Southend, Colchester up

Roots Hall, Southend

We knew that next season would see trips to Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion and Sunderland, but we can now add Roots Hall, Southend and Layer Road, Colchester to that list following the Essex clubs' promotions.

Southend were promoted to the Championship last weekend thanks to a 2-2 draw at Swansea. That result guaranteed the Shrimpers of a place in the top two, but today’s 1-0 win over Bristol City clinched the League One championship also, a fitting way for veteran striker Shaun Goater to sign off from English football following his decision to retire.

Huish Park, Yeovil saw Colchester grab the final automatic promotion place with a goalless draw. Brentford would have claimed second spot had they beaten Bournemouth, but a 2-2 draw on the south coast meant Colchester United will be playing in the second tier of English football for the first time in their history.

It means long trips for the travelling Clarets, with some 240 miles between Burnley and Colchester, and you can add another 25 miles on top of that for the trip to Southend. It may be  first visits for some Clarets though as it’s been a few years since we played either club.

The last time we saw Southend was in the 1997/98 season, otherwise known as ‘the Waddle season’, and we met them at Roots Hall in the third league game of the season. We went down 1-0, continuing our run of failing to score so far in that season, and it would be another four games until Paul Barnes’ goal at York saw us get our first goal of the season in the seventh game.

We did however reverse that result later on in the season. Barnes’ replacement and local hero Andy Payton seeing off the Shrimpers as we briefly threatened a recovery before saving ourselves on the last day with a 2-1 win over Plymouth Argyle.

As for Colchester, the last time we came up against them was in the 1999/2000 promotion season. We won 2-1 at Layer Road, but the game will be remembered more for the wrong reasons with Ian Wright receiving awful abuse from the home fans in what was his second appearance for the Clarets.

Wright considered retirement altogether after that game according to a certain Stan Ternent, but Wright made the correct decision to continue playing and more than helped the Clarets to gain promotion that season.

It’s not to be the short trips to Oldham and Huddersfield that many of us would have hoped for, but it will be grounds that many of us can tick off our lists. Now we wait to see where else next years fixtures will take us as Brentford, Huddersfield, Barnsley and Swansea battle it out in the play-offs. Let's hope for a more local game!

Up the Clarets. 

Many thanks as always to Tim Rigby for the images.