Memory Lane 50 Years ago Today- 1971-72 Promotion Season - Wednesday 3 May 1972 - We finish as runners up! - Southend United 2 Gillingham 2

[Billy Bests boot laces]

I was working in London then with a bloke who told me he was one of the North bank Arsenal leaders(TM) and he looked like he could have been another was a JOCK, a Dave Cunningham look alike...dodgy and long unwashed hair.
There was a few other young lads who i spoke to,telling them i was going to the Stockport v blues game.Come today,this friday they had a big job/thing going on and they asked me twice will i be turning up today coz they needed everybody on board,Someone had told him (the boss) i wasnt turning up,i told him both times yes...but i knew i was off to Stockport not work.
On the way to work monday i was warned i had been sacked..i did not care,what was more important..work or the Blues??
I was young, free (or at least up to the B&HA away game 1975 i was, until a miscarriage of justice!!! ment i missed a few months of our games) and single.
So i got the big"E" but got a job a couple of days later with i think a 50p a day more money..happy days.
As for the game i was also on Brothers coach.I stood in the paddock a few steps from some other Blues fans.
One Blues fan was MG,from Canvey maybe two years older than me..he was known after the Exeter away game as" Griff the whiff"....coz of his upset stomach!!!
As i wrote i was alone when three SCFC lads came up to me and started to give me stick,I didnt say anything,but the biggest lad,maybe 19, short hair,glass`s and a crombie stood right in front of me and said something like"you Southend fans are XXXXs" if you dont say it we will give you a good kickin..not really not knowing what to do at that moment "Griff the whiff" came and stood next to me.That must have worried them coz they disappeared after that saying to me they would meet me outside..never saw them again.
Again happy memories supporting our Blue boys

Shame you never got round to writing a book Mark. Would have been a fascinating read, with the amount of away games you used to go to, & all the 'adventures' you experienced.

 

[Suffolk Shrimper In Dorset]

Just so you all know, George Duck, who played a handful of games for us in that wonderful 71/72 season, will be the SUEPA Match Day guest v Wealdstone.

George is Wealdstone's record ever goalscorer, and a lovely guy (met him at their place earlier this season). A shame for him that with us he had Best, Moore and Garner blocking his first team hopes.

 

[ozzie]

Shame you never got round to writing a book Mark. Would have been a fascinating read, with the amount of away games you used to go to, & all the 'adventures' you experienced.

As you know BBBL things were different(better) then(IMO), all the old boys can tell some stories which i love reading. Some i could write but the people would moan or write that did not happen....but as you know real funny things did happen then and no animal or away fan was hurt,but now its so PC

 

[ozzie]

Just a foot note...today 15.04.1978..it was that game,i think the only game i know it was on MotD...Watford V Southend..first v second...now we could write things about that game !! But better not,every game at Watford we went,but only once they came to Roots Hall..learnt..and never came again

 

[Billy Bests boot laces]

Just a foot note...today 15.04.1978..it was that game,i think the only game i know it was on MotD...Watford V Southend..first v second...now we could write things about that game !! But better not,every game at Watford we went,but only once they came to Roots Hall..learnt..and never came again

Over 18,000 at that game, it was est we took 3,000 there, remember the day well, game ended 1-1 Alan Moody scored our goal.
As for them coming to Southend, 1st game of season 76-77 they came in force for 1st time. Pre game 'wild west brawl' in Spread Eagle!. They were in West Stand that day.
Following season 77-78 when we went up behind them, they played down here in Nov ( i think ) & brought good numbers for the 2nd & last time.
They went in South Bank & many locals did as well to say 'hello'!.

 

[LCBB72]

Over 18,000 at that game, it was est we took 3,000 there, remember the day well, game ended 1-1 Alan Moody scored our goal.
As for them coming to Southend, 1st game of season 76-77 they came in force for 1st time. Pre game 'wild west brawl' in Spread Eagle!. They were in West Stand that day.
Following season 77-78 when we went up behind them, they played down here in Nov ( i think ) & brought good numbers for the 2nd & last time.
They went in South Bank & many locals did as well to say 'hello'!.

Remember going up to Watford in Oct 72 Alan Moody made his debut for Southend . The word at the time was that Southend would need machine guns with them as Watford had run Millwall the season before . About 30 odd Leigh Boys went up , put it this way Watford came off a well beaten second .

 

[LBBlue]

Monday 17th April 1972 -Southend United 4 Northampton Town 1

Another game in quick succession. Having played at Northampton the previous Tuesday they were now at Roots Hall.

We were unchanged from Friday, which meant Gary Moore for Peter Woods was the only change from the previous Tuesday. They made 2 changes, bringing in Phil Neal.

1 - 1 at half time with Ray Ternent scoring his only goal for us, we went to town in the second half with 2 for Bill Garner and 1 for King Billy. A big crowd for a Monday night 13,339. Lincoln threw away a 2 goal lead at Gillingham on the Wednesday night to draw 3-3 as the Gills equalised in the last minute, which meant with them having just 3 games to play and us being 5 points ahead a win on Friday against Cambridge would clinch promotion.

 

[sufc_statto]

Monday April 17, 1972 - Division 4
Southend Utd (1) 4 (Ternent 8', Garner 49', 56', Best 83')
Northampton Town (1) 1 (Felton 14')
Venue: Roots Hall KO: 7.30
Attendance: 13,399

Southend Utd: D Bellotti, R Ternent, A Smith, D Elliott, B Albeson, J Jacques, T Johnson, B Best, B Garner, G Moore, D Booth. Sub: P Taylor.
Northampton Town: A Starling, T Gould, A Oman, J Clarke, N Rioch, J Buchanan, G Felton, J Kiernan, F Large, J Hold (B Heslop), P Neal.

Match Report
Bill Garner hit two goals in seven minutes at Roots Hall on Monday night to lift a Southend side for whom promotion alone is no longer good enough.

A two-month unbeaten run has hardened their simple desire for higher status into an all-out push for the championship.

One more win on Friday would virtually usher them into Division Three, and leave them with three more games to clinch the title.

Southend declared their championship resole last night with some arresting football at each end of a nervous half hour before the interval.

But manager Arthur Rowley sensibly refuses for the moment to look beyond promotion. “It would be nice to go up as champions. But we'll start thinking about that when we're definitely up.

“Tonight’s win took the pressure off us a bit. Now its up to us to finish the job in our remaining games.

Southend felt the tension of life at the top in agitated 30 minutes after Northampton’s equaliser. But top scorer Bill Garner fittingly pulled them out of it with two goals in the first 11 minutes of the second half.

Northampton goalkeeper Alan Starling's almost first action after the break to was to pick the ball out the out of the net after Garner had fastened on to a rebounded Best shot.

Seven minutes later, in the 56th minute, Starling was humiliated as well as hopelessly beaten when Garner wrong footed him on his to a second goal. Starling's bitter protests, first to the referee and then a linesman, reflected his shame.

But Garner's timely run to meet Jacques through ball had merely found the flaw in Northampton’s offside trap which Southend had been threatening all night.

The centre-forward has now contributed 11 goals to Blues' promotion push in 13 games since returning from suspension. And he would have had his second hat-trick of the season, but for mistiming a header in the 73rd minute.

It was left to Best to put the seal on the victory by heading home Ternent’s corner seven minutes from the end.

Best could have saved his team from a lot of anguish if he had showed the same decisive finishing in the 12th minute. Then, after running clear of the Northampton defence to meet Ternent’s pass, he allowed Starling to smother a shot which should have given Southend an emphatic 2-0 lead.

Instead, Northampton were sufficiently boosted by the miss to come back for an equaliser two minutes later. Again, the goal emphasised Southend's vulnerability to dead ball situations - Felton moving on to Kiernan’s free kick to score with a shot Bellotti might have saved.

All the significant events of the first half were compressed into the opening 15 minutes. That free kick, Best's miss, and Southend's brilliant first goal.

Dave Elliott's pass inside the full back dissected three defenders and Ternent got round the back of Northarnpton’s square defence for his first goal of the season.

That pass went towards making Elliott the outstanding player of this match. He was the inspiration of the impressive football with which Southend surrounded their nervous spell. And his tackling and challenging did most to keep them going.

The blot on Southend’s performance was a booking for skipper Joe Jacques, after a 75th minute foul on Felton. Jacques can't complain after getting an earlier warning from referee Gordon Kew.

League Table

 

[ozzie]

Is that KingBilly No8 behind Big Bill??

 

[ozzie]

Only a few days to go now until we play maybe "Sarfends" biggest game ever (up to then)..PROMOTION
First time ever,i know all the fans are excited about this game.
We have been on a real good run
I think we won at Cambridge??
Cambridge are not much "bottle"
The North bank/Pak are getting bigger and better
A big crowd is expected
And to top it all off i had been to every H&A game this season and on the 21.04.72 its my birthday,i will be"sweet 16" ?? My best ever Bday pressie..going up.
Its all "hunkydory".....What could go wrong!!!
What were we all thinking about before the game??

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Is that KingBilly No8 behind Big Bill??

Certainly is.

 

[LBBlue]

Friday 21st April 1972 - Southend United 1 Cambridge United 2

Out of all the memorable games there have been at Roots Hall in its 66 year history I think that this was probably the most dramatic of them all, given its context, the happenings in the match and its final out come. The roller coaster of a game of mixed emotions before they became cliches.

The context of course - a win would see us gain our first ever promotion albeit back to Division 3. We would still have a good chance of ending the season as champions. We had gone 14 games without defeat brushing all aside. We had won 17 of our last 18 home league games. We were unchanged again and every one was fully fit. so what could go wrong. That's the beauty and unpredictability of football.

Friday evening in Southend a mammoth crowd of 17,059 turned up to hopefuly celebrate. This was the biggest crowd we ever had in Division 4 and at the time was the 3rd highest for a league game at Roots Hall - the two higher crowds being the 1st and 3rd games in 1955 when Roots Hall was opened.

Cambridge were in their second season in the League and were much improved over the side they had in their first season, having signed Brian Greenhalgh who as a youngster had done pretty well in Division 2 and been signed by First division Leicester and Huddersfield. A step too far for him he had at just 24 he had dropped into the 4th Division a bit of coup for Cambridge. They came to Southend having lost 5-2 at Peterborough just 2 days before on the Wednesday evening with Greenhalgh scoring both their goals.

Reading from Peter Miles and David Goody's fantastic book " Southend United Football Club -50 of the Finest Matches" - we dominated from the start and only a couple of wonder saves form Peter Vasper stopped Billy best putting us in front. Just what you don't want - an opposition goal keeper having the game of his life.

Then in the 25th minute disaster struck as Derek Bellotti rushes out - goes down at Greenhalgh's feet lands elbow first and dislocates it.



So after Peter Taylor come on and after a bit of discussion all 5ft 7in of him puts on the goalkeeper's jersey and he goes between the sticks.

We get to half time still at 0-0 doing OK and come out for the second half kicking towards a very packed North Bank.

2 minutes into the half, total joy, as Bill Garner drives home a pass from King Billy and we take the lead. We should then have scored again when full back Ray Ternent was put through with only Vasper to beat. Ray fluffed it and Vasper saved. We were to rue that miss.

At the back we were coping just about OK but as the minutes ticked by everyone, players and the crowd were getting more and more edgy and then in the 72 minute Brian Albeson and Taylor collided going for the ball which fell at Greenhalgh's feet and it was 1-1. Normally a keeper's ball.

Then 6 minutes later Albeson made another mistake weakly heading a clearance to Greenhalgh who scored again. Brian Albeson had been a rock all season and was rightly joint player of the season with Bill Garner. He was the difference between the team that flattered the season before and this one that was so solid.

So to try and grab an equaliser Alex Smith replaced Spud in goal but it wasn't to be.

I couldn't believe it and all I could see was us slipping out of the top four and missing out on promotion just like in 1968. Missing out on promotion is far worse than getting relegated. A season of hope and expectation was taken away on a stretcher.

The next day it got a bit better. Of the other 4 sides going for promotion only Brentford won, with Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Lincoln all dropping a point as the pressure took its toll.

So now 1 point from a trip to Scunthorpe and 2 games against Gillingham would get us back to Division 3

 

[LCBB72]

Vasper played the game of his life that night . The last 15 minutes of the game Vasper kept standing on the edge of his penalty area when he could looking over his shoulder . The North Bank kept singing 'We Hate Vasper', as soon as the final whistle went he was first off the pitch and down the tunnel fearing for his life .

 

[BILLERICAY BLUE]

I've loved this thread, Maybe do another one for next season. 80-81 maybe?

 

[LBBlue]

I've loved this thread, Maybe do another one for next season. 80-81 maybe?

Thanks 47 games down 3 to go! A labour of love!

Have to wait until 2030/31 for that one!

Could do 30 years since 1992/93 - that was quite an eventful season all round. We paid quite a bit of money for some unknown Crystal Palace reserve who could use both feet and his head. I didn’t go to that many games then though - three kids under 8!

 

[sufc_statto]

Friday April 21, 1972 - Division 4
Southend Utd (0) 1 (Garner 47')
Cambridge Utd (0) 2 (Greenhalgh 73', 79')
Venue: Roots Hall KO: 7.30
Attendance: 17,059

Southend Utd: D Bellotti (P Taylor 25'), R Ternent, A Smith, D Elliott, B Albeson, J Jacques, T Johnson, B Best, B Garner, G Moore, D Booth.
Cambridge Utd: P Vasper, J Thompson, V Akers, A Guild, T Eades, D Walker, R Walton, B Greenhalgh, D Lill, C Foote, B Conlon.

Match Report
There's no easy way out of the dog-house! Southend United discovered this at Roots Hall on Friday night when, needing only one point as an insurance and two as a guarantee for the Third Division next season, their unbeaten run of 14 games was brought to a sudden halt by a team which, under ordinary circumstances, would never have lived with them, writes Alf Smirk.

But not one of the 17,059 fans, the biggest gate in Southend's six-year residence in the Fourth Division, could complain. And once Blues had lost goalkeeper Derek Bellotti after 25 minutes, they gave more encouragement to the team than I have heard for many, many years.

Bellotti's departure was a tragedy! He went for a high ball from Brian Greenhalgh, fell awkwardly and after trying to block up a follow-up shot, was stretchered off to hospital with an injury which was later said to be a dislocated elbow.

Spud Taylor substituted and, despite being one of the smallest players on the books, took over the goalkeeper's jersey. Despite what a large section of the crowd thought, this, in my opinion, was a good tactical move by manager Arthur Rowley. Blues' defence have been playing so well that conceding goals have been secondary to scoring them.

Unfortunately, it was overprotection of Taylor that actually led to their undoing. Left alone, Spud might have stood a chance against at least one of the goals put past him. Over-protection rather cramped his style and led to Blues' first defeat in 15 games.

United were far and away the better side. Only three magnificent reflex saves by Cambridge goalkeeper Peter Vasper prevented them from taking a commanding lead. Two were from Billy Best and one from Bill Garner, and 99 times out of 100 the ball would have finished in the back of the net.

But the real turning point came in the 65th minute. United were then one goal up and another would have wrapped it up. But Ray Ternent, sent clear on the left as he was in an earlier game when he banged in his first goal for United, failed to walk around Vasper with Best unmarked in the centre and the chance was lost.

Garner, with his 26th goal of the season, had given Blues the lead two minutes after half-time, when he screwed in his shot from a Ternent pass. But in the 71st minute, Taylor was hampered by his own protective defence and failed to punch out far enough a Bryan Conlon shot and Brian Greenhalgh shot home from close range.

Worse was to come seven minutes later when the same player stabbed Cambridge ahead from a couple of yards out.

Alex Smith then over in goal from Taylor, which was no reflection on Spud as manager Rowley obviously wanted more power in attack. But despite their continued pressure, the equaliser simply would not come, even although Blues forced another six corners in the last few minutes.

Normally this would have been classed as a failure. But, under the circumstances, it was really triumph in defeat. According to the League tables, Blues will get neither points nor kudos, but in my book they all get full marks for endeavour and effort.

League Table

 

[ozzie]

Gutted...this was our night...The football God's had written"tonight Southend go up",but some Judas stiched us up.As you wrote LLB,most thought not another 67-68 season?
Being a" veteran" of the 67-68 season, i was still shocked come the end of this game.
Most North bank mob moved into the South bank near the end of the game,i think to scare the CUFC fans who were "PAKed" into the south paddock. Im sure it did,Sadly some idiot threw an object right into the middle of the CUFC fans,it could not miss.Made that night even worse.I do hope it injured nobody

 

[Chris Powell's mate]

Remember this well.
The expectation and the deflation. Huge crowd, and zero to show for it.

I guess it was about this time I realised just what supporting Southend meant, although had already more than a taste over the previous 10 years!

 

[LBBlue]

Tuesday 25th April 1972 Scunthorpe United 1 Southend United 1


50 years ago today Southend United - left the small group of clubs that had never won a promotion and got the point they needed to seal a return to Division 3 after 6 years in the 4th Division.

After the shock of Friday night a trip to Scunthorpe wasn't really ideal. Even 50 years ago Scunthorpe had become a bit of a bogey side as we went there having played them 11 times won 1 Drawn 2 and lost 8! Scunthorpe were having the promotion jitters though, having lost just 4 of the first 31games they had lost 5 and drawn 2 of the next 12.

So I went on the away club coach for the 2nd and last time - did we get stopped for speeding on the A15 on the way there? A small band of followers made the trip
and were in the crowd of 8,540 as Scunthorpe would have clinched their promotion with a win

John Roberts came back into goal for his first game since the 4-1 home defeat to Colchester at the end of January. In that Colchester game Roberts had let a goal in direct from a corner and we had the worst possible start as would you believe Harry Kirk scored for Scunthorpe direct for a corner in the 3rd minute.

However the back four playing their 26th consecutive game together dug in and kept out everything Scunthorpe could throw at us. We gradually got control of the game with Garner and Moore causing lots of problems. In the 30th minute Bill Garner had the ball out on the left touchline crossed and their was King Billy getting to the ball firstwith his head and it trickled into the corner of the Scunthorpe net. Relief amongst the band of supporters.




As the game went on neither side wanted to lose, Roberts redeemed himself with a couple of great saves and the final whistle signaled job done and celebrations all round!



Lincoln drew 0-0 with bottom club Crewe the next evening so Scunthorpe went up as well. Grimsby lost at Peterborough so we were just one point behind them with 2 games to play.

 

[Whispering Bob]

Recall this night very well. Was frantically trying to pick up radio coverage, painstakingly turning the tuner between Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg, when the old man burst into my room "Why aren't you doing your homework? You'll get nowhere in life knowing Scunthorpe's goal-average!!"....(he wasn't wrong)