First Southend game???

[Chris Powell's mate]

Home to Coventry, still remember it like it was yesterday Tony Bentley racing down the wing , Ray Smith looking like he had ran into a wall and the shirts were thick blue stripes and thin white stripes (still my favorite SUFC shirt).

Yeah, remember the shirts, and was always hoping Toffs or some retro outfit would reproduce them.
My first was the first of the 1963-64 season, 1-1 with Bournemouth - and scorer Mike Beesley autographed my tiny pocket-sized programme with his nicotine-stained fingers afterwards.

 

[Chris Powell's mate]

As a slight aside, anyone else recall the Sunday games in the 70's (power strikes ?) when it the Sunday trading laws at the the time meant that you could not buy a ticket for the game (or buy admittance) but you could buy programmes , so the game was admittance by programme only (which effectively meant they gave you a programme at the turnstile ) York City rings a bell (off to Robins site to check)

Edit....

Yep 73.-74
Home to
Wrexham 1-1 Guthrie
Shrewsbury 2-0 Moody Brace
York 3-3 Brace 2 Elliot

and Charlton Away 1-2 Silvester

Remember the Charlton game if only for that massive terrace at The Valley where I caught flu and was off work for a week...

 

[Chris Powell's mate]

That was a fantastic game of football for your first match.Arguably one of the best ever that Southend have been involved in.

I much preferred a game about two or three before the Swansea match where we caned Port Vale 4-1 - managed for about five minutes by Sir Stanley Matthews.
Had the net not been there Tony Beanland's long-range drive for the third would have taken my head off positioned where I was in the first row of the North Bank.

 

[Chris Powell's mate]

FA Cup 1st Round v Halesowen November 1986.

Yeah, and the Southend players decided to show how miffed they were at the home support by coming down to the South Bank on the final whistle to applaud the Halesowen fans even though we won 4-1.