The away game at Southend has been moved forward a day.
Saints trip to Southend has been brought forward a day from the Saturday to Friday 9th October with a 7.45pm kick off, alledgedly at the request of the police.
Its difficult to see why the police are asking for this, certainly it will inconvenience a lot of Saints fans who would have gone on the Saturday, but faced with an afternoon off work and a long trip back might now give it a miss.
But why are Essex Police insisting on this, three years ago there was minor disorder at the fixture, but it was very minor, to the point that if you moved fixtures because of this sort of behaviour then 50% of matches would be played on a Friday night. Back then Saints did take a larger than usual contingent of lets say our more volatile fans, but they seemed to be easily contained by the police and moved out of Southend fairly easily and early on the Saturday evening.
In fact by moving it to the friday, it could create more problems that it would solve, Southend is near enough to travel to on Friday afternoon, and many could see it as the chance to have a night out in what is seen as a lively seaside town, therefore police could be kept busy with more incidents after the game in the pubs & clubs involving Saints supporters either those looking for trouble, or those who are not troublemakers and have merely found it, NOT of their own accord.
If this is the reason why the police have moved the fixture, to avoid crowd trouble, then I severely worry that they actually know how to police a game efficiently.