Shambles at Southend

Whilst most football fans in the country are sitting back and enjoying the World Cup, Southend United fans will also be concerned with what's going on at their club at the moment. The Shrimpers had a disastrous season in which the club nearly went into administration and which ended with relegation to League Two, making them the lowest league team in Essex (congratulations to Dagenham & Redbridge, by the way). And things don't look like improving any time soon. It came out last week that some of the staff still haven't been paid their wages for May and a number of players have been placed on the transfer list by request, including club captain Adam Barrett, who has made almost 250 appearances for Southend and is the only remaining player from the squad that won promotion from League Two in 2005. Things must be bad at Roots Hall if even Barrett, a local boy with genuine passion and loyalty towards the club, has had enough and wants to leave.


It begs the question of how long it will be before manager Steve Tilson makes the same decision. Barrett may not be as good as he was in his first two seasons for the club but he's a major character at the club and if he does depart, it means even more re-building to be done in pre-season. We have just 11 players under contract at the moment (4 of whom are reported to be on the transfer list), plus 3 who have been offered new deals but are yet to sign. That means up to 10 new signings could be needed before the start of the season. But that won't be happening any time soon since we're still under a transfer embargo. And then there's the small matter of appointing an assistant manager after Paul Brush was wrongly sacked towards the end of last season. Things couldn't get much worse.

Chairman Ron Martin insists that Tilson will be able to sign players before the start of next season and that the future remains bright for the club but it's very difficult for Shrimpers fans to share his optimism. With a strict budget in place, new signings are likely to be all loan signings or free transfers and largely players from the lower leagues, maybe even from non-league, who will be on lower wages than their predecessors. The likes of Barrett, Simon Francis (who the club is accepting bids for), Franck Moussa and Alan McCormack are apparently on high League One wages and it's clear that the club is prepared to let them go for financial reasons. All this is being done with the new stadium in mind but with the team's best players leaving, Southend could turn into the next Darlington, playing League Two (or now Conference) football in front of 3000 fans in a shiny but empty 22,000-seater stadium. For now the fans are remaining loyal with attendances looking to remain stable next season and the priority between now and August must be signing players on lower wages but who are capable of doing well in League Two. Tilson has an eye for non-league talent and who knows, he could find another Freddy Eastwood. We can only hope.

Billy Blenheim