Southend slump to abject Burton defeat

Southend United slumped to a spineless 3-1 defeat at Burton Albion on Saturday, leaving the club just one point off the League Two relegation places, and fans fearing for their future league status.
With our two best players suspended (Grant and Moshni), and having not played in three weeks, most supporters heading to Staffordshire travelled more in hope than expectation.
But it was the pathetic performance and lack of fight that was most concerning.
As always it was the football which ruined a good day out at a new league ground for Blues’ fans.
I arrived in Burton at about 10.20am, ridiculously early. As you emerge from the station, which can generously be described as a shack, you are greeted by red brick warehouses and steel grain silos which betray the town’s brewing heritage.
That initial view confirmed what many of us were anticipating, that the town was indeed a complete dump.
I wandered around a bit, popped into the National Brewery Museum, and had a brief discussion with two evangelizing Mormans from Arkansas about God stuff (how random is that?).
The rest of the All At Sea boys rolled into town an hour later, quite late by their standards, and we headed straight to the excellent Coopers Tavern, an alehouse with a plethora of real ales available from casks.
A gag by Paul who placed a random door he found lying around in front of the real door of the gents toilets proved to be the highlight of the day.
The beers were flowing, as was the banter, and we then headed to the Roebuck Inn for a few pre-match G and Ts, watching a bit of Rangers v Inverness Caley Thistle, with former Shrimper Richie Foran playing for Caley.
We then hopped in a cab to the ground. The Pirelli stadium is a pretty bland modern stadium, but it was a bonus to be on a terrace, and cost only £13.
A good number of Southend fans had made the trip, and easily outsung their hosts, who barely mustered a whimper throughout the entire game.
As for the game, well, do we really have to talk about it?
Some kid was playing in midfield (Woodyard), but we were so poor it was embarrassing. We did not have ONE chance in the first half, and went two down, conceding the second (Prosser own goal) just on half time.
Blair Sturrock injected some urgency into our strikeforce when he came on for the second half, and for five minutes we looked much better.
Sturrock headed in a goal from a Ryan Hall free kick, who also came on at half time, but then six minutes later Burton scored a screamer and we all knew it was game over.
I see Sturrock senior has blamed our lack of training for the defeat, but in truth we lost because we were awful, we looked bereft of confidence and ideas, and unless we improve dramatically it is Conference football next season.
“We should have gone Christmas shopping”, we sang in the second half, while a few anti-Ron Martin chants were also aired, such as “you’re killing our club”. It’s hard not to disagree. Clearly the off the field problems are a massive factor as to why we are in such a predicament.
To compound our misery we got lost on the way back to the pub, had an argument, and then had to endure the comments of an irritating Scouser during the Newcastle – Liverpool game.
Then back in London I went to my office to pick up my bike, discovered I had a flat tyre, tried to get into the office to get my pump, couldn’t remember the code for the burglar alarm, set off the alarm, couldn’t turn it off, and caused a security alert.
By the time the guy from Chubb had been and it was all sorted an hour later, I went home bikeless, having successfully missed Match of the Day.
It summed up the day really.
Sort it out Southend. League Two is bad enough, and losing our league status doesn’t bear thinking about, but it’s becoming a distinct possibility.

Ed Beavan

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