Burnley v Southend United

Tuesday night sees the Clarets welcome Southend United to the Turf for the first time since 1998. It’s been a good couple of seasons for the Shrimpers following two successive promotions, which have seen them climb back to the second tier of English football after an absence of 9 years.

It certainly is a roller coaster of emotions being a Southend United fan. They finished bottom of this division in 1997 under Ronnie Whelan, and then disastrously followed that up with a successive relegation the next season under Alvin Martin.

In November 2003 they appointed Steve Tilson as caretaker-manager following the sacking of Steve Wignall. Tilson went on to engineer a meteoric rise for the Essex club. This began with staving off relegation that season after they looked at one point to be in danger of the disastrous drop to the Football Conference.

The same season, he led Southend to the LDV Vans Final, although unfortunately they lost 2-0 to a team of donkey lashers from the Fylde coast. More was to come though, the next season, the 2004/05 season, Southend reached the League Two play-off final after finishing in 4^th position. Southend beat Lincoln 2-0 (AET) to gain promotion to League One, and reached the LDV Vans final again, but again lost, this time 2-0 to Wrexham after extra time.

Their stay in League One was brief, all of one season in fact, as the Shrimpers won promotion following a 2-2 draw at Swansea in the penultimate game. The final day of the season saw the League One championship clinched following a 1-0 win over Bristol City at Roots Hall. It also saw the end of Shaun Goater’s career following his decision to retire, a relief for all Burnley fans who have witnessed Goater score countless goals over the Clarets throughout a very good career.

This season they are finding the going in the Championship difficult, they haven’t won in seven, including three defeats on the bounce and they find themselves second bottom going into the game at Turf Moor.

The last time Southend came to Turf Moor, Chris Waddle’s Burnley were rooted to the foot of what is now League One, but an Andy Payton winner on his debut grabbed a valuable three points in a season that climaxed with the final day heroics against Plymouth Argyle.  Waddle prepared his men for this particular game by announcing quite simply, “We have got to win this one."

Then of course there was the New Year’s Eve massacre of Southend in 1994, which a lot of supporters will remember as it was the game in which Southend wore the cursed green and black halved Burnley kit. We couldn’t win in it, and Southend, having left their away kit in Essex, were forced to wear the infamous Mitre kit. They were hammered 5-1 at the Turf, it brought them about as much luck as it did us.

Back to the present day, and the Clarets have a clean bill of health apart from Danny Coyne who continues his recovery, and Wayne Thomas is in the third game of his four match suspension following his dismissal against Southampton.

Southend’s former Machester City striker Lee Bradbury is still struggling after suffering a setback in his recovery from a thigh and hip injury. Gary Hooper, Matt Harrold and Billy Paynter will battle to partner goal-machine Freddie Eastwood in attack. Coventry City boss Micky Adams admitted he tried to sign Eastwood recently, but revealed that the Sky Blues could not match Southend’s asking price.

It is a game we really should win, particularly if we are to have serious aspirations of reaching the play-offs. We have been here before though, expecting to win as we did against Colchester and a disappointing afternoon saw our hopes dashed. Let’s hope that we have learnt from that mistake, we are in good form, and a win against Southend and a result at Plymouth would set us up perfectly for a simply massive game against Preston a week on Friday.

One game at a time though lads.

Come on you Clarets!