retired_Cristy

You got me hooked on this story man and its my home town club.

All The Best

retired_edmari

Thanks for the comments sufcpip and tyronetc. Good to see I've got the local support, if not the abilities of the real Southend at present - g'luck on Saturday boys
:cool:

August 2005

Squad changes already saw Tony Caig come in as further backup to between the sticks. The move meant Bart Griemink had no hope of ever playing, and he was released.

The kick off to the season at Gigg Lane was a bit of a dull one, ending up a goalless draw. Nevertheless we’d put in a confident performance all round, and Kinkladze made it 2 appearances, and twice he’s been man of the match. None too shabby, that.

We continued away from home with the journey down to Yeovil 3 days later, where we began well with Rodrigues stepping in for the not fully fit Gower and causing all sorts of problems down the right. He set up Eastwood for the opener a short while into the match, which was cancelled out in superb style within 10 minutes by a long-range free-kick from James Ansell. The good performance was wiped out though when Andrejs Stolcers put the hosts in front soon after. We attacked well and deserved at least a point but for a good series of saves from Chris Weale, but we ended up with nothing

Finally we were back at Roots Hall where we’d certainly need to pick up plenty of points this season if we are challenge, and our first visitors of the season were Bristol Rovers. Rovers came with the big threat of Nathan Ellington up front, recently back at the club on a loan move from Portsmouth. Forget him though. Carbon obviously wasn’t kept occupied enough by the striker so he headed forward and headed home Kinkladze’s corner, and a minute later Jay Smith hammered in a superb effort to make it 2-0. Disaster quickly struck then with David Savage nabbing a quick brace to level the match no sooner had we stormed in front, and Walker scored just before the break to put us behind. A pinpoint corner from Kightly was tapped in by Rodrigues to level the scoring once more in this thrilling encounter, before a late double from Junior Agogo won it for the visitors. Bloody hell.

The next match, also at home, wasn’t much better - although we did get a point. Chester took an early lead through a Drummond penalty, but were reduced to nine during this match with Rob Ullathorne and Paul Carden both seeing red. Iriekpen’s second half goal saved us a point.

The league cup adventure was dead before it came alive once more, with another year of potential cup football wrecked in Sheffield. This year it was Sheffield Wednesday who did the deed, through first half goals from Adam Proudlock and Peter Thorne. Losing Gower to a red card before half time did us no favours at all, although we put in a decent second half performance to hold on to some pride. Glenn Whelan added some more gloss to the scoreline with another one in the back of the net near the end.

Form failed to improve at Stockport who comfortably beat us despite a decent enough performance. David Poole’s goal was the highlight for us as the United youngster opened his account in excellent style. Feeney and a pair from Cureton killed us off though as we slipped towards the bottom at this early stage.

A miserable month came to its end a few days later against Wycombe, who were rock bottom of the division so far. They were still better than us, and went ahead through Stuart Nethercott early on, before doubling the lead through Ian Stonebridge soon after. Despite wholesale tactical and player changes at the break to try and save something from this match, we ended up crashing further behind despite being clearly the better team in the second half. A depressing month ended in a depressing way, and wasn’t the way young Freddy Eastwood would have seen possibly his last appearance at Roots Hall turning out like. Last years star man is currently considering a £325,000 move to Burnley.

August 2005 Results

Bury 0 Southend United 0
Yeovil Town 2 (Ansell 21, Stolcers 33) Southend United 1 (Eastwood 12)
Southend United 3 (Carbon 17, Smith 18, Dani Rodrigues 53) Bristol Rovers 5 (Savage 20, 26, Walker 43, Agogo 81, 83)
Southend United 1 (Iriekpen 60) Chester City 1 (Drummond pen 9)
Sheffield Wednesday 4 (Proudlock 2, Thorne 14, 45, Whelan 85) Southend United 0 (League Cup First Round)
Stockport County 3 (Feeney 9, Cureton 27, 83) Southend United 1 (Poole 55)
Southend United 0 Wycombe Wanderers 4 (Nethercott 4, 66, Stonebridge 14, 68)

What a terrible month. Just two points from 18 and out of the cup, not to mention the fact we are now bottom of the table – right at the bottom of the English league football hierarchy. It isn’t quite how I pictured the new season going, but I guess there’s still 40 games to turn it around. Feck me I need to.

retired_edmari

September 2005

Freddy’s move to Burnley fell through on the first of the month, when the Clarets realised they didn’t actually have £325,000 to buy him with. Oops. He did however leave a week later for Barnsley for a fee of £240,000. We’d also see 40% of his next sale price. Coming in we had Elias Vladimir Montes on his free transfer move, and another young free striker in Matt Derbyshire, and I also had over £120,000 to play with.

That money was much needed, as proved when we wasted countless chances to break forward and score at Rochdale, eventually losing to Kevin Townson’s only goal. Slight improvement followed with Cambridge’s visit. Shane Tudor had put them in front before a Hughes free kick took a huge deflection for the equaliser. A draw was probably a fair result and only tainted by Iriekpen’s late sending off.

Craig Farrell scored for Carlisle after six minutes a week later, and that was enough to pile on the misery, but we finished October by finally grabbing a win – albeit outside of the league.

The LDV Trophy rolled back into town with the visit of Barnet, who never really troubled us too much. Goals from Calliste and Vaughan settled this for a place in Round Two.

September 2005 Results

Rochdale 1 (Townson 75) Southend United 0
Southend United 1 (Hughes 26) Cambridge United 1 (Tudor 18)
Carlisle United 1 (Farrell 6) Southend United 0
Southend United 2 (Calliste 47, Vaughan 86) Barnet 0

retired_liew wai kheng

Phew! a win at last

I thought you'd be a much improved side after the signings you made. Perhaps the players are still 'gelling' together?

retired_edmari

Cheers abu... Methinks they've gelled a little

October 2005

October began nicely with a long, long overdue league win, and by the end of the month we’d taken 9 points from the possible 12. Torquay were the poor sods who fell to our first win, courtesy of a superb free kick from Kinkladze and a neat effort from young Vaughan later on. Jo Kuffour pulled one back but we were able to hold on and double our points tally.

A tough match followed with the journey to Meadow Lane to take on high-flyers Notts County. Carl Cort – guessing his career hasn’t quite gone as he planned – put the hosts ahead shortly before half time but Montes opened his Shrimpers account midway through the second period to put us in touching distance of another win. Today wasn’t to be ours though when Paul Bolland nabbed a winner for County towards the end.

The new regular starting attack of Vaughan and Montes stuck in further claim to their respective places with a superb performance against fellow strugglers Northampton in the penultimate game of the month. Vaughan grabbed his latest goal early on when a beautiful pass from Hughes gave him room to manoeuvre, and the ex-Everton man made some space to fire past the helpless Mark Bunn. Montes’ first came in a similar fashion, as he found himself some space and rounded off a good team passing move with a lovely goal. He went on to nod in a Dani Rodrigues – who earlier this month made the Portugal squad - corner to make it 3-0.

Macclesfield were the final challenge of the month, and for this we missed Kightly – injured and replaced by Bentley – and Dani Rodrigues, who is suspended for attaining too many yellows and replaced by Gower. It was those two who combined well to create our best early chance, with Gower passing infield for Bentley to fire narrowly over. Macclesfield struck first blood though with Neil Mackenzie scoring close to the break. Macclesfield were much stronger in the second half but failed to kill us off, and paid the price when a Gower corner found its merry way to Kinkladze on the edge of the box, and the veteran levelled the match. Stephen Hughes scored a simple effort five minutes later to wrap up another win.

October 2005 Results

Southend United 2 (Kinkladze 9, Vaughan 67) Torquay United 1 (Kuffour 70)
Notts County 2 (Cort 36, Bolland 77) Southend United 1 (Montes 66)
Southend United 3 (Vaughan 7, Montes 66, 79) Northampton Town 0
Macclesfield Town 1 (Mackenzie 38) Southend United 2 (Kinkladze 79, Hughes 84)

Inside a few weeks we quadrupled our points tally and were now slightly more comfortable in 17th place. And on this form, the only way is up…

retired_liew wai kheng

thats more like it

retired_edmari

November 2005

Apparently, down was an alternative to the way up, as we suffered another rather poor month.

It began on a high though, as we defeated Yeovil to reach the LDV Trophy Quarter Finals, Vaughan’s first half effort enough to see off the visitors. Then it was downhill from there. Northwich and Darlington both beat us on our own ground with little effort.

The FA Cup rolled around for it’s annual flying visit into my diary. We travelled right up to Carlisle, where we were fairly comfortably sent veering off the road to Wembley once again.

The league form didn’t improve just yet, with Shrewsbury having Kightly to thank in part for their three points. But finally we found the ability to win once more, with Grimsby coming to Roots Hall. Montes scored just after the break and after a nervous 45 minutes of hanging on to the lead, Calliste wrapped it up in the final seconds. The only bad news was losing Mario to injury for a month.

The last match of the month was in the LDV Trophy. We’d started the month by winning to reach this stage but ended the month by crashing out. A first half goal from Adebayo Akinfenwa ended our cup hopes for this season. Judging by the league form, it could well be good news.

November 2005 Results

Southend United 1 (Vaughan 38) Yeovil Town 0 (LDV Vans Trophy Southern Second Round)
Southend United 0 Northwich Victoria 1 (Quayle 29)
Southend United 0 Darlington 2 (Jupp og 2, Armstrong 51)
Carlisle United 3 (Fortune-West 15, 45, 70) Southend United 1 (Vaughan 38) (FA Cup First Round)
Shrewsbury Town 2 (Kightly og 65, Clampitt 83) Southend United 0
Southend United 2 (Montes 47, Calliste 90) Grimsby Town 0
Southend United 0 Torquay United 1 (Akinfenwa 36) (LDV Vans Trophy Southern Quarter Final)

retired_edmari

Apologies for the lack of anything resembling an update, but the lovely sunny bank holiday weekend meant 59 hours working since Friday for this fool. Anyway, give us a day or two and there should be some more.

retired_loribeth

blistering mate!!

What a shame your team looked quite good on paper and losing to computer managed torquay in the cup was like salt in the wounds, best of luck mate and look forward to next instalment.