Stan here ??

[hlane17]

We need to throw our weight behind this and make it happen. Regardless of the good years RM delivered, the last years of decline have been unacceptable.

This club's support deserves better than languishing in the bottom of L2 and soon to be NL.

I do seriously hope the Shrimpers Trust and SOS have some important conversations with Stan and start planning for the change this club needs.

I said over 3 years ago that I felt we were on the trajectory of Bury FC, but we might face a more eternal fate in the graveyard of ex Football League clubs playing in the NL.

Never got to see you perform on the pitch Stan (your exploits predate me!) but I would love to see you deliver the same level of success off the pitch. If you carry through with this, you must remain at the centre of it. Southend needs someone who's experienced what the club is all about.

 

[euroshrimper]

Welcome Stan
It's an honor to be able to message a Southend "Legend"
Any help and advice would be very gratefully received by I am sure all Shrimpers who care very deeply about our club.
Once a Shrimper, always a Shrimper as you know which is why it's so great to hear from you.......

 

[Cricko]

@stan collymore Stan , would you kindly update your email account on here please as people are trying to reach you but your current email addy is out of date and they are just bouncing.

 

[MisterStubbs]

We seriously lack ‘Southend United’ people at the club.. from top to bottom. The fact that in recent years we’ve let the likes of Kevin Maher just walk away is disappointing. I’d very much welcome you aboard Stan, someone who unlike Ron knows the football industry and has the club at heart.

 

[Nicky]

I'd quite like it if you could save us, Stan. That'd be great. Cheers.

 

[Shrimpersfan]

Dear Stan, thanks for some great memories. You are relatable to many people who love football throughout the country and beyond. You are relatable to the hard core Blues fans. Your offer may indeed be the tonic the club needs. Personally I would say thanks but no thanks. Stay as you are, a legend to many but don't try and elevate to Messiah. For me, as radical as it seems, we actually need someone who has the club and the town in his/her heart. A born and bred saarfender. Someone who has longevity and continuity to offer the club.

A consortium of stars is a dream of many but for me, often, that means a financial investment over love for the club and the community. Financial interests are finite but the love is eternal. We need someone respected in the town that can liaise beyond football, such as with the council, and is receptive to the needs of the club and the impact on the community.

I can but dream.

Why does it matter whether they are from Southend or elsewhere?

 

[ms brush]

Firstly, Stan, thank you for your continuing interest in our small, and (once) mighty Southend!

For the record, i agree - continuing to do the same old stuff gets you the same results, and this time our luck has run dry and we are going down to National League football for the first time in our history. This has been a decades long decline, despite the various flirtations with success, and the club now sits on the brink. As fans, we have a choice - limited obviously with the current ownership, players and league position, but we can choose to do nothing and hope for the best, or help to facilitate and negotiate changes for a rebuild of the club and a better future. By my reckoning, it will take very deep pockets to entice Ron to sell the club and lose his dream - which isnt just the money, its a status thing and an ego trip as well.

What i know is that despite the fan driven ESL victory, a small number of fans at a small, penniless club waving a few banners and threatening boycotts or whatever is just going to **** Ron off. That only succeeded because of the scale and massive ramifications, as well as universal opposition from the FA, the Premier league and Government. For a very small club like ours, as per Bury, Macclesfield etc, local lobbying and protests wont make a blind bit of difference or help. We are on a fast track to become the latest in a long sorry list of former EFL clubs, stuck in non-league, as has been shown a million times before at clubs up and down the country.

The ONLY way to get changes will be to work WITH Ron to establish his exit plans, work with the club to see what needs to happen to allow some control to be relinquished in the short to medium term. Stan is right, Ron is an experienced chairman, who has made some good decisions as well as some frankly disastrous decisions, and this cannot be overlooked. A return to fan led ownership needs serious financial and influential backing to elicit interest from Ron and grab his attention. No matter how good the Save Our Southend campaign is, it still needs serious planning to build a solid and viable proposition, it needs someone with passion to front it (Stan leading the line perhaps?), it needs passionate energy from us fans to do the legwork, and it needs to be done with the full inclusion of the Trust and other fan groups.

This brings me back to what i said a few weeks ago, and i offer again. I will help in whatever limited way i can, as i'm time limited as well as having no football club management experience! But the offer is there to use my experience of strategic business management, influencing change without financial or direct authority and my knowledge of working with people to help shape and inform change.

 

[FarmdogSUFC]

Would make a good podcast guest...

 

[Barling Magna]

Stan, welcome back. I'm genuinely pleased to see your contribution. You are a Shrimpers legend. We all know the incidents you have been involved in, some really shocking, and the mental struggles you have had. I really hope that all this is far behind you now and that your offer is genuine. Ron Martin is not totally averse to selling up as his negotiations with Henrik Larsson show, but he would need a fully costed business plan which would offer him at least as much as he is hoping to make from the sale of Roots Hall and the development of Fossetts Farm with its hundreds of homes.

The potential at Southend is great. This town could easily support a successful Championship team but, man, that's a long way off from today's wreckage. You would need to attract investors with a long term vision for the club, with football as their clear priority but a sharp eye on other income opportunities as well.

If you are going to act then you either act very soon or you hold on for a while until Fossetts Farm is built and then step in. Ron will be much keener to sell the club then.

Good luck, and thanks again.

 

[Smiffy]

Well I'm in. Change is very necessary.

Let's make it happen Stan. I know several people have now reached out to you. Time to get the ball rolling...

 

[Derbyshire Blue]

The problem is @stan collymore we don’t have a choice really, do we? We could all merrily decide now that we want a change of ownership and direction of the club (believe me it’s a constant wish for many) but we have no influence on Ron, we are just a bunch of moaners to him already I suspect.

You have your contacts and influence, but what can you do with them/it? More importantly what are you suggesting you will attempt to do? And what are you asking the supporters to do to assist?

 

[Ex-SouthendUnitedEmployee]

For several seasons members of this board have wanted Ron to sell up...

Whatever your thoughts on Stan maybe, if he is sincere, which I believe he is, give the man a chance to state his intentions and outline a plan.

The first person who has shown any interest in taking over, and people savage him.

I don’t see anyone else rushing to buy us or even shown an interest as we continued our demise, and now we’re not even going to be a league team anymore.

Ron may consider selling the club, but with pre-conditions over the new stadium etc

Either way, don’t shoot the man down before he’s had a chance to explore the options available to him and the people he has access too, who may seek to build a club back up from the bottom, rather than invest millions getting a club near the top.

 

[ChalkwellShrimper]

Ron, you owe it to Stan and indeed all SUFC fans and stakeholders to meet or at least open conversations with him. Given our current plight to ignore Stan's offer to help would be foolhardy. Nothing may come of this but don't miss what could prove to be an opportunity that many other clubs could only dream of.

 

[onceknownasrab]

Why does it matter whether they are from Southend or elsewhere?

Not just from the town but with the town and the club in their heart. Journeymen players are the order of modern football and has brought the game into question. Journeymen Chairman, Vic and Ron?, Have not done us any favours.

 

[Kenny]

This all sounds great on paper but sadly it's pie in the sky without Ronald having any interest in doing the right thing and selling up.

 

[Rayleigh boy]

some fans need to form some sort of organisation - a company with shareholders would do - and try and take over ...

the articles of association of the company can be structured to align with the aims of the organisation (running a successful football operation) and democratic structure

the goodwill of all of our supporters in the world of football can be transmitted

1/ by buying shares
2/ offering expertise
3/ sitting on the board ..

the initial relevant skill sets - legal etc - are probably available from the Shrimperzone community.

the initial seed funding can be by shares bought by supporters -

2000 x GBP 500 = 1 million pounds - and go from there ..

just an idea from coffee break at work !!

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Love you Stan and seeing you pop up on here again has given me a rare SUFC related smile this month. You were and indeed are the Man.

The problem we have is that SUFC is worth more to Ron than it is to all the outside investors you can muster up. Without SUFC Ron goes bust (and without Ron SUFC goes bust). SUFC just isn't worth the investment required to pay off all the debts. I'll support any project that can move SUFC forward but it's going to be tough as realistically investors wouldn't be getting a return so why would they invest?

 

[Ayrshire Blue]

Hello Stan

Do you still own a pair of football boots?

 

[Leigh_Seasider]

Why does it matter whether they are from Southend or elsewhere?

Plus, we’re pretty desperate for help I’d say.

 

[Beefy]

We've asked for years "If not Ron then who?". For the first time since the days of the mysterious Consortium we've got something here vaguely resembling the start of an answer.

Yorkshire Blue is, as always, right. SUFC isn't something that Ron Martin can just wash his hands of because of how tied into it he is but the Club is going nowhere but down under him and he doesn't get to make his fortune if the Club goes under and there's no new stadium for him to piggy back.

There seems like there's the makings of a conversation at least and it is up to all of us to put pressure on Ron Martin to have that conversation.