Page 6 - All at Sea Fanzine Issue 68

6
All At Sea Issue 68
”the italian job
HE’S football crazy, he’s football I often remember people, places & times
mad!”’ sang Robin Hall and Jimmy
MacGregor, and whenever the song
was played in class, the other kids would
smile and point at me.
My rst ever match was at Roots Hall on
Good Friday, April 8th,1966, when Dad took me to see Southend v Gillingham, a game which we won 5-2! We saw them regularly throughout the 60s, 70s and into the 80s.
The 1969/70 season was Blues fourth in Division 4, and the last league game was a 1-0 win over York City,thanks to Billy Best.
However, there was much excitement in the school playground amongst us football mad lads as Southend were to play a friendly against a real Italian side, a crack team at that, who’d been Italian champions in 1968/69, and had nished a creditable fth in the current one.
Fiorentina, or ‘Viola’ as they’re nicknamed in reference to their shirts, were described as being slick and more adventurous than most other Italian teams. In December of 1965 they decided to blood more young players in the rst team, and they became known as the ‘Fiorentina Babies’, seven of whom were in the title winning side of 1968/69, managed by Bruno Pesaola.
Two of Fiorentina’s players, Ugo Ferrante and Giancarlo de Sisti, had
been selected for the 1970
Italian World Cup squad. The
side were in England to take part in the Anglo-Italian cup against Wolves & Sunderland.
Manager Arthur Rowley felt the fans deserved a treat for their support of The Blues, and was hopeful of a large crowd.
Southend had parted company with Frank Haydock to South African side Arcadia, and Eddie Clayton to Ashford, but brought in Roy Pack from Oxford United for the game.
by music, and when this game was played Norman Greenbaum was at number one with Spirit In The Sky, to be replaced the following week by The England World Cup Squad with Back Home!
With only 10mm of rainfall on the Essex coast for May 1970,thankfully it was quite a pleasant evening for the game, which took place on the 4th.
Watched by 8,679 people, the game kicked o at 7.30pm. It was originally meant to be refereed by Norman Burtenshaw, but he was replaced by Mr Johnson, who took into account the typical histrionics of the Italians and wasn’t whistle happy.
Fiorentina had good ball control and were pacy in mid eld, but often kept seven at the back. By contrast Blues were causing problems with the overlapping runs & crosses of Keith Lindsey and Owen Simpson, but there was always the acrobatics of goalkeeper Claudio Bandoni to deny us. Georgio Mariani’s shot went past Brian Lloyd’s post, and at the other end Billy Best put an e ort past the post and had a good header saved after a cross from Owen Simpson.
Luciano Chiarugi, an excellent winger, produced a 30-yard banana shot from a free kick, with Brian Lloyd making a diving save. For Blues, Peter Hunt manged to escape the