Southend fan in peace

[shrimperama]

Hey,

Unfortunately cant get to the game this weekend but ive been to your place a good few times before and always had a great weekend.

Seems both teams have evened out since we last met.

Your were a decent side when we met earlier in the season were riding high at the top of the league. Since then you seem to have dropped off the pace a bit. I did think it slight arrogance from your manager at the time to say he didnt think you would get beat all season , especially as it was only a few games in, although that may have been some creative journalism.

We have just quietly gone about our business and let everyone right us off as a club in crisis both on and off the pitch and slowly but surely paul sturrock is doing a great job in shaping a team which was assembled in about 10 days. Most of the poor players or non tryers have now been moved on and we have brought in wisely .

We are certainly not the most skillfull team in the league that accolade goes to the likes of chesterfied shrewsbury and port vale , but we are a very very hardworking side who are quite direct and like to counter especially away from home where we have had more points.

I dont really know much about torquay as a side other than when you came to our place although im sure you can fill me in.

It seems that barring the odd one or two at the bottom or top of the league that everyone is capable of beating everyone else , but somehow we have had a run of just 1 defeat in 7 games with 5 wins and a draw. I genuinely feel play-offs is coming this season but it will be tight .

Think it will be an entertaining game and the players to watch on our side are Hall Grant and Corr.

Not sure how many will travel to your place but i would say maybe 2-300 will journey down.

All the best for the season after saturday

Shrimpy

[Awayday]

Since our trip to your place we have also bought wisely and are currently on a good run of form (even with the Crawley game balls up).
I am sure Torquay's ambition was to always go for the play offs and realistically we still have a chance of finishing near 5th or 6th.

I am sure the Shrimps will give us a good game, but I am confident we will be heading off to the changing rooms with all 3 points.

[Awayday]

Just as I press submit this appears lol

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 401549.stm

[ferrarilover]

The obvious question now becomes, why on earth are they buggering about with frivolities such as a new ground with a capacity far beyond their fanbase instead of paying the tax bill?
By the admission of their own Chief Exec, they're running at a loss of £100,000/month. Now, I have precisely zero business acumen (despite a deeply impressive grade in my last piece if non-law work, boo yah), so I haven't a clue how much it should cost to run a small L2 football club, but the idea that they can bring in money at 4,500 fans every home game and the associated auxiliaries (programmes, pies, Magners etc) and still manage to lose that sort of money each month is simply beyond me. With what the hell are they paying the players and staff, myrrh and dolphin tears?

You know me, I'm a caring, sharing type, not a mean spirited bone in my body, but surely winding up is no more than a club deserves if it really is run by someone this stupid. Does the present chairman not realise that his club is in Essex, just buy the players each an Escort XR3i and they'll work for £200/week cash in hand - simples!

Matt.

[Fletch]

Matt. Rightly or wrongly (from the stadium point of view), perhaps they are looking at the example of Chesterfield? Their gate has gone up over 50% since moving to their new place

Mind you, running at 100k a month loss surely wont be sustainable for long...

[ferrarilover]

Ok Fletch, so they get 7000 rather than 4,500, that's still one seat in two left empty. What kind of loss will they be operating at then? £150,000/month, that's £1.8m/year. My guess is that Southend lose more in a year than TUFC spend. Football will be a really good game when the only clubs left are those which live within their means (ok, we lost a few quid last year, but that ship is being steadied and it's nothing compared with the wealth of our board). It'll be Torquay v Arsenal every week and it'll be hysterical.

Matt.

[Fletch]

Their average gate last season was 7700 ish with a highest of over 10k ( http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/A ... 25,00.html )

Im guessing their plans were made last season not this.

[Plymouth Gull]

The plans were made about 5 years ago, or something silly, Fletch..

http://www.thefootballforum.net/index.p ... n-history/

[Fletch]

The plans were made about 5 years ago, or something silly, Fletch..

http://www.thefootballforum.net/index.p ... n-history/

Hmmmm...That sounds a bit of a mess does it not?

I wonder if you can use Nectar points in the club shop

[ferrarilover]

See, I told you I had no business acumen. Still, it seems foolish to continue to plan for a stadium you don't need and possibly will never be able to use for getting wound up. That's a bit like ordering a new car, getting sacked, and buying the car anyway with no way of paying for it.

Interestingly, this does mean they have lost something in the order of 3000 fans for a single divisional drop. By this math, we would have to have sent members of staff to the homes of supporters during the Conference years, in order to produce a negative attendance figure.

Matt.

[Fletch]

See, I told you I had no business acumen. Still, it seems foolish to continue to plan for a stadium you don't need and possibly will never be able to use for getting wound up. That's a bit like ordering a new car, getting sacked, and buying the car anyway with no way of paying for it.
Interestingly, this does mean they have lost something in the order of 3000 fans for a single divisional drop. By this math, we would have to have sent members of staff to the homes of supporters during the Conference years, in order to produce a negative attendance figure.
Matt.

Reading that link Nick posted, perhaps there is a provision in the agreement/contract with Sainsburys that they have to be out of Roots hall by a certain date to allow redevelopment?

Be a total cluster if it was so :slap:

[shrimperama]

Re the new stadium:

A couple of points of note.

The southend catchment area is huge . We have the most populated county in england

We have are averaging 5k this season and when you think about what our fans have been through this season and last its a miracle really

We have lost 50 % of our attendance in just 5 seasons. We were averaging over 10k back in the 2005/2006 season albiet in the championship relegation dogfight in a delapidated stadium that is roots hall

Im sure that once we get into the play-offs we will see regular crowds of 6k+ weekly in the league which is excellent at this level.

The stadium will now be built in 2 phases . 14k horse shoe first followed by a two tier main stand making the dome and 22k

The stadium will push our revenue through the roof as there will be numerous revenue streams to come with the stadium (ie) Shopping centre casino and hotels all linked to the club and its owners not to memtion better corporate boxes that can be used on non matchdays aswell.

The fan base is there and if we build this we will be able to move forward which at roots hall we cant , its just not big enough to do much more than league 1.

Regarding the tax bill. Hrmc are on our case as we defaulted before . There was a meeting this week at the council to agree to a two phased developement which means in effect that work can begin in the coming months and sainsbury's will now advance us more of the 21million they are putting into this project as partners. As a result all future tax will now paid on time .

At the end of the day its all about ambition and we dont want to be a league 2 or 1 club anymore but a permanent fixture in the championship.

Swansea are a similar size to southend and made the leap from the vetch to the liberty and havent looked back since.

[Plymouth Gull]

Ah, fair play, shrimperama.

Roots Hall will always hold phenomenal memories for me, but ultimately, clubs need to move on. As you say, Swansea are now looking at the Premiership - I don't think they'd be that high if they were still at the Vetch. It's the same with Doncaster. New grounds can have a huge effect on clubs, and I'm sure SUFC will be no different.

[Awayday]

You can build a 50K seater stadium with fancy flashy lights and a pole dancer at half time for the boys at Southend, but if you can't play on the pitch you are still only ever going to get 5K crowds.

It sounds like you think Southend are one of those clubs who do not deserve to be in League 2...........

Due to no fault of the fans, you have had some shocking board room decisions some where, which has reduced your club to a League 2 outfit.
I remember a few seasons ago visiting S'end as a League 2 club and us getting promoted

I hope in the future it all works out for the fans, but until you start getting bums on seats, the money situation is never going to go away.

[shrimperama]

Fair play away day.

My point is this .

If we are still regularly getting 5k in the basement league after being relegated and almost going bust , and having the most hated chairman for years on top of sacking mr southend Steve tilson, then imagine what we would have at a gleaming new stadium with investment to challenge in this league and beyond.

We were woeful last year got relegated and still pulled in a few 10k+ crowds


Im not for one minute saying that southend is a sleeping giant , but im confident that we could be pulling a regular 10-14k in the championship at a new ground.