First Southend game???

[JIMSDAD]

September 1969 vs. Grimsby Town. We lost 1-3, with Frank Haydock scoring our consolation. I clearly remember there was about 11,000 in attendance. It cost me one shilling and sixpence to get into the Southbank, where I stood quite high up. I've got this vague memory that it was a Saturday evening game. Anyone help?

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Think Harry went on to 63 or 64, i remember playing with Threadgold arond 65 66 when he played centre forward for Southchurch Rovers after he retired from league football.

T,
Cheers.That's why I remember him.I first started going to games in the early 60's.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

My first visit to Roots Hall was to watch Southend against Swansea in 1966/67. It was a Friday night game that we won 1-0 with an Andy Smillie goal. It was in the good old days when you could follow the attack by standing on the South Bank terracing in the first half and then, at half time, walk round the back of the West Stand to the North Bank shed for the second half.

I seem to remember that we had an average home attendance of over 12000 that season in the equivalent division (Division 4) to the one we're in now.

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

 

[canveyshrimper]

September 1969 vs. Grimsby Town. We lost 1-3, with Frank Haydock scoring our consolation. I clearly remember there was about 11,000 in attendance. It cost me one shilling and sixpence to get into the Southbank, where I stood quite high up. I've got this vague memory that it was a Saturday evening game. Anyone help?

According to SUFC Database this game was on a Monday, I'm assuming it was August Bank Holiday. Good memories of the crowd and Frank Haydock. 1969/70 saw a further dip in Blues fortunes. The previous seasons we'd challenged form promotion. This and the following season saw us struggling in the depths of the basement division.

 

[Sleaford Shrimper]

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

It certainly was. I had moved to Basildon from London in 1963, having supported Crystal Palace, and had only gone along to the Southend-Swansea game to keep my mate company. The game and the atmosphere at the ground were so good that I was hooked and have been a Southend supporter ever since.

 

[ian180]

I can't remember the score, but I'm sure we lost

 

[BrentwoodShrimper]

Boxing day 1993. We beat Charlto. 4-2. Ricky Otto and Jason 'pineapple' lee were
playing I recall. I've been going ever since through the ups and downs. Last season and summer events still leave a bad taste in the mouth. Took me a while to take to the current team but looks like it might now be gelling together. Bilel was the flicker that started to light up my season.

 

[canveyshrimper]

I can't remember the score, but I'm sure we lost

No we didn't lose, we were 2-0 to a very good QPR side (Francis/Bowles/Givens/Clement/Gillard/Shanks etc) Chris Guthrie and Dave Cunningham (I think) earned us a 2-2 draw and a replay at Loftus Road which sadly we did lose 2-0.

 

[Stiggler]

Friday 1st October 1982

Southend 4 - 0 Portsmouth

Stunning performance from Anton Otulakowski

Less than stunning cup of Bovril from my mate who forgot to stir it or to bring a spoon. 1cm solid bovril, 10cm clear boiling water.

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

Winter of 1955 i think, no problems with the game Southend v Man City, we lost 1 0 but should of won, Trautman saved everything that came his way. I also think it was our 1st season back at the new Roots Hall.

I share this one with you.............Christ! I fear we're the oldest on here. Only found out recently that it was my father who suggested to his new son-in-law, a lifelong gooner, that it would be a good idea to take me as I was nuts about playing football. There must have been quite a hoo-ha in the town about this fixture, as it came to my father's attention and he wasn't a particularly great football fan and not a follower of the Blues.
It was on Saturday January 28th 1955, when I entered Roots Hall for the first time, having tickets for the Paddock, in the shadow of the East Stand. I remember that we positioned ourselves towards the South Bank..........perhaps the crowd was too dense to allow us to move towards the half-way line? If I'm honest I don't think that I remember too much about the game apart from the mud, that annoying German goalkeeper, who kept on stopping everything and Man City fans making a tour of the pitch perimeter, prior to kick-off, holding blue and white painted umberellas. From there on in, I was hooked ....................and have been, with more or less intensity, .........for fifty-six years.................bloody hell!!!

 

[Norwichshrimper]

88/89 Relegation season. 4-0 loss away at Brentford
First home game was in 89/90 promotion season 2-0 loss to Chesterfield
No idea why I kept going back :unsure:

 

[greyerfox]

I share this one with you.............Christ! I fear we're the oldest on here. Only found out recently that it was my father who suggested to his new son-in-law, a lifelong gooner, that it would be a good idea to take me as I was nuts about playing football. There must have been quite a hoo-ha in the town about this fixture, as it came to my father's attention and he wasn't a particularly great football fan and not a follower of the Blues.
It was on Saturday January 28th 1955, when I entered Roots Hall for the first time, having tickets for the Paddock, in the shadow of the East Stand. I remember that we positioned ourselves towards the South Bank..........perhaps the crowd was too dense to allow us to move towards the half-way line? If I'm honest I don't think that I remember too much about the game apart from the mud, that annoying German goalkeeper, who kept on stopping everything and Man City fans making a tour of the pitch perimeter, prior to kick-off, holding blue and white painted umberellas. From there on in, I was hooked ....................and have been, with more or less intensity, .........for fifty-six years.................bloody hell!!!

No, you are not the oldest by a long way! Altho I remember the Man City game very well ( the mud and Trautmann especially) my first game was at The Stadium when I was taken by my Dad and his brother to see a game v Gateshead. Cannot give precise date but must have been early 1950s. Am still travelling down from Norfolk when I can and have three offspring who, altho born in Kent, are staunch Blues fans.

 

[number11]

4-4 home draw against Northampton in 1986....like Onion Bag Dave who saw 8 in his first game , I presumed it would be like that every week. Cadette hattrick. I noted a while ago in the program that Benji was playing for Northampton......I remember little about the game but recall getting home and singing 'The referees a ******' which must have given my mum doubts as to whether my Dad taking me to football was suitable! I was also a little disappointed Greyhounds were not racing around the outside of the pitch, as up to that point the only Stadium I had been to was Southend dog track.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

4-4 home draw against Northampton in 1986....like Onion Bag Dave who saw 8 in his first game , I presumed it would be like that every week. Cadette hattrick. I noted a while ago in the program that Benji was playing for Northampton......I remember little about the game but recall getting home and singing 'The referees a ******' which must have given my mum doubts as to whether my Dad taking me to football was suitable! I was also a little disappointed Greyhounds were not racing around the outside of the pitch, as up to that point the only Stadium I had been to was Southend dog track.

Yeah, my first game was against Northampton that season as well..... the 4-0 defeat.

Needless to say I was hooked.

 

[EastStandBlue]

0-0 Draw with Port Vale at home in '92.

 

[Uncle Leo]

Yeah, my first game was against Northampton that season as well..... the 4-0 defeat.

Needless to say I was hooked.

I wouldn't go do far as to say that game ruined Christmas - no doubt I got some great Lego that helped make for the defeat - but that game certainly put a dampener on this seven year old's festivities. Just checked out the game on the SUFC Database and saw the attendance was well over 8,000. A top of the table clash IIRC, but impressive nonetheless.

My favourite game that year was home to Wolves in the spring, when we had more than 10,000 at Roots Hall. I'd never seen such a crowd.

 

[Ingrave Shrimper]

My first game was back in 1959 (9 years old) and I think it was a friendly against the hammers as I do remember standing at the bottom of the west stand and looking up at John Bond - he was a big b.....r. My main reason though for the message is that I took my 3 year old grandson to his first football match in Nov last year - Blues v Accrington Stanley.... not a lot to boast about in his future life. But interestingly we were in our usual haunt, the Blues lounge, and one of the other regulars came across and announced that his first ever match was Southend v Accrington Stanley in 1957 , and he hadn't had a blighted life. So we had a nice photo taken with him, we won a signed match ball and all the team signed my grandsons programme. Hopefully now we have another little shrimper for the future; I say hopefully because his uncle and cousins are all Leeds season ticket holders.:sad: so I have my work cut out.

 

[blue chip]

Millwall at home 95/96, 2-0 win with keith dublin & mark mcnally on the score sheet. Was a kid a quid promo in the south lower with half the form class going. Been a proud shrimper ever since, albeit I sit in the east these days.

 

[shrimperian]

Afriendly against a russian team in the early 70s i think.

That would be Zenit Leningrad (Now Zenit St Petersberg) 1972

 

[BILLERICAY BLUE]

THAT game against Wigan on April 1st 1988. 3-2 win after being 2-0 down with about 35 mins to play. Donut came off the bench to score a pen, Ling volleyed in from 25 yards to make it 2-2, and Crown scored THAT goal with about 10 mins to play. Marvellous stuff and was immediatley hooked.