Slipperduke
The Camden Cad
It’s been an emotional day. Well, it’s been an emotional day for you guys anyway. I spent the morning frantically trying to make Chelsea’s routine victory over Olympiakos sound interesting and I didn’t even know that the new stadium had been approved until Cricko phoned me up and told me. For me then, it’s just been an emotional couple of hours, but that will have to suffice. We’ve secured the future, but at the heavy price of relinquishing our past.
Everyone has a special memory of their first trip to Roots Hall. For me, it’s the smell of fried onions, the astonishing amount of swearing and the gradual realisation that someone was weeing down the terraces behind me. Ah, those halcyon days. It was Saturday, January 19, 1991 and I’ve got the programme here in front of me, previewing the home debut of one Pat Scully. He was an international, I seem to remember singing.
Over the last 17 years, never having lived in Southend, I’ve put in sporadic appearances at the old stadium. I suppose I’m an anti-glory supporter in a way, constantly justifying a love for a struggling team that I have no natural connections with, barring the fact that my West Ham supporting Dad took me there that day instead of Upton Park. But those bad times at Roots Hall, like that god-awful 0-0 draw with Halifax in 2000, have always been neutralised by the good times, like the £2.50 specials in The Fish House or, you know, winning League One.
Oddly, it wasn’t until that wonderful promotion season that I finally began to feel at home at home, if you see what I mean. A chance encounter with Matt the Shrimp on the Rivals network, led me to Shrimperzone and then, almost inevitably, to The Spread Eagle where the circle was complete. I am then, a relative newcomer to the thunderous, but intimate wonder of a proper trip to Roots Hall. Suddenly, a home game wasn’t just 90 minutes of football and a long train journey home. It was leaping onto the platform and heading to the Spread for four rushed pints of beer. It was filthy and slanderous conversation with Cricko and Callan, it was unsuccessfully arguing the fact that night followed day with Yorkshire, it was ’who was the worst player ever to wear the shirt’ with Matt the Shrimp and Uxbridge, it was a short, but lively walk to the stadium, it was spotting your mates in different parts of the stand, it was trying to find somewhere to smoke at half-time, it was dribbling on your jacket while celebrating the last minute winner, it was predicting survival on the way back to The Spread. It was football watched in a way that Premier League supporters with their quiet stands and always-closed-by-the-police pubs have long since forgotten.
Roots Hall was the eye of the storm, the centre of the vortex that kept the chaos swirling. It had the kind of looks that only a mother could love, it smelt a bit funny and there wasn’t always enough room for luxuries like getting both buttocks on the seat, but it was home.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Southend United had to make this move. If there is to be any future for the club that doesn’t involve annual trips to Underhill and Griffin Park, then we had to make the jump and put down foundations strong enough to support a push for, if not the big time, then at least the medium one. The Shrimpers will never be battling Barcelona and Roma in the Champions League, or even PSV Eindhoven and Anderlecht in the UEFA Cup. This stadium, though, will give us the chance to secure the minimum requirements of all football fans. A decent seat, a decent view, a decent team and the chance of a pint afterwards. I understand all of that, I’ll just…well, I’ll miss the old girl.
Fossett’s Farm looks splendid, but it’s lacking one thing. Do you think they could airlift The Spread Eagle over?
Everyone has a special memory of their first trip to Roots Hall. For me, it’s the smell of fried onions, the astonishing amount of swearing and the gradual realisation that someone was weeing down the terraces behind me. Ah, those halcyon days. It was Saturday, January 19, 1991 and I’ve got the programme here in front of me, previewing the home debut of one Pat Scully. He was an international, I seem to remember singing.
Over the last 17 years, never having lived in Southend, I’ve put in sporadic appearances at the old stadium. I suppose I’m an anti-glory supporter in a way, constantly justifying a love for a struggling team that I have no natural connections with, barring the fact that my West Ham supporting Dad took me there that day instead of Upton Park. But those bad times at Roots Hall, like that god-awful 0-0 draw with Halifax in 2000, have always been neutralised by the good times, like the £2.50 specials in The Fish House or, you know, winning League One.
Oddly, it wasn’t until that wonderful promotion season that I finally began to feel at home at home, if you see what I mean. A chance encounter with Matt the Shrimp on the Rivals network, led me to Shrimperzone and then, almost inevitably, to The Spread Eagle where the circle was complete. I am then, a relative newcomer to the thunderous, but intimate wonder of a proper trip to Roots Hall. Suddenly, a home game wasn’t just 90 minutes of football and a long train journey home. It was leaping onto the platform and heading to the Spread for four rushed pints of beer. It was filthy and slanderous conversation with Cricko and Callan, it was unsuccessfully arguing the fact that night followed day with Yorkshire, it was ’who was the worst player ever to wear the shirt’ with Matt the Shrimp and Uxbridge, it was a short, but lively walk to the stadium, it was spotting your mates in different parts of the stand, it was trying to find somewhere to smoke at half-time, it was dribbling on your jacket while celebrating the last minute winner, it was predicting survival on the way back to The Spread. It was football watched in a way that Premier League supporters with their quiet stands and always-closed-by-the-police pubs have long since forgotten.
Roots Hall was the eye of the storm, the centre of the vortex that kept the chaos swirling. It had the kind of looks that only a mother could love, it smelt a bit funny and there wasn’t always enough room for luxuries like getting both buttocks on the seat, but it was home.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Southend United had to make this move. If there is to be any future for the club that doesn’t involve annual trips to Underhill and Griffin Park, then we had to make the jump and put down foundations strong enough to support a push for, if not the big time, then at least the medium one. The Shrimpers will never be battling Barcelona and Roma in the Champions League, or even PSV Eindhoven and Anderlecht in the UEFA Cup. This stadium, though, will give us the chance to secure the minimum requirements of all football fans. A decent seat, a decent view, a decent team and the chance of a pint afterwards. I understand all of that, I’ll just…well, I’ll miss the old girl.
Fossett’s Farm looks splendid, but it’s lacking one thing. Do you think they could airlift The Spread Eagle over?
