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What's the greater moment in Southend history


  • Total voters
    34
  • Poll closed .

Yorkshire Blue

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Welcome to the Battle of the Greatest Moments in (recent?) Southend History, where our opening tie is Big Bill Garner banging in 4 goals in a 7-0 romp against Weymouth in the FA Cup in the 1970/71 season up against Freddy keeping his nerve in a tense play-off game against Northampton.

I look forward to hearing all about the Weymouth cup adventures because it was before my time and it's not a game I'm aware of. It can't be dismissed lightly because we haven't scored that many goals this year (possibly) and we certainly haven't scored that many goals in a single game since 1990/91.

Freddy's penalty on the otherhand will be familiar to many of us. After the strangely orange Nicky Nicolau was felled by a particularly brisk gust of wind up stepped the man of the last decade, Mr Freddy Eastwood to - after what seemed an age - do this and send us to the Millennium Stadium for the third time in little over 12 months.

So don't rush into vote, but let's instead have your reminisces of these moments in SUFC history.
 
Blimey, I had the privilege to see both games, I had put the Weymouth game to the back of my mind as in those days we normally slaughtered non league teams (Kings Lynn & Brentwood more of which later). Also at the time we weren't a very good side and were floundering in the lower reaches of Division 4. Bill Garner signed for us from Bedford for a fairly hefty fee for a non league player (possibly more than Eastwood cost us 30 odd years later), he was big, strong and powerful in the air and formed a good partnership with Billy Best who scored 2 that day and Bernie Lewis the other. We played Darlington in round 2 winning 1-0 through a Billy Best goal. The draw gave us a home tie against Carlisle who IIRC were in division 2 at the time, and I believe the game was postponed from the Saturday because of bad weather and played on the Monday. As was tradition the draw for the next round was made on the Monday lunchtime and Spurs came out of the hat. Off we trotted to Roots Hall to dream of playing Ldnfasto's future heroes on our own turf. Sadly we got stuffed 3-0, so another bubble as a SUFC supporter was burst.

As a side issue to the match we went up to the Elms for a post match pint and whinge and a load of the Spurs team of the time came in for a drink. My abiding memory was that Martin Chivers & Pat Jennings were both built like brick **** houses.
 
Blimey, I had the privilege to see both games, I had put the Weymouth game to the back of my mind as in those days we normally slaughtered non league teams (Kings Lynn & Brentwood more of which later). Also at the time we weren't a very good side and were floundering in the lower reaches of Division 4. Bill Garner signed for us from Bedford for a fairly hefty fee for a non league player (possibly more than Eastwood cost us 30 odd years later), he was big, strong and powerful in the air and formed a good partnership with Billy Best who scored 2 that day and Bernie Lewis the other. We played Darlington in round 2 winning 1-0 through a Billy Best goal. The draw gave us a home tie against Carlisle who IIRC were in division 2 at the time, and I believe the game was postponed from the Saturday because of bad weather and played on the Monday. As was tradition the draw for the next round was made on the Monday lunchtime and Spurs came out of the hat. Off we trotted to Roots Hall to dream of playing Ldnfasto's future heroes on our own turf. Sadly we got stuffed 3-0, so another bubble as a SUFC supporter was burst.

As a side issue to the match we went up to the Elms for a post match pint and whinge and a load of the Spurs team of the time came in for a drink. My abiding memory was that Martin Chivers & Pat Jennings were both built like brick **** houses.


Chris Balderstone was in that Carlisle side who I think was the last person to play top flight Football and Cricket for England (although Jim Coombs was about then too)
 
We played Darlington in round 2 winning 1-0 through a Billy Best goal.

The second round was at home to Dagenham not Darlington Harry, and I think the 1-0 score was more of a shock than the 7-0, we expected to score goals in those days although 1970-71 was a poor season in previous seasons we had won by the following high scores:

1966-67:
Chester 5-1, Aldershot 4-0, Bradford PA 4-0, Chesterfield 4-1, Port Vale 4-1

1967-68:
Barnsley 4-1, Chester 5-1, Workington 7-0

1968-69:
Bournemouth 6-1, Exeter 6-1, Kings Lynn 9-0, Brentwood 10-1, Brentford 4-0, Notts County 4-0, Bradford PA 5-0, Swansea 4-0

After these three years the scoring dried up until the Weymouth Cup game but we always felt the goals were there with Best, Garner and Moore. Dagenham in the second round was a blow because we thought it would be five or more and couldn't beleive a single goal win.

I'll vote for Freddy by the way.

DoDtS
 
Last edited:
The second round was at home to Dagenham not Darlington Harry, and I think the 1-0 score was more of a shock than the 7-0, we expected to score goals in those days although 1970-71 was a poor season in previous seasons we had won by the following high scores:

1966-67:
Chester 5-1, Aldershot 4-0, Bradford PA 4-0, Chesterfield 4-1, Port Vale 4-1

1967-68:
Barnsley 4-1, Chester 5-1, Workington 7-0

1968-69:
Bournemouth 6-1, Exeter 6-1, Kings Lynn 9-0, Brentwood 10-1, Brentford 4-0, Notts County 4-0, Bradford PA 5-0, Swansea 4-0

After these three years the scoring dried up until the Weymouth Cup game but we always felt the goals were there with Best, Garner and Moore. Dagenham in the second round was a blow because we thought it would be five or more and couldn't beleive a single goal win.

I'll vote for Freddy by the way.

DoDtS

Thanks Pete, the memory playing tricks again, I remembered the 2nd round opposition began with a D. Those 2 or 3 years under Ernie Shepherd were great and we really played some good stuff.

I'll also vote for Freddy, but good to remember those far off days.
 
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