GOWER STRIKE SEALS POINTS
Southend move within two points of playoffs

Southend United are now just six points off the top of the League Two table after a 1-0 win over struggling Kidderminster Harriers at Roots Hall. A first-half strike from Mark Gower sealed all three points for the Shrimpers and lifted the side into 11th spot, the club's highest position since August 2003. Just over 4,000 gathered to witness Southend's fourth win in five games and, with the side just two points off the play-off zone, confidence is beginning to run high. Manager Steve Tilson was pleased with his team's effort and in particular with the performance of Gower, easily his best of the season. "I'm pleased that Mark has scored now," said Tilson. "That will give him that confidence boost that he needs."

Match Report from Andy Urry

Boring journalistic match report bit 
It looked worrying for the first 5 - 10 minutes as we were in danger of being dragged down to our opponent’s level. However we withstood the physical battering and coped with the high balls through the middle very well. Pretty soon teams may well work out that, with our centre half pairing of Barrett and Prior along with the midfield mountain Bentley, this tactic will not work against us. Thankfully though when we play against teams like Kidderminster they don’t have a plan B, or at least the ability to try another way of playing, and so having won the right to play a bit of football we began to show that there was really only one team in it.

Result of the IPA slipping down rather too nicely in the Spread Eagle before the match, flippant comments
Drums? Couldn’t hear a bleeding thing in the South Upper! The acoustics are bad in the Hall I know but it was only when after about ten minutes I saw you were in the little bit of no-mans land between the West and North stands that I even realised you were there.

John Motson like, serious football stuff
With the midfield pairing beginning to take control and bringing the ball onto the floor (it hardly touched the grass during the opening barrage from Harriers) the match at last began to resemble a game of football. Maher and Bentley were doing their job well, winning the ball and giving it nice and simply to the players around them. Both full backs were making overlapping runs supporting the two wide players well and the front two of Bramble and Dudfield were causing problems for the Kiddie defence with their touch and control. Tes in particular was soon having lumps kicked out of him purely because they were unable to get the ball from him by fair means, but it’s a sign of his new found maturity that he was happy to keep being fouled and winning free kicks from which we kept piling on the pressure.

After a lacklustre start to the season Mark Gower began to show glimpses of last years form, taking players on and running at the heart of the defence and it was from one such run that the goal came. Just before we scored the crowd had been woken up by a piece of awful refereeing at our end, the official giving a corner against us when even if he had his eyes closed he’d have ‘heard’ the deflection the ball took off of a Harriers player so heavy was the contact. However after a lot of shouting and name calling from the South Upper (even my journalistic professionalism got the better of me for a short while) the defence coped with the threat easily and the ball was soon at the opposite end of the pitch, with Southend being roared forward by fans who’d suddenly found their voices. Lawrie Dudfield played a good ball to Mark Gower who, with the ball at his feet and running right at Kidderminster, was taking players on and beating them. He unleashed a fierce shot which the keeper stood no chance with and we were one-nil up, a lead that was well deserved and to be honest could have been more.

Just as we were coasting through to half time and the fans thoughts were beginning to drift off towards what joys the Blue Belles had in store for us the second vital turning point of the second half happened. The Harriers defender Abdou Sall took a petulant kick at Dudfield and the bastard in the black, Grant Hegley to his family, showed the tall centre half a straight red. To be honest it was one of those incidents where the player should be sent off (attempting to strike or kick an opponent, violent conduct and a sending off offence) but quite often isn’t, so full marks to the ref for making the right decision – however it was about the only good thing he did all game.

More drunken flippancy
Who was the old git who shot for a car at half time? Poor sod could barely kick the ball and should have been allowed to take his zimmer frame onto the pitch to give himself better balance. Still, full marks to the guy for giving it a go. The Blue Belles seem to have realised after the Wycombe game that taking their Southend shirts off to reveal a skimpy outfit just before they begin dancing gets a big cheer. So they did it again yesterday, and will no doubt do it every time they perform. Much like not being able to hear the drums, I’m not complaining.

More match reporting
So with a one-nil lead, a one man advantage and with their really being only one team in it we should have killed the game off and scored a few more second half. So why didn’t we? Well we carried on in the second half with much the same level of possession as the first and won a succession of corners from which we looked dangerous - much of this is down to Adam ‘scoring sensation’ Barrett of course but we are actually putting good balls over and making good runs in the area for the first time in many years, long may it continue – and were unlucky not to score from one on a couple of occasions. Their keeper also made a few good saves and it’s obviously his shot stopping and good handling that keeps him in the side because his kicking was a joke.

Mostly however we only have ourselves to blame for the fact we didn’t kill the game off, we do lack an edge up front and better teams than Harriers will have punished us (just as Wycombe did a fortnight ago). This is of course a little worrying but the main thing is that despite feeling that we needed a second goal to ensure victory from as early as ten minutes into the second half (some may call it pessimism but I prefer to look at it as realism borne out of years of experience watching Southend) Mark Gower’s goal was enough for all 3 points. That’s 3 wins out of 4, which is promotion winning form in anyone’s book, and we are steadily climbing the league after a slow start. We look solid in defence and assured in midfield, sure we could do with a 20 goals a season striker but so does almost every other team in the league. The crowd left Roots Hall happy and content with three points yesterday and hopefully a win at Col Ewe in the week and a good result at Darlington next week will see a good crowd turning out for Friday night football and the chance to see Gazza when we play Boston next home game.

Official man of the match was Adam Barrett and you can’t really argue with that - he did look solid alongside Spinner for a clean sheet as well as posing a real threat at corners. Special mention should go to Gower though for a much improved performance and a winning goal, his match sharpness is still lacking and he needed to be substituted towards the end but hopefully this will be the first step towards returning to last years player of the season form.

What the fans thought ...

"Not a great game to watch, but we played some nice football, especially in the second half, and thoroughly deserved the 3 points. Kidderminster were pretty poor to be honest, don't think Darryl had a good save to make. The only negative was that we really should have won by a lot more considering how much we dominated. Barrett could have scored one or two as could Maher and Wilson *gasp*. Nice to see Gower get one, you could see how much it boosted his confidence because he was running at the Kiddy defence all game. Infact, no one had a bad game really. Gower, Bentley and Bramble were the best players in my opinion."
SHRIMPBOY

"Kiddie were one of my tips to struggle and they didn't disappoint (I hope they don't go down Aggbrough does the best food in the division). Its therefore difficult to read too much into this win. My instinct however is that we will still finish mid-table. Whilst we can play some impressive football we lack the killer touch. Our only goal (despite playing against ten men) came from a lucky ricochet rather than incisive passing, and against better teams we will need to score the killer second goal, although hopefully with the confidence of a few wins under our belt I hope we start to develop that killer touch".
HONG KONG BLUE