Latest news with #SouthendUnited
BBC News
20 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Southend driven to 'attack next season'
Southend United chairman Justin Rees says the club will target automatic promotion next season after losing to Oldham Athletic in the 2024-25 National League play-off final at Shrimpers secured the last play-off spot on the final day of the campaign and then won away at Rochdale and Forest Green Rovers to reach the twice took the lead at the national stadium as they attempted to regain English Football League status, but Oldham eventually won 3-2."I woke up the next day really, really driven, it's only nine weeks to next season. That should tell us that if you want to play in big games, cup games, play-off games, the more of them you play, unfortunately you are going to taste agony sometimes," Rees told BBC Essex's Breakfast Show."We want to be back in that EFL. We should all be driven by this disappointment to attack next season and be chasing the top honours rather than jumping in there [the play-offs] on the final day." Australian businessman Rees led the COSU consortium (Custodians of Southend United) which took over the club from former owner Ron Martin last summer following years of financial problems which had threatened the club's he is happy to let the players and supporters be the focus of attention at the club, saying: "As owners our job is to steer the club into safer waters, (and) ideally be more in the background than the foreground." A report published last month revealed that "intercompany loans totalling £19.4m were written off" as part of the takeover process and that the club made a £2.65m pre-tax loss in the 12 months ending July plans to upgrade parts of their Roots Hall stadium are ongoing and attention will now turn to providing a squad for boss Kevin Maher and his staff to ensure they hit the ground running in the new season."We're all deflated but not devastated," said chief executive Tom Lawrence."If you'd said to me 12 months ago, would you take ending up at Wembley and just losing out in a play-off final - if you roll back 18 months we were a heartbeat away from going out of existence, so in the context of everything that's gone on, what the players, Kevin and the management team have achieved is just incredible. "We'll be back in the office tomorrow to go again and start building for next season. We just need to grow and become stronger."
BBC News
a day ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Shaun Hobson racist abuse fan will be banned, says Southend
Southend United FC has said the person who sent racist abuse to an Oldham Athletic player will be banned from matches once they are Latics beat Southend 3-2 after extra time in the National League play-off final at Wembley Stadium on the match, Oldham defender Shaun Hobson shared a screenshot of a private message he received and wrote that he was "not angry, just disappointed".Hobson played for the Shrimpers before making the switch to Oldham in 2023. The 26-year-old appeared in the final as a substitute in the 98th message was believed to have been sent by a Southend fan and the club said it "strongly condemns the racial abuse"."The incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and we are working closely with them to identify the perpetrator, who will be subject to a club ban. Such abuse is vile and will not be tolerated," said a Southend club said it had reached out to Oldham and Hobson to "apologise and offer its full support while our investigation continues"."Racism has no place in football or society and the club would like to reaffirm its zero-tolerance stance against any form of discrimination," a spokesperson said. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
ABC News
a day ago
- Lifestyle
- ABC News
I flew from Brisbane to London at short notice to see Southend United play at Wembley Stadium — they lost, but that's not what matters
You'd have every reason to think I am completely insane. Perhaps I am. I'm going to ignore this brief window of introspection though. After all, passion can manifest in a multitude of silly ways. Like flying to the other side of the world on a moment's notice (OK, four days' notice) for a football match between Southend United and Oldham Athletic — two clubs you've likely never heard of — in the National League promotion final at Wembley Stadium, London. That's England's fifth-tier competition — these clubs finished 97 and 99 rungs down the ladder from Premier League winners Liverpool in football's meritorious hierarchy. A bloody long way from where I was 72 hours earlier in Brisbane, Australia. That's right, somewhat inexplicably, I embarked on a 33,072-kilometre round trip, with an absurd amount of anxiety and stress, and spent, quite frankly, an eye-watering amount of money for a single football match. So I tell myself to try not to think of the money. Heavens, don't do that. And certainly don't pause to think of what this does to your carbon footprint, which must be growing ominously like a boot's shadow over a hapless bug. No. Because as much as your rational self knows this trip is lunacy, your heart tells you that it is essential. On Wembley Way, English football's very own yellow brick road but miles from my own land of Australia, there was vindication for my madness. Instead of thinking about why you shouldn't be there, you remember the photo from the game before that sparked this insanity. You think of the crowd of men and women in the process of leaping to their feet as one, roaring in ecstasy like some primal, human explosion. You think of the two men in mid-scream at the heart of that photo — your brothers. You think of the man top left — one of your oldest friends, mouth open, leaning forward as he gets to his feet amidst the surge of emotion of those around him. You think of your niece, representing her school team in one of the curtain-raiser matches on such hallowed turf. You think of the focus of their joy, their club — my club — inexplicably making yet another comeback to surge into a Wembley final. The club that a little over a year ago should probably have been wound up by the courts, 118 years of history extinguished by a judge very reasonably acting in the interests of any number of creditors who deserved their dues. And Southend fans had reason to fear because, as any Bury fan will tell you, history means nothing when the creditors come calling and the apathetic authorities stand aside. That was your club that was being run into the ground. Your club has not only been a driver of your formative years, it has nurtured and nourished generations of supporters since 1906. Your family. Your friends. Your city. Your club. Rationality is a meaningless irrelevance in the midst of such powerful emotional blackmail. Let's rewind a bit because none of the above has a hope of making sense without some much-needed context. Much like many young kids in England, I was afflicted by the national obsession that is association football. Juvenile flirtations with the mega clubs of the 90s Premier League eventually gave way to the novelty of going to see my local team live, just down the road from my high school, as a teenager. The mockery directed towards my match-going friends for supporting a downtrodden club was replaced by an admiration for the depth of their faith and the lengths to which they would go to follow this ragtag group through the lower leagues of English football. Roots Hall, Southend United's dilapidated home, became a weekly focus, its floodlights resembling a quartet of iron sentinels standing guard over the flimsy dreams and misguided ambitions of so many Saturday afternoons and Tuesday nights. So many hours spent uncomfortably in the cold under its semicircular iron roof, staring at the verdant patch of grass that even to a child looked smaller than what I expected from TV. So many trips around the country to stadiums big and small, from Carlisle to Swansea, and just about every town in between, with my oldest friends Alex and Paul. Despite happily living on the other side of the world, the absence of those connections carved out during the shared experiences of youth is a lasting sore on any expat. And so many of those experiences, for me at least, were cemented through adventures with this football club. And yet this football club's very existence has been under threat. This side that flirted with the upper tiers of what is now known as the Championship in the early 90s, a team that held the then-European Champions Liverpool to a 0-0 draw in the FA Cup in 1979, a team that, on its last foray up the league pyramid beat Manchester United in the League Cup in 2006. From those heights, the club has plummeted. Successive relegations and several winding-up orders put the club out of the football league and into the fifth tier. A laboured and protracted sale of the club had the National League enforce an unprecedented 1 million pound (more than $2 million) bond on the club to even play in the league this past season, as it enforced yet another transfer embargo on the club pending its eventual, belated sale to a consortium led by Australian Justin Rees. Oh, ye of little faith. As Southend manager Kevin Maher wrote in his match program notes for this final: "12 months ago and we didn't know if we'd even have a football club. You got that right. Despite that troubled start to the season, Southend repeatedly took thousands of fans home and away across the country, from Gateshead to Nailsworth, Boston to Yeovil. And then, claiming the last play-off spot in the final game of the season, proceeded to come from behind to beat both Rochdale (4-3 after extra-time) and Forest Green Rovers (2-2, 4-2 on penalties) away from home. Two teams had their stories played out in north London on Sunday and Oldham's is no less befitting a mammoth journey. The Latics have had their moments of pain and anguish over the three decades since they were one of the foundation teams of the Premier League. In its owner, Frank Rothwell — a man so delightfully northern that even his blood cells probably have their own flat caps — Oldham has a genuine fan who has the exceptional distinction of raising millions of pounds for charity and is committed to using his fortune to raise his town up. "The only thing I want to do with the rest of my days is help to make Oldham a better place for everybody, and that doesn't just mean taking our football club back into the League," Rothwell told the Mirror, heralding Oldham Athletic as a vehicle to help integrate the 30 per cent Asian population of the town. "We are breaking down barriers in our town. Oldham Athletic is going to be a force for unity." A local man done good, Rothwell is spending most of his later years completing increasingly arduous challenges to raise money for charity — he twice solo rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in his 70s and has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro — as well as saving the Latics. "Getting Oldham Athletic back on its feet has been the hardest [challenge I've done] by far," he told the Mirror. "The place was feeling a bit sorry for itself and its very existence was on the line. "We were so close to extinction the coroner was on stand-by." A first promotion in 35 years, arresting the inexorable slide from the top table to the basement, would be the crowning glory. Sunday morning. Thin sunlight shining its unforgiving rays on a largely deserted, dilapidated high street in Southend. It's seen better days, as has much of high street UK in the era of out-of-town retail centres and internet shopping. Would the smattering of people currently ambling along it be dreaming that, come 5pm, this day would rate as one of the football club's best? Those people in Southend United's blue shirts cast knowing glances at each other, wry smiles filled with optimism, hope, fear, excitement, and every possible emotion, as over 30,000 make the pilgrimage to Wembley. Thousands on trains. Thousands on buses. Wembley, when we get there, is a sea of blue — either the navy hue of Southend or Oldham's cobalt. A record crowd, 52,115 (this is England's fifth tier remember) all singing and dancing and roaring their charges onwards. Southend fans unveil a tifo as revealing as anything the club has been through over the last few years as the players run out amidst the pageantry and pyrotechnics at England's footballing cathedral — "NEVER GIVE UP" written large below the silhouette of a young fan who helped tidy Roots Hall during the club's darkest moments. Tell yourself it's not about the result as tears prick at the corner of your eyes at this reminder of the club's defiance. Sure, keep telling yourself that, a desperate attempt at self-preservation over this foolhardy venture. Keep telling yourself that when Southend takes the lead inside the opening 10 minutes and the southern half of Wembley erupts, strangers hugging each other across the aisles. Keep telling yourself that when Oldham equalises from the penalty spot just after half-time. Keep telling yourself that as the teams play out nine excruciating minutes of injury time before the torture begins anew with 30 minutes of extra-time, in which Southend retake the lead almost immediately after kicking off. And keep telling yourself that after Oldham score twice within a minute to ruin your dreams and crush your spirit. The thing is, I think I probably believe it. This will be more difficult to grasp for those who don't believe, but the result is only a small part of the journey — while success is welcomed with open arms, few embark upon a lifetime of supporting their local lower league club with expectations of glory. And the journey for these Southend United fans was about so much more than victory in a one-off game. This is about the journey this community has been on over so many years, where hope and belief have been so painfully hard to come by. A community that has been dumped on and come within a hair's-breadth of extinction, saved only by a moment of benevolence and having the chance to experience this moment of togetherness, and so many others, saved. Even the act of coming together for this moment by the communities of Southend and Oldham was polluted and threatened by the organisational incompetence of the National League, Wembley Stadium, Transport for London and Brent Council. With planned engineering works at Wembley Park station, authorities had capped the attendance at Wembley at 35,000, a figure circumvented by the hiring of convoy coaches by the clubs and constant lobbying from club staff and politicians from both Essex and Lancashire. The 52,115 that were in the ground made this the highest attendance ever for a National League play-off final. No matter what obstacles were put ahead of these clubs and their supporters, they were still there. We were all still there. More than 50,000 of us from two clubs on the brink a matter of years ago. "What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it," former England manager Sir Bobby Robson said of his beloved Newcastle United. "It's the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. "It's a small boy clambering up the stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father's hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him, and without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love." That's what made this trip worth it.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Southend United fans' heartache after Oldham Athletic defeat
Southend United fans were devastated after their dream of returning to the English Football League ended in heartbreaking goals in quick succession by Oldham Athletic sunk the Blues in front of a record-breaking National League crowd of more than 52,000 at Wembley Shrimpers supporters insisted there was cause for optimism after a turbulent few years, where financial issues almost saw their side go Glenn Pennyfather said he was proud of how close the Essex side came, but admitted: "Football's such a cruel game at times." Southend led twice before James Norwood's extra time leveller was followed by a Kian Harratt cross drifting beyond everyone and into the net at the far post. 'Painful' Chris Phillips, who has reported on Southend United for the Echo newspaper since 2003, said it was "hard to put into words" how he felt."You can say painful, heartbreaking, all of those descriptions, but it doesn't even come close to how I feel right now," Phillips said."This is probably up there with the worst I've ever felt as a Southend fan." The showpiece match, which saw Oldham promoted to League 2, attracted 52,115 fans - beating the 47,029 people who watched the 2015 came despite a row over ticket allocations when organisers limited the attendance due to safety concerns, before later granting more fans had been desperate to watch from inside Wembley after a bleak spell that led to players and staff going unpaid and HMRC winding-up insisted there was cause for optimism despite the turnaround in extra time being a "bitter pill to swallow". "Around 30,000 Southend fans go home disappointed, but I imagine immensely proud too," he said."The football club has picked itself off the canvas after such adversity and this all bodes well for the future." Owen Leworthy, 29, said Southend had "exceeded expectations" all season, after narrowly making the play-offs by finishing seventh."It's sad to fall at the final hurdle, but it's nice to see a good bit of progress from our football team," he Bligh, 29, added: "It's tragic. I'm absolutely gutted... But we should always hold our heads high. We will be back."It was a feeling echoed by 40-year-old David Bonnett, who said: "Next year we'll come back, we'll be stronger, we'll be up there and I think we'll be promoted. "We're all gutted today but who knows what could happen next?" Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
How far Carlisle United will travel in National League next season
United's team coach will have to do nearly 2,000 more miles than last season (Image: Barbara Abbott) Carlisle United's travelling commitments in the National League will increase by nearly 2,000 miles on last season. The Blues face a total round trip of 10,629 miles to fulfil their 23 away games in 2025/26 – their most for eight years. Advertisement The relegated Cumbrians' commitments on the road for 2025/26 were confirmed after Sunday's National League play-off final. And Southend United's defeat at the hands of Oldham Athletic added another long trip to a calendar which sees a host of other big journeys for the Cumbrians. Their overall travelling will rise considerably from 2024/25 in League Two, when their 23 away games entailed 8,699 miles. An increase of 1,923 miles in next season's fifth tier involves a number of away games in the far south of the country against clubs such as Truro City, Yeovil Town, Eastleigh, Sutton United, Southend, Aldershot Town, Woking, Braintree Town and Wealdstone. Advertisement Southend United's Roots Hall will be one of a number of far-off destinations for Carlisle in 2025/26 (Image: PA) Against that, the Blues will also have their shortest league trip for many years, to Gateshead, along with other northern opponents such as Morecambe, Hartlepool United, York City, Rochdale and Altrincham. Overall, their 10,629-mile round trip will be their longest since 2017/18, which saw 10,791 miles on the road in League Two. National League new boys Truro will be comfortably the furthest-flung of Carlisle's opponents, with the Cornwall club a massive 439.1 miles away from Brunton Park – a round trip of 878.2 miles for United's first ever trip to face the Tinners. Advertisement Second longest will be Yeovil Town, with a 337.3-mile journey and a 674.6-mile round trip to Huish Park. Some nine of United's away games come in at more than 300 miles and hence a round trip of more than 600 miles each. First ever league trips to Eastleigh, Braintree and Wealdstone are in that group. At the lighter end of things travelling-wise, Carlisle have three away games shorter than 100 miles. Gateshead's International Stadium will be the closest away ground for United next term (Image: Barbara Abbott) The trip to Gateshead is the shortest at 59.7 miles and a round trip of 119.4 miles. Advertisement Second shortest is fellow relegated club Morecambe at 69.9 miles (139.8-mile round trip) with Hartlepool the third shortest at 89.7 miles (179.4-mile round trip). Games at Rochdale, York City, Altrincham, FC Halifax Town, Scunthorpe United and Tamworth also come in under the 200-mile mark. The full rundown of United's opponents and how far they are from Brunton Park is as follows (figures from AA Routeplanner): TRURO CITY – 439.1 miles YEOVIL TOWN – 337.3 miles EASTLEIGH – 331.3 miles SUTTON UNITED – 330.5 miles SOUTHEND UNITED – 329.5 miles ALDERSHOT TOWN – 327.7 miles WOKING – 317.2 miles BRAINTREE TOWN – 303.9 miles WEALDSTONE – 302.3 miles BOREHAM WOOD – 293.6 miles FOREST GREEN ROVERS – 257 miles BRACKLEY TOWN – 248.8 miles BOSTON UNITED – 212.7 miles SOLIHULL MOORS – 206.2 miles TAMWORTH – 194.4 miles SCUNTHORPE UNITED – 160.5 miles FC HALIFAX TOWN – 140.9 miles ALTRINCHAM – 128.4 miles YORK CITY – 118.7 miles ROCHDALE – 115.1 miles HARTLEPOOL UNITED – 89.7 miles MORECAMBE – 69.9 miles GATESHEAD – 59.7 miles TOTAL MILES – 5,314.4 miles TOTAL ROUND TRIP – 10,628.8 miles
