A true legend? Absolutely no doubt, and when I am asked who my favourite player of all time is, I always answer with Chris Powell.
Hear, hear.
With apologies for banging on about
that photo of the two of us, it's worth recounting the context in which it was taken. The picture was snapped straight after the Wrexham match at The Mill Stad - so, naturally, I had been in a foul mood. I had gone back to the B&B where I had stayed the previous night to pick up my bag and was trudging back to Cardiff station to meet up with Uxbridge Shrimper and Mrs. Uxbridge Shrimper, who were in the queue to catch the train back to London.
As I was walking down the street, there before me were Phil Gridelet (who was
much taller and larger than I imagined) and Chrissy Powell. Gridelet cracked some witticism (making a Peter Kay comparison... perhaps not the best time to be taking the p*ss out of a Shrimpers fan, Grids), and then I spoke to Chris.
A few months beforehand, FourFourTwo had run a pull-out supplement to their magazine entitled Heroes & Villains, and had asked me to write the entries for Southend United. Resisting the urge to nominate Jeroen Boere in the villains category, I plumped for Gordon Connelly. Barrels, fish and shooting come to mind.
For the heroes column, though, I didn't find the choice at all difficult. There could be only one candidate for me: Chrissy Powell.
For sheer raw talent, we've never had anyone at this club who could hold a candle to Stan Collymore; if Stan had been embued with the thick-skin of a Shearer and the graft of a Beckham, Stan could have had 70 or more caps for his country in terms of ability.
But Stan was but a comet who fizzed oh-so-briefly through the Blues firmament - he was only here for 20-odd matches, 9 months. Dare I say it... was Stan, perhaps, a bit of a flash in the pan?
Chrissy Powell was someone who spent
6 years at Roots Hall - and amongst six of the best years of his career. A small part of me wonders whether he almost showed too much loyalty to our small club... that, if he'd b*ggered off to (say) join Fat Judas at Birmingham, whether he wouldn't have been fast-tracked sooner to national honours.
Chrissy's loss was, unquestionably, our gain. We got to enjoy one of the finest English left-backs of his generation turning out every week for the Shrimpers, and turning in consistently good performance after good performance. As YB said - it was the unerring reliability of the man that was so remarkable; I can't remember a bad performance, I can't remember a lengthy spell on the sidelines for injury; and the bookings and send-offs were incredibly rare.
How could you not love a man who gave 100% every time he ran out for Southend - and whose 100% was of such high quality week-in, week-out? So, the choice for me was simple: he was my Southend United hero.
Interestingly - and quite unprompted by me - FourFourTwo decided to elect certain of the clubs' heroes as special "Star Men" - I think only about a dozen or so players received that accolade, based on how glowing the tribute was and, often, longevity at the club in question. It was entirely fitting that Sir Chrissy was one such Star Man.
I asked Chrissy whether he had seen the article, and he very humbly looked all bashful for a moment, and said that he had. He looked genuinely touched and said that he was surprised that Stan hadn't won. I reported, happily, that I had been given the privilege of writing the article for FourFourTwo, and that there was no question for me that he, and not Stan, had been the right choice for the accolade.
Chris looked genuinely stunned, and simply said that he considered it one of the most humbling and sincerest compliments he had ever been paid in his career.
That's why, in "that" photo, we're both standing there with big grins on our faces... grins that were, perhaps, a bit sheepish: me because I was a bit star-struck; him because he couldn't quite believe that the fans would consider him worthy of being voted as the hero of Southend United.
He is a true legend, and rightly should be inducted into the ShrimperZone hall of fame; that hall would not be complete without him.
"Wiggle It!"
Matt
