A match for Steve Tilson as Southend head to City

Lincoln City face Southend United in one of the more unusual games of the season. The game will have a lot of subplots including Steve Tilson was Southend's Chairman, Scott Spencer vs Paul Sturrock and Southend getting their first chance to thank Steve Tilson for his time in charge, and a large following from Essex is expected.

This introduction is going to be more personal than usual. I'm going to talk about why I grew to hate Southend a few years back before the eventual move into ambivalence, however, before I start, I would like to thank Southend, or at least someone at Southend, for claiming copyright against the matchday video I did at their game earlier in the season. I did not break any copyright as I didn't record the game and their copyright claim caused me to lose nearly 200 videos of a nearly combined 300,000 views. For all those interested, I have re-started the channel here.

I'm not going to beat around the bush, May 28th 2005 was one of the worst days of my life. It was the day of the 2004/5 Playoff Final and Lincoln's opponents were a Southend side managed by Steve Tilson, a Southend side that were enjoying their first decent season in quite a while and if there's one thing I really dislike, it's teams who win promotion on the back of their one good season in the division, Bristol Rovers, Notts County and Hull City being the three best examples I can think of from the recent past.

Anyway, I had already been awake for around 30 hours by the time they opened the gates to allow supporters in at Cardiff, unable to get sleep due to the nerves. 90 minutes later and it was goalless, City had created the better chances, but much like the two games in the league between the sides, City's general control of the match didn't result in the win as Southend scored twice in extra time. I had thought City had been the better team at the time and recently I got to watch the match for the first time since that day in Cardiff, and I still feel the same, however, I am now far less better about it.

I was 20 years old at the time and I'll be honest, I hated Southend for a long time, but with time came maturity and Southend became just another team, but whilst I had hated Southend for a long time, I had respected Steve Tilson. He was a manager who had turned Southend from, putting it bluntly, a nothing League Two side, into a side who almost managed to hold their own in the Championship. I was delighted when City appointed him as manager back in October, I feel he is a manager to take us forward.

To be honest it was a huge surprise that Southend sacked him after what he had done for that football club. When he took over they were heading for the non-League and he turned them into promotion winners in a season and a half. However, the relationship between Tilson and the Essex club has gone severely bitter, with an ultimatum being given by Tilson on Thursday afternoon to be given the money he is owned by Southend's chairman, however, Tilson still appears to have a special place in the heart of a lot of Southend fans and a strong following is expected to come to Sincil Bank on Satuday.

However, despite being a day for Southend to celebrate Tilson, this will be a game between two sides who need the points for different reasons. Southend need three points to keep up the chase for the Playoffs, whereas City are neither challenging for the Playoffs or battling relegation.....yet. Our recent form has been poor and we're not entirely safe from the drop, although realistically five more points should be enough.

I'm not in the mood to mess around, Julian Kelly is crap, very crap indeed. I have plenty of time for new signings but when you get a new player, who some laughably claim is good enough for the Championship, who can't even pass a ball to his own player who is stood five yards away, you're always going to struggle. Virtually all of the goals we concede come from his side of the pitch and he's about as much use as Drewe Broughton is as a striker. Ali Fuseini is much the same. How the hell either of these turned out to be professional footballers is anyone's guess.

Realistically, are we likely to see any changes to the starting eleven......no, probably not. Scott Spencer will be desperate to face his former side, especially his old friend Paul Sturrock, but he's probably not got a single chance of starting.

THE LIKELY CITY STARTING XI
	Kept a clean sheet in his last outing at Sincil Bank, probably helped by the fact Accrington couldn't hit a barn door. However Carson is starting to prove a bit prone to mistakes, then again, he's not even in the same class as Anyon, afterall, Anyon let John-Lewis score past him the other day.
	We have two wing-backs, Hunt is the only one who can defend properly. Did well at Burton on Tuesday and had it not been for the incompetence of Kelly, Hunt would have come out of the game with rave reviews.
	If Kelly wasn't about, Watts and Hone would actually look like reasonable defenders, but playing with an incompetent defender next to them puts them under so much pressure that their weaknesses are exposed more often than they would be if they had a decent right back.
	See Watts.
	Bollocks!
	The only midfielder to impress on Tuesday night and the only one to track back to try and help out the defence. His crossing wasn't as dangerous at Burton but he is generally given more space at Sincil Bank.
	Fuseini, we will be playing in red and white on Saturday afternoon, try passing the ball to a play in that colour shirt. If you get confused, look at what you're wearing and play a human version of snap.
	Another game, another "Was O'Keefe playing" atmosphere. How can a person who plays right in the middle of the park be so anonymous on such a regular basis?
	Three games, three very different performances, that's Carayol alright. The midfielder played brilliant at Oxford, was anonymous against Accrington and poor at Burton, oh the joys of lower league midfielder.
	Grimes continued his recent trend of doing precisely sod all for 99% of the match before coming up with a brilliant goal. It does make you wonder where we would actually be without him.
	Another game, another anonymous performance for Delroy. The striker didn't play overly bad against Burton but he didn't really do anything noteworthy and if Spencer does start, it will at Facey's expence.

Lincoln City have had four different managers since the last time the Imps and Southend faced each other. Keith Alexander, John Schofield, Peter Jackson and Chris Sutton has all left the club in the five years since the Playoff Final. Before the Playoff Final, you'd have to go back to March 2005 to find the last meeting between the clubs. It was a largely forgettable game at Roots Hall, with seemingly a disallowed Taylor-Fletcher goal being the only talking point, however the talking point was still to come. Ben Futcher scored in the 87th minute for the Imps, although Southend were angered as he appeared to foul a defender in the build up. However, the Imps could be annoyed about the equaliser as well, Freddy Eastwood went down very easily under a Lee Beevers challenge before hitting the leveller.

It was the second time that season Southend had gained a controversial penalty. Gary Taylor-Fletcher had scored the opening goal in August 2004 at Sincil Bank, but later on the first half Southend were given a penalty. Alan Marriott cleared the ball before Gray came into contact with his leg. Gray didn't even go down but the referee awarded a penalty, a penalty that Gray eventually put away.

2003/4 saw the clubs meet three times. City travelled to Roots Hall on September 16th and it was a game of firsts. Marcus Richardson scored his first ever goal for the Imps before Marriott saved a late penalty, from that penalty the ball went up the other end of the pitch and Richard Butcher scored a stunning goal to give City their first away win of the season. Three months later and Southend certainly got their revenge with a 3-0 win over City in the FA Cup 2nd Round.

The game at Sincil Bank was a game of two halves. The rapidly improving Southend came to Sincil Bank in their last game before the LDV Vans Final and took a 2-0 lead thanks to two Leon Constantine strikes, however, late goals from Francis Green and Simon Yeo drew City level.

The clubs would have met again in the 2005/6 FA Cup Second Round if the Imps had beaten MK Dons in a replay, but they didn't and that meant that the next meeting didn't come until earlier this season, Southend scoring early through Corr to win the game in the first match after Sutton left.

Only five players have played for both clubs during the last ten or so years. Current Imps Drewe Broughton and Scott Spencer have spent time at Roots Hall during Steve Tilson's spell in charge. Spencer's spell ended very bitterly. Martin Carruthers, Danny Webb and Lawrie Dudfield also spent time at both clubs in that period.

Southend returned to League Two after a five year absence during the summer. During that time they won League One, beat Manchester United in the Carling Cup and competed in the League One Playoffs before eventually coming back down in May last season.

To say Southend United had a difficult summer would be an understatement. They had severe financial troubles again, only just avoiding being wound up and their players were only officially registered a few days before the season. Many websites, including ourselves, felt they were doomed due to the financial issues, infact our prediction of 24th didn't go down to well in Essex, but I did say I would hold my hands up and say I was wrong if they did well, and they are doing reasonably well at the moment considering.

Southend sit in ninth position, five behind from the Playoffs but with two games in hand. Their away form is excellent, with six wins and four draws coming from 16 games on the road, they have secured the exactly same amount of points against from Roots Hall as City have won at Sincil Bank, 22.

Paul Sturrock has had success at this level with Plymouth Argyle and Swindon Town and although he hasn't started brilliantly at Southend United, I think he'll be reasonably pleased with the start given how things looked and that it's a brand new team.

In terms of the squad, they have a half decent team. Their team this season has consisted of the former long serving Orient keeper Glenn Morris, but Sturrock also recruited from his former clubs quite heavily. Blair Sturrock, Paul's son, is well travelled and Southend are his 8th club at the age of 29, Southend being the third club he's played for that were managed by his dad. Graham Coughlan played for Sturrock at Plymouth, whereas Craig Easton, Barry Corr, Sofiene Zaaboob and Michael Timlin were all at Swindon during Sturrock's time there.