Freebie Friday: On the brink of extinction, whose there to help Southend Utd?

Deadline approaches with no saviour in sight

Only a few weeks ago I was penning a column on Scunthorpe Utd who were facing an uncertain future under an owner who seemed ready to take a club to the wall without any remorse whatsoever.

Just under two weeks ago David Hilton completed a takeover of the Iron, installed Jimmy Dean as the new manager, cleared the debt, freed the transfer embargo and now they have life off the pitch at least with a battle to keep their National League status over the next 16 games.

During that piece I also mentioned Southend Utd facing problems with their own existence and sadly so far there is no fairy-tale to be enjoyed by the Shrimpers fans, they are a mere matter of days away from ceasing to exist, over 100 years of history and much of it as Football League side about to disappear.

Why, and how come has it gotten to this state of affairs? I’ll try and cover some of that in the next few lines and hopefully stand to be corrected if anything is slightly not right.

The Essex side are no stranger to the High Court and winding up orders, ten visits over the last eight years is alarm bells for anyone surely, but seemingly not the administrators of our beautiful game.

The circle goes club gets an order, gets to the court, bill is paid probably having robbed Peter to pay Paul, and it begins again. Football likes to consider itself a business and how it manages to avoid paying tax until they come knocking on the door, a slap on the wrist, and on it goes until the next time, almost consider it lucky.

Southend Utd fans protesting against chairman Ron Martin

But it’s not lucky for Southend Utd supporters, staff, players or suppliers who in less than 20 days by the time you read this could have no football club, no job and no income which in turn sends local businesses to the wall themselves.

As a football fan of all levels, it’s unthinkable to watch it happen yet again. We’ve seen more recently the likes of Bury and Macclesfield disappear from the footballing map and having to re-start at County League level, a blind eye turned because they’re not important in an industry awash with money but only benefitting the few.

I was a Maidstone Utd supporter when they went under in 1992, they saw out the season but never started the next and disappeared completely for a full year before re-emerging not at county league level but at the very, very bottom of the footballing ladder, am ex-Football League club consigned to playing on roped off park pitches albeit under the name of Maidstone Invicta.

I’ve been there, I know how it feels, the off season was full of maybe’s and broken promises, this however is in the middle of a season where the team are defying logic almost occupying a play-off place amidst the backdrop of what is happening off the pitch, massive credit to the work Kevin Maher, Darren Currie and Mark Bentley are doing, currently with no pay cheque arriving for two months at the time of writing.

In layman’s term, there are various amounts ranging from £1.4million to £2million just to clear the tax bill, how they have been allowed to get to that level is beyond me, they are insolvent against money coming in.

They owe staff, players and suppliers money too, Roots Hall is in a bad way whilst the promised new ground which is hailed as the answer to everything hasn’t seen a spade in the ground yet, concerns no doubt there is no financial package to help it proceed.

There are concerns the weekend FA Trophy tie may not go ahead after St John Ambulance withdrew safety first aid cover, unpaid and seemingly unbelieving they will get their money.

It’s not even as if they are a small club with very little support, almost 6,000 attended the last home game prior to this weekend, they have a proud history that in a couple of weeks’ time could well be reduced to ashes and be consigned to the archives forever.

Every case that comes along like this to me just strengthens the need and very quickly for independent governance of the game, it can’t control itself anymore and why should any club just disappear because the greed and imbalance of money everywhere isn’t shared properly.

A community loses it’s football club, it loses a heck of a lot more than that, as mentioned above a lot of those providing services to the football club are more than likely local to the town, unpaid bills in this current climate are enough to send a business into closure at worst and job losses at a minimum, it’s bigger than a lot of people imagine.

Earlier this week on the Premier Non-League Podcast (search the PNLP to listen to the episode) we were joined by Liam Ager from the All At Sea fanzine who outlined where things stand.

If they survive the 1^st March deadline then the first game after is at home to my team, Barnet, I hope they are there for that, it’s not going to help the game if another club disappears, but there must be tighter rules and regulations on owners, Manchester City are currently proving that even with all the money behind them they still find loopholes to exploit.

Will a saviour coming riding into the picture? Will the tax bill be paid off? Even if it is, does the pressure intensify on Ron Martin to get out of Southend Utd? We’re waiting , we’re watching and at times holding our breath, this needs to come out on the right side of things, it’s a long way back otherwise…………………