Page 27 - All at Sea Fanzine Issue 68

February 2018
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gured we might as well head to St James Park.
Bags dropped o at the station, we started to feel optimistic about our changed plans. After all, this could be one of those random games where the two sides duke out an eight- goal thriller.
But of course, it wasn’t – a nil-nil draw and one of the worst games I’ve ever witnessed. Got turned away from the nightclub later too. March 2001 – Hull City (H)
It wasn’t raining when I left Chiswick at lunchtime ahead of a Friday night game against The Tigers. It wasn’t raining when I stopped by my Mum’s house in Canvey for a cuppa. It was barely spitting when I arrived at Southend Central half an hour before kick-o .
The town centre seemed quiet, but then Hull is a long way away and it was an evening game. Victoria Avenue was hardly buzzing either, but Roots Hall wasn’t packing them in during this campaign. The alarm bells only really started to ring when I saw no queue at the Fish House and no-one leaving The Spread Eagle.
It turned out that the game had been called o due to waterlogging several hours earlier – having not even needed an umbrella during my travels that day I hadn’t thought to check Ceefax to see if it was on. Still, it was nice to see my Mum.
January 2002 – Leyton Orient (A)
2002 was due to start with a visit to Brisbane Road, but a cold snap put paid to that, the postponement being confirmed on New Year’s morning. Waking up in London and with a hangover from the previous night’s celebrations, we still fancied catching a game to help blow o the cobwebs and bring in a World Cup year.
Happily, tickets were available on the gate for Charlton’s home Premier League game against Ipswich. Town were 2-0 ahead within the rst ve minutes – a young Addicks fan near us was in tears – but the home side, with Chris Powell in defence, came back to win an absolute cracker 3-2.
Seeing as the visit to Orient would surely have resulted in a Southend own goal or three, this was a postponement that worked out pretty well for once.
February 2002 – Cheltenham (A) Another trip west with friends to watch Southend and another half-day o thanks
to it being a Friday evening game. But this was set to be a good one too, with a night out in Cheltenham to look forward to after 90 minutes of fourth tier action. Arriving in the Cotswolds in plenty of time, we headed to a pub, then left for the ground as near to kick- o as possible.
Leaving the pub, we noticed that it was now quite breezy – very breezy in fact. Nothing to worry about though, as the conditions were unlikely to make much di erence to the way the two teams would play. However, concerns did start to grow as a group of fans in red and white scarves passed us walking in the opposite direction. Then a couple more. Then even more.
Being typically English, we didn’t want to say anything, but eventually one of us piped up and asked a Cheltenham fan. We were told that game had been called o due to high winds – Whaddon Road being a bit of a dump, they couldn’t be sure that bits of the ground wouldn’t fall o and maim Julian Alsop or Neil Grayson. This seemed to us like a risk worth taking but the referee didn’t agree.
I’ve not had endured a run of poor luck like this since and indeed these experiences might seem inconceivable nowadays as we are all so connected to whatever happens at the club. Whether through checking the SUFC social media feeds or getting messages from mates, we are rarely far from being bang up to date.
Some say that ignorance is bliss, but it isn’t when you’re walking towards Roots Hall for no apparent reason at 7.40pm on a Friday night...
James Welham @jameswelham