Interview with a Southend fan Wednesday, 18th Dec 2013 07:12 by Col Not one, not two, but three Southend fans have offered their services to be the opposition fan of the week and face our questions as we get all Paxman like with our Essex rivals. 1) Who are you, and how long have you supported Southend My name is Alec Hitchman and I have supported Southend since 2002, although my parents have been going to Blues games since 1991! 2) Best player / Best Manager / Best ever Southend game Best Player: The best player I have seen play for us is Freddy Eastwood. Ask any Blues fan that question and 9 out of 10 times you would get the same answer! Best Manager: Having only seen three managers in my time supporting Southend, I would say Steve Tilson. We achieved 2 successive promotions under him (2004-2005 - League Two play-off winners and 2005-2006 - League One Champions). Best Match: Most people would say he time we beat Manchester United, but for me it has to be Bristol City at home (2005-2006) when we were crowned League One champions! Wayne Gray (a striker at the time, now a defender i think!) scored the winner in the 88th minute! A truely amazing day! 3) Worst player / Worst Manager / Worst ever Southend game Worst Manager: None to be honest! Steve Tilson did a great job, getting us two successive promotions and guiding us to victory over Manchester United in the Carling Cup and a 1-1 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in 2009. Paul Sturrock made 17 signings the day before the 2010-2011 season started, and we had 3 great seasons under him, finishing mid-table in his first and last seasons, and 4th in his second season. Also guided us to Wembley last season. Phil Brown is doing a great job at the moment and I have nothing but praise for the ex-Hull boss! Worst Match: This "award" goes to the home defeat to Dagenham in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy earlier this season. We lost 5-2, most of us were expecting the team to get much further than the second round, especially after reaching the final last season. 4) How's the season going far and does it weight up to expectations? We are having a decent season so far, we have been top on a few odd occasions, but have spent most of the season lingering between 2nd and 7th. We have had some very good results so far, mainly on our travels! Most notably beating Portsmouth away (2-1), Chesterfield away (3-1), Morecambe away (3-0) and beating Fleetwood 2-0 at home. (Morecambe & Chesterfield were both FA Cup games). We are currently 7th, having won 6, drawn 1 and lost 1 of our last 8 games. Phil Brown was also awarded Manager of The Month for November, which is always good to see! 5) Any thoughts on Rochdale, currently or historically? Personally, I think Rochdale are a decent team, level on points with us and I am 99% sure they will be in the play-offs come May. Historically, we seem to quite well against them, well, from when i've seen us play them! Beat them 3-1 at our place last season and lost 4-2 at Spotland. Hoping we repeat that performance and come away with all 3 points on Friday! 6) Our former player Liam Dickinson seemed to do well for you not so long back before disappearing. What went wrong there? A terribly lazy player. He was never a fan-favourite down here in Essex! Always seemed to more or less give up once he had scored, quite glad he's left! (even though he got a few goals for us!) 7) There’s been talk over the past ten years or so of a new ground but it’s never seemed to get beyond the planning stage Personally, I am more than happy at Roots Hall. I will happily admit that we don't even fill the ground we have now, which holds 12,000. Based on that, we definitely won't be able to fill a ground with 22,000 capacity! Granted, it would be a big step up for the club. An example of a team getting better when they move ground is Brighton. They have more or less firmly established themselves in the Championship, so that would be the only up-side to getting the new ground! Also, the site for our current ground has been sold to Sainsbury's, so we will definitely be getting this new ground, even if we don't want it! 8) Phil Brown seems to be rebuilding his reputation with you. Is he well liked by the fans? A great tactical manager, it has to be said, with plenty of experience! He is liked by most if not all of the fans here, and I can see him staying for many years! He is a character on the touchline and always praises the fans, win, lose or draw. He loves us, and we love him! The feeling is mutual! The tan is a bit worrying though! Sorry Phil! 9) Any prediction for the game? I have had a good feeling about this game for a while. I will go for a 2-0 win for us! Admittedly, it will be a tough one, but I can't see us losing! Can I just add, it will be nice to see Matt Lund returning! He only spent last season at Blues, but was one of our better players last season! Cheers for all you did for us Matt! Welcome back! 1) Who are you, and how long have you supported Southend 2) Best player / Best Manager / Best ever Southend game Best player in my view was Stan Collymore, skill, pace, strength all the qualities you need in a striker, however I don't remember him scoring a headed goal. Best manager . Dave Webb gets my vote over Steve tilson although they both managed consecutive promotions Best game I think any shrimper will tell you Southend 1 Manchester United 0. I couldn't believe it either! 3) Worst player / Worst Manager / Worst ever Southend game Worst Player: So many to choose from there! I would go for Chris Ramsey, the only defender I have seen to make a clearance off his own cross bar. Awful. Worst manager: without question dick bate. In his not-brief-enough tenure we lost 8-1 at Gillingham- they even scored our goal but also 6-2 at Notts county. The horror still keeps me awake. Worst match: A grim 3-0 home defeat to Wrexham, a game so poor I still wonder how the teams mustered the "skill" to get the ball out of the centre circle. 4) How's the season going far and does it weight up to expectations? 6 wins in 8 has helped although losing at Torquay is never good. Still have the transfer embargo so we cannot buy anyone in. Rumours of players not being paid along with other staff abound. There is rarely a dull moment! 5) There’s been talk over the past ten years or so of a new ground but it’s never seemed to get beyond the planning stage There is more chance of Cameron Diaz knocking on my front door with chilled champagne saying " I am yours, hunky!" Oh hang on, door.... 1) Who are you, and how long have you supported Southend My name is Dan and I have supported Southend for 11 years now. 2) Best player / Best Manager / Best ever Southend game Even though i have personally never witnessed him play for the club I'll go for Stan Collymore. Steve Tilson is who I'd go for as best manager, took us from league 2 to the championship in two years and gave the fans great memories such as United at home and Chelsea away. The best ever Southens game has to be Man United at home in 2006 and beating them 1-0 3) Worst player / Worst Manager / Worst ever Southend game There's a lot of players I could chose for worst player but off the top of my head James Walker has to be one of the worst, a frustratingly bad player to watch. Worst manager for me would have to be Steve Wignall. And personally my worst ever game has to be losing 2-0 to our main rivals Colchester at their place, awful. 4) How's the season going far and does it weight up to expectations? The season so far has gone great, the appointment of Phil Brown was questioned by a lot of fans back in march and a very poor record at the end of last season left us all with much lower expectations than normal with many of us predicting a mid table finish. We started the season well with 3 wins but after that we seemed to lose our way and went 6 games without victory, but since then we have been in a rich vein of form and up until our disappointing defeat at Torquay on Saturday we were 7 unbeaten in all competitions. All in all Phil Brown has exceeded expectation and done an excellent job to assemble a small squad that I believe to be more than capable of getting automatic promotion and with the funds at his disposal and the chairman he has to work with this is nothing short of incredible. And with a 3rd round cup tie against Millwall to look forward to things are really looking up this season. 5) Any thoughts on Rochdale, currently or historically? To be honest I don't have too many thoughts on Rochdale, it's always been a club I've liked but like most teams at this level don't really seem to do a lot. Hoping you manage to turn over Leeds in the cup though! 6) Our former player Liam Dickinson seemed to do well for you not so long back before disappearing. What went wrong there? It was a shame the way Liam's career with us came to an end, he'd been doing very well and it looked as if he was firing us to promotion, he was our top scorer and we went into a game against promotion rivals Crawley hoping to see him score a couple but after a rash challenge he came out of the game with a broken ankle ruling him out for the rest of the season and If that hadn't have happened I'm pretty confident we would have gone up that year. At end of the season his injury situation didn't look anywhere near like improving so he was released. I believe he's playing in the Skrill North at the moment which is sad to see but he'd be worth a punt for any league 2 side in my opinion. 7) There’s been talk over the past ten years or so of a new ground but it’s never seemed to get beyond the planning stage We've had countless promises from our chairman that the ground is soon to be underway and a good 3 or 4 years we were told it was just months before the diggers were on site. In the last couple of months it's been fairly quiet and it's beginning to feel like it will never happen. 8) Phil Brown seems to be rebuilding his reputation with you. Is he well liked by the fans? To start with he got a mixed reception and I was skeptical when he was appointed but he's certainly grown on me and the majority of our fans and I believe he is the man who can take us out of this division. 9) Any prediction for the game? With our indifferent home form it is hard to make a prediction but I'm confident ahead of this one and I think we will knick it 2-1 in a tight game but it really could go either way. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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