half goals put their League One visitors inthe ascendency. Southend looked to theirtalisman for inspiration and two textbookBarry headed goals put them back in thegame and forced a replay at Griffin Park.

7: Oxford 3-3 Southend (3-5 penalties)Two goals from Corr had a massive influenceon this dramatic encounter which set up anArea Final with Leyton Orient. His second onthe hour was a splendid sidefooted long-range strike which looked to have won ituntil a late goal by the hosts, by which timeCorr had been substituted for Elliot Benyon.

6: Southend 4-1 MillwallOne of the most famous FA Cup games everto be played at Roots Hall was sparked intolife when Corr headed powerfully into thenet early on to put the Championship sideon the back foot – and they never recov-ered.

5: Stevenage 1-1 Southend Stevenage, like Wycombe, must have beensick to the stomach when they found outBarry Corr would yet again be facing themnext season. Boro have been on the receiv-ing end of Barry’s goals four times in recentyears and this one was by far the most im-portant. It was scrappy, a far post headerdeflected in off a defender, but it snuffed outthe momentum Stevenage had found havinggone a goal up in this vital play-off semi-finaljust a few minutes earlier.

4: Portsmouth 1-2 SouthendOur first trip to Portsmouth since the mid1990s was not going well. A goal down earlyon, Cauley Woodrow was sent off leavingSouthend with an uphill task to get anythingfrom this trip to Fratton Park. However, wehad not reckoned on Corr. First, his reversepass set Will Atkinson away to equalise.Then, with eight minutes left, having wonthe header that started the move, the strikermet John White’s cross with his trusty bonceto give Southend a delightfully illicit threepoints.

3: Southend 2-2 Leyton Orient (3-2 ag-gregate)Left out of the side as Paul Sturrock optedfor a 4-5-1 to protect a first-leg lead, Corrwas brought on after just half an hour forAlex Woodyard after Shaun Batt spoiled theScotsman’s plans. Dividends were paid justafter the break, when Corr volleyed home anAssombalonga knock-down to put Southendback in front in the tie and almost take theroof off a sold-out Roots Hall.

2: Southend 1-1 Wycombe (7-6 penal-ties)Barry Corr’s final touch of the ball forSouthend United was arguably his most im-portant. With 122 minutes on the clock atWembley, the referee was about to endSouthend’s hopes of promotion for anotheryear as they trailed 1-0 to Wycombe Wan-derers. More in hope than expectation,Myles Weston sent a cross into the box. Itwas behind Corr but he managed to direct acushioned header to Joe Pigott, who con-trolled and sent a low shot into the cornerof the net. Season saved, and the rest is his-tory.

1: Southend 2-1 Exeter CityHaving endured 18 months out injured,many thought Barry Corr would never playfootball again. He received a huge cheerwhen coming off the bench against his for-mer club Exeter City on 72 minutes, withSouthend trailing. But that was nothing.Within six minutes, a right-wing cross cametowards him, 12 yards out and at an acuteangle. While others may have opted to putthe ball back across the goal, there was onlyone thought in Corr’s mind. He sent athumping header, the unfeasible power gen-erated by a year and a half’s frustration, intothe bottom corner of the net. A few minuteslater, another returning hero, Freddy East-wood, completed the comeback in one ofthe most memorable games at Roots Hall inrecent years.

Jamie Forsyth@Jaimundo_ESX

promotion is never easySOUTHEND endured an epic strug-

gle to gain promotion last season,promotion secured by lifelines.

The automatic spot, taken away on thelast day of the season but saved by the play-off lifeline. The semi-final again saved by thelifeline of extra-time and again at Wembleyin the final seconds of injury time and thenpenalties again saved by lifelines.

No one could say it was easy, but therewere those lifelines. However, up to 1958there were no lifelines, you had to be cham-pions of your division or you were not pro-moted nothing for second, or third. Duringthis time Southend were not promoted buthad two good attempts.

In 1931/32, Southend went 15 gamesunbeaten at the start of the season and pro-motion seemed a formality. But two winsand a draw was all they had to show fromtheir next thirteen games and saw them fallto tenth place. They finished the seasonfourteen games unbeaten and if only theyhad a couple more games they could havemade it. It was manager Ted Birnie’s finestyear, but finishing third meant nothing.

In contrast, 1949/50 saw the Blues,under manager Harry Warren, with a stronghome record – their first twelve home gamesproduced eleven wins and one draw – but ifthat was promotion form, they were badlylet down by their away form.

Their first thirteen away games producedNO wins, six draws and seven defeats, withsuch contrasts promotion could never be apossibility and although they maintained aplace well within the top ten that was as faras it could go.

The away breakthrough came with a winat Millwall and then inevitably four of thenext five away games resulted in wins. NottsCounty were by this time in a virtually un-reachable position but there was hope.

Saturday 1st April 1950 Torquay United 2-4 Southend UnitedTo win at Torquay was no mean feat, theysmashed the home side’s unbeaten home

record which stretched back over a year. This win was achieved with the minimum

of chances, opportunistic goals being the se-cret of Southend’s success. Stubbs scoredafter six minutes, but Torquay equalisedafter 20 minutes.

Southend won the game in the earlystages of the second half after only two min-utes Wakefield added then Stubbs added thethird.

After 20 minutes Torquay pulled a goalback, with ten minutes to go Clough scoredwith a header. After Notts County drew 1-1at Swindon, they led the table by nine points(only two points for a win).

Good Friday 7th April 1950Notts County 3-1 Port ValeSouthend United 2-2 Ipswich TownLeslie Stubbs, a former Great Wakering cen-tre forward made his first appearance beforethe 17,000 Stadium supporters.

With seven games to go Notts Countyled by 10 points.

Easter Saturday 8th April 1950Notts County 1-1 Torquay UnitedSouthend United 3-0 AldershotWith six games to go Notts County led bynine points.

Easter Monday 10th April 1950Port Vale 3-1 Notts CountyIpswich Town 1-3 Southend UnitedWith five games to go Notts County lead byseven points.

Saturday 15th April 1950Aldershot 2-0 Notts CountyNottingham Forest 1-2 SouthendUnitedWith four games to go, Notts County lead byfive points.

So what had seemed like a lost causesuddenly seemed more than a dream withSouthend having won their last two awaygames and Notts County having lost their

19 All At Sea Promotion Special Summer 2015 20

ON THE ROAD Fleetwood Town, HighburyNOTHING says you’ve gone up a division likean opening day trip to Fleetwood.Glamourous it may not be, but a seaside trip inearly August is never to be sniffed at, even if itis in Blackpool’s nondescript suburb.The Cod Army had a decent season last yearunder Graham Alexander, finishing in mid-table, and chairman Andy Pilley continues toinvest in the club, who are punching extraordi-narily above their weight. The stadium is thebest example of this – Highbury is a compactbut modern ground with a terrific steep awayterrace.At 276 miles, this is the furthest we will haveto travel all season and the logistics are a littletricky if coming by train. It involves a trip toBlackpool North (which in itself requires achange at Preston) followed by a tram north toFleetwood, six miles or so from the resort. Al-ternatively, the nearest station is Poulton-Le-Fylde, about five miles away from the ground.The fishing town of Fleetwood is very small

(smaller than Rayleigh) and has limited optionsfor pre-match entertainment. However, AASdrank in an excellent pub on our last visitcalled the Strawberry Gardens, which is largeand serves a great selection of the ale.Alternatively, further into the town is theThomas Drummond, a Spoons, but this is a lit-tle further from Highbury.Tickets for the terrace are £20, with seatsavailable in a side stand for £22.

two. Just four games left, five points adriftwith eight to play for, but then:

Saturday 22nd April 1950 Southend United 1-2 NorthamptonTown.The Blues’ slender hopes of promotion to Di-vision Two crashed when they suffered theirsecond home defeat of the season againstNorthampton.

United disappointed their 15,000 sup-porters, not by losing the game but by theirpoor display, at times it seemed like it wasone player, Albert Wakefield againstNorthampton and had the visitors beensteadier in front of goal the score could havebeen much greater than 1-2.

Northampton went ahead after twentyfive minutes with a hard drive which Hankeygot his fingers to but the ball flew into thenet. The reverse was a shock to the Bluesbut Northampton fully deserved the lead,they were the more dangerous of the twosides with the Blues a shadow of their for-mer selves. Blues troubles got worse after32 minutes when a free kick was headedhome. After 56 minutes United opened theiraccount, Clough was fouled in the area andthe referee had no hesitation in awarding apenalty from which Wakefield made no mis-

take. The second half saw Southend in all the

opening exchanges, at one stage Wakefieldburst through and netted, but the goal wasruled offside, a decision that was hotly dis-puted. United crammed everything they hadinto the closing stages but the Northamptondefence stood firm. Team: Hankey; Lindsay and Walton; Wall-banks, Sheard and French; Davies,McAlin-den;Wakefield, Stubbs and Clough.

Notts County beat rivals Nottingham For-est 2-0 to extend their lead to seven pointswith just six to play for. The Promotiondream was over.

In hindsight, like 1932, a few moregames and just perhaps. The spectatorswere treated to a good season at the Sta-dium as they only witnessed two home de-feats, but a successful season without anyreasonable hope of promotion was disap-pointing. Perhaps one similarity was thatboth seasons they had the advantage of acentre forward who could score goals JimmyShankly in 1932 and Albert Wakefield in1950.

Peter Baker

as good as it getsALMOST a month has passed

since our evening out at Wemb-ley and still I find there are

questions to be answered. Like, howis it possible to have the ball in the op-position’s half with 40 seconds of in-jury time of extra time to go, whenyou’re 1-0 up in a play off final andstill not secure promotion? What wasAdam BarrettTHINKING whenhe took hispenalty? Surely hedidn’t think it wasgoing in? Take thenet off and thatcould have hit thearch. Why didsome people wholeft early and werewalking downWembley waywhen we equalisedstill just carry onwalking home? DidGareth Ainsworthactually think hecould take Cocko?

Of course the context to the end of ourevening at the home of football goes waybeyond the three hours we spent in there.To be honest it goes back five years, pos-sibly more. As exciting as our yo-yo up anddown the divisions was in the last decade,these last five years have been a frustrat-ing time to be a Southend fan. Yes, wehave been a top-half team, and we havecertainly had some good times, winningmore games than we have lost every year,and if not flirting with the play-offs everytime, then being in them (and failing, mis-erably). But these home games playingagainst the likes of Morecambe/Accring-

ton/York/Northampton/Dagenham/Chel-tenham (I could go on) have taken theirtoll. The negative mentality of some awayteams in this division has not been easy onthe eye, even at a time when the qualityof footballer generally at this level hasbeen on the up. This stems from only twoteams getting relegated, something whichmeans a point is so much more preciousin League Two. Basically, for a team that

doesn’t actually play todraw that often, Ithink we’ve all hadenough.

Without meaningto get too serious, Ithought this a yearago too, and our play-off defeat to Burtonlast year hit me like atrain. And I just don’tget as upset about los-ing as I used to either.So this year, I spentthe whole time beg-ging the football Godsnot to stick us in theplay offs again. Please,no.

In boozy momentsaround February I think I may have taken12th rather than the play-offs. Of course,I’m an absolute twat and totally wrong,but that is how I felt after three too manypints of Doombar*.

And then, on Good Friday, we went ona delightful run that promotion dreams aremade of. Seven wins in a row without con-ceding a goal. And the drama of that run,despite not strictly meaning much by theend, will live long in the memory. Hangingout in the car way beyond arriving homejust to listen to end of the Hartlepool gamewithout missing a second. Almost fillingmy pants there and then on the terrace atExeter after Timlin netted our 96th minute

Summer 2015 2221 All At Sea Promotion Special

winner (now that would have been anawful journey home). Polluting my loungewith BO whilst listening to the agony ofthe Bury game (I have discovered that re-ally, for health reasons, big games on theradio are probably not for me). And the hi-larity of our winner against Luton to propelus into the top three prior to the final dayof the season, and the delight on people’sfaces in the pub afterwards with the ac-knowledgement that finally, we were goingto get out of this God-forsaken division.

And then Morecambe. If Morecambeaway was an election campaign it wouldhave been Nigel Farage’s this year. (“I ac-tually think we’re going to do this lads”. Er,no you're bloody not pal, and you’re goingto want to bugger off and go on holidaystraight after to forget about the whole de-bacle as well). The whole thing was crap.It was like dribbling in your keks after youthink you’ve finished in the bog. It was likefinding out the cat has taken a slash inyour slippers. It was like putting petrol inyour diesel engine. And it was in Lan-cashire. Honestly, what a day. What a stu-pid, pointless day.

But as we all know, at some point, andnormally after way longer than we wouldlike, all our cash spent behind the bar ofhurt and disappointment will come good.The barman will suddenly, out of nowhere,hand out a whole weekend’s worth ofJagerbombs, at no cost, for one and all,until you can drink no more. And that mo-ment came VERY suddenly, and VERYclearly, at around 8.10pm on Saturday23rd May.

When Joe Pigott swung his left peg atthat ball with 10 seconds left we held ourbreath (we actually did – listen to thecrowd from the fan video taken from ourend in the corner, it actually happens) andthen I swear it wasn’t two hours of frus-tration spilling out then. Despite not actu-ally winning promotion at that moment, Ibelieve that goal let out years of LeagueTwo anguish amongst thousands of us.And we were all there, drinking it in, dur-ing a moment of absolute ecstasy. I knowwe still had penalties to go, and they wereequally nerve-wracking as exciting, but I

tell you what, I’m not sure I will ever seeand experience a moment like Joe Pigott’sgoal ever again. And I will never forget thelook on people's faces. I have literally notseen anything like it. Man Utd at home,Chelsea away, Lincoln in the play offs,Swansea away – forget it. Piggot’s goal ismy greatest moment as a Southend fan,because of everything that went before it.And for the rest of my life, if I need toswitch off for whatever reason, and takemyself back to a moment in time in myfootball life that will forever make mehappy, I will always have that moment.

Watching the FA Cup final exactly aweek later made it even better. WatchingArsenal fan after Arsenal fan wax lyricalabout their achievement and how amazingit all was just left me a bit flat. Don’t getme wrong, I have plenty of friends whoare Arsenal fans and I was delighted forthem. But they have won it before (lastyear) and they will do it again, and untilthey win the Champions League (not goingto happen) they will always be a bit disap-pointed. Their context is being pretty goodall of the time, but ultimately, not quitegood enough. Who wants that? Our con-text was ugly, and hard fought, and a realtest of loyalty at times, ending with agame so lacking in quality I know of oneof those Arsenal fans who turned ourgame off long before my greatest momentas a Southend fan. I am not a footballsnob, I’m really not, but sometimes I don’tthink fans of big clubs get it. To fisharound in the sea of lower league crap isto suffer, big time. To win a play-off finalthe way we did with our recent history?Well, it just doesn’t happen does it? Exceptit did.

Where do you go when you’ve had itas good as it gets? I have no idea, literallyno idea. But let’s start in League One shallwe?

Piers Hewitt@piershewitt

*Big up to Pete from The Railway for com-ing good on that.

league one: a rough guideBarnsley: Ee by gum. Grim ex-mining townwhere southerners found in the town centreare burned on a pyre on a hill at sunset.Nice ground, abiding memory is drinking ina leisure centre.

Blackpool: Spectacularly badly run clubwho might not even have bottomed out yet.Tradition implies they must begin every sea-son with four players. Play in the most over-rated seaside town in Britain, possibly theworld.

Bradford: Cup specialists who dwell in aweird, two up two down stadium. Managedby Phil Parkinson, ex-Col Ewe scummer.

Burton: Cheating bastards who weregrudgingly the best team in League Two lastyear. Real ale mecca, great away trip.

Bury: Greater Manchester club in and outof financial difficulties for years, now prov-ing they’ve learned nothing by splashingloads of cash with gates of 3,000. Likely todo well before the house of cards comes

tumbling down again.

Chesterfield: Market town, nice pubs,over-aggressive fans in the mould of Mans-field. Church spire has something wrongwith it. Team overachieved last season buthad manager poached by Pompey.

Colchestaargh: Inferior Essex town whereinbreeding is common and the locals are tooscared to go out at night because of all thesquaddies. Play in Tesco carrier bags in alego set in the middle of nowhere.

Blackpool:Not usuallythis sunny

Chesterfield:Crooked

A pair of Col Ewe season ticket holders

Summer 2015 2423 All At Sea Promotion Special

Coventry: Groundhopping ex-PremierLeague club now firmly entrenched in thelower leagues. Stadium almost in a differentpostcode area to the city. Unhappy home ofFreddy Eastwood for a couple of years.

Crewe: Likeable club with reputation forhomegrown players, now being rigorouslyshafted by EPPP and Premier League greed.Ground incredibly convenient for the sta-tion. Keep beating us in important games.

Doncaster: Former total bastards of theearly 2000s, now a bit more palatablemainly thanks to thepassing of time since welast played them. Soul-less ground, Dave Pen-ney is fondlyremembered here.

Fleetwood: Fishing vil-lage famous for the lo-cation of theFIsherman’s Friend (it’sa foul-tasting lozenge).Far too small to have aFootball League club,but have a chairmanwith bags of cash.

Gillingham: Nearest trip as the crow flies,a grim northern town picked up anddumped in the south. Dislikeable chav fans.Effectively impossible to get to in midweekwith the QEII bridge the modern-day,equally-impassible equivalent of the BerlinWall.Luckily, we play there on a Saturdaythis year.

Millwall: Fans revel in their reputation ashooligans but hate west ham even morethan we do so fair play. Managed byShrimper Neil Harris. Relegated last year,should mount a challenge for promotion.

Millwall: Welcoming

Gillingham:Belongs upnorth

Oldham Athletic: Depressed Lancashireformer mill town with a station called‘Mumps’. Coldest ground in the FootballLeague but mercifully close to a decent city(Manchester) so you don’t have to spendtoo much time there.

Peterborough United: My pet irrationalhate. Club that believes it is far biggerthan it actually is, run by a Twitter-ob-sessed cocky chairman and Barry Fry. OK,perhaps not so irrational. Decent city cen-tre ground but they knocked down thebest away end in Football League in nameof ‘progress’.

Port Vale: One of two teams in Englandnot named after a location (Arsenal is theother), the Fail (as their more illustrious cityrivals know them) are based in Stoke-on-Trent. Reside in a ridiculously oversizedground and the locals call each other duckand eat oatcakes for breakfast.

Rochdale: Not quite as grim as Oldhambut not too far off. Makes up for it by beinghome to one of the best pubs in the country(The Baum). Club spent 34 years in thebasement league but haven’t been able tosit still since and threatened to make theplay-offs last season.

Scunthorpe United: The only team in thecountry to have their name banned byswear filters everywhere. Town is famousfor a horrific fly-on-the-wall documentarycalled Skint a few years back. Play at rela-tively new ground (1988) so bad they’replanning to move again.

Sheffield United: Taking over fromPortsmouth as the ‘must-do’ away game forthe season, the club has become famous formoaning about west ham, an attitude wefind hard to criticise. Will be every bookies’favourite to go up despite being unconvinc-ing since they arrived at this level.

Scunthorpe:Poverty porn

Summer 2015 2625 All At Sea Promotion Special

ALL AT SEA SUMMER SPECIAL 2015Contributors: Peter Baker, Piers Hewitt, Andrew Roach plus the editorial team.Thanks to Peter Miles and Christopher Nice.Facebook: www.facebook.com/AllAtSeaFanzineE-mail: allatseafanzine@hotmail.comTwitter: @allatseafanzine

player of the year

5. Adam BarrettOkay so maybe it’s a little harsh on othermembers of the squad who played most ofthe year, but Barrett’s reaction to hardlyplaying upon his return to the club couldn’thave been better – he formed part of a de-fence that broke a clean sheet record andcontributed to the play-off final win by show-ing his usual level of passion. His penalty inhe shoot out at Wembley was arguably thebest of the lot and he deserves his contractextension at the club.

4. Ben CokerAnother solid season for Coker that resultedin him being chosen in the League Two teamof the year. Despite an injury early on in theseason, he seemed fitter and stronger uponhis return. His performance at Oxford (threeassists) must be up there with one of thebest performances under Phil Brown and hewill be a valuable asset to the club next sea-son.

3. Michael TimlinAfter a slow start to the season that beganwith another injury, Tims stamped his influ-ence on the team over the second half of thecampaign. He often doesn’t get the credit hedeserves in the centre of the park, playing arole similar to Kevin Maher’s during his timeat the club, but his heroic performances in

he play-off semi final (both legs) and hislate, late goal at Exeter summed up his com-mitment to the cause.

2. Daniel BentleyThere’s not a lot that can be said about DanBentley that hasn’t already been said. Herightly won the club’s Player of the Yearaward and broke the long-standing consec-utive clean sheet record at Roots Hall. Thepenalty shoot out hero is destined for amove to a much higher level, let’s just hopewe can keep hold of him for the League Onecampaign. However he was just pipped atthe post for the All At Sea gong.

1. David WorrallWorrall’s Southend career started slowly-limited to a number of appearances off thebench in the opening exchanges of the sea-son. However he never looked back aftergetting in the team.

The Mancunian constantly showed hisclass and chipped in with goals for the teamat crucial times and countless assists. Hisgoal at Bury won goal of the season, justdays after he sad passing of his son. I wouldexpect Worrall to be a regular starter nextseason in League One.

James Falkingham@easymorninrebel

WITH Daniel Bentley sweeping the board at the POTY awards organisedby the club and the Shrimpers Trust, it’s time for the All At Sea jury (basically James) to decide who was the Shrimpers’ best player of amemorable 2014/15 campaign.

THERE has always been a view amongstfootball supporters and pundits thatplay-offs shouldn’t be allowed. The viewthat you can play 46 matches, finish 10points above a team and then lose tothem over a knock out game is, at facevalue, rather ludicrous.

Indeed, we have suffered in play-offsover the years; defeats to Doncaster, Creweand Burton still remain scarred in the heartsof Shrimpers, but the trip to Wembley andall the drama that came with it went a longway to covering over those deep scars.

I have been critical this season of theteam and Phil Brown’s selections. But the re-ality is that finishing 5th with 84 points andonly missing out on automatic promotion onthe final day surpassed everyone’s expecta-tions given the huge gap between Southendand the top three in March.

Whilst I never thought we were a topthree side, and made that point regularly inthe fanzine over the season, I was alwaysconfident we would finish in the play-offs atease. Which we did. It was then alwaysgoing to be about who we played and mak-ing the right decisions on the day.

The win over Stevenage was gutsy andtotally deserved. The players gave their alland when the chips were down, they re-

sponded in the best possible manner.Then Wembley. Jacobson’s free kick was

lucky and amazing considering Wycombescored an almost identical goal against usthe previous season, but the players alwaysbelieved they would get another chance.

Joe Pigott became the hero and gave usall one of the most special goal celebrationsin the club’s history. Credit must also go toMyles Weston who made the goal.

The penalties were awful to watch butDan Bentley’s save from Sam Wood willnever be boring to re-watch and the theemotional scenes at the end were simply un-forgettable.

So can we survive in League One? Welleven with the shock loss of Barry Corr I be-lieve the team we have is capable of a tophalf finish. With a few additions I believe wecan be quietly confident of a play-off push,although of course staying up has to be apriority first.

Southend United do have a tendency toget promoted from the fourth tier to the sec-ond tier in succession, and whilst that maybe a little too much to ask this time, themanner of our win at Wembley proves any-thing can happen in this game we all love.

James Falkingham@easymorninrebel

healing the pain

Shrewsbury Town: Moved from arguablythe most character-filled ground in Englandto one of the least a few years back. A fel-low promoted club who have previouslystruggled to stay at a higher level, they nowseem to have plenty of cash behind themand will be hopeful of consolidating inLeague One this time.

Swindon Town: Grotty Wiltshire town fa-mous for a roundabout and for having threeWetherspoons’ in one street. Battered in theplay-off final by Preston, they bought theirway to promotion at our expense in 2012.Accused of exploiting the loan system in re-

cent years with an unofficial link with Spurs.

Walsall: Black country side who play in theshadow of the M6. Ground looks like a B&Q,but convenient for a train trip. Town famousfor making saddles and pork scratchings.

Wigan Athletic: Fellow favourites along-side Sheffield United purely because theywere in the Premier League as recently as2013, Wigan have fallen hard. Parachutepayments will see them OK for now, butthey’ll need to go up soon as their gates willdrop sharply at this level.