Ernie Shepherd

Benfleetshrimp · Sep 23, 2005

Question for any oldies out there. Ernie Shepherd was Southend's manager in late 60's. I have only just found out I work with his grand daughter.
Just wondered if any oldies have any memories of him that I could pass on to her. I think he may have signed Peter Taylor

canveyshrimper · Sep 23, 2005

[b said:
Quote[/b] (Benfleetshrimp @ Sep. 23 2005,11:59)]Question for any oldies out there. Ernie Shepherd was Southend's manager in late 60's. I have only just found out I work with his grand daughter.
Just wondered if any oldies have any memories of him that I could pass on to her. I think he may have signed Peter Taylor

I always remember the Ernie Shepherd era with affection, although we were in the 4th Division at the time. I think he got the managers jog from Alvan Williams who promised to get us out of the 3rd division. He kept his promise as we were relegated in 1966. I think Ernie was the trainer/physio when he took over. He bought the likes of Billy Best, Gary Moore, Chico Hamilton, Eddie Clayton and probably Phil Chisnall & Sammy McMillan, although i am not sure about the last two.

His teams always played attractive football and Friday nights were bonanza nights, with gates always over 10,000. There is another thread about Phil Chisnall on here and we discussed the 1968/69 season where we scored goals for fun and had a couple of good cup runs. The defining moment came in that season when we beat Workington 7-0 at Roots Hall, and promotion was in the bag. Or so we thought, sadly we lost our last 4 or 5 games and finished 6th.

Unfortunately the 1969/70 season saw a down turn in our fortunes and we finished in around 18th and I think Ernie was sacked that season, or it may have been early the following year when we had another bad year. He was briefly replaced by Geoff Hudson, who in turn was replaced by Arthur Rowley who in his first full season 1971/72 led us to promotion in 2nd place behind Grimsby.

I think all Blues fans with long memories will remember Ernie with affection and respect. There was atribute feature about him in the Echo a little while back as sadly he died.