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The U’sual Ramblings #31, and first off Happy Easter to one and all, and I hope the Easter Bunny rewards you with way too much chocolate this Bank Holiday weekend and the U’s with a long overdue three points tomorrow. Travelling over to promotion-chasing Stevenage on Good Friday, there was no time for a pre-match blog, so this will have to cover both games over the Easter weekend. More on the Good Friday game later but suffice to say I doubt many realistically expected much from the trip to Broadhall Way, so the well-deserved point was a welcome bonus. Pity about results around us, but we can’t do anything about that, just play the teams in front of us.
BTW, watch out for the typo Ether Bunny
The world outside U’s World In an announcement which may be a surprise to some, and absolutely no surprise to others, when asked via a Freedom of Information request the Home Office has confirmed it has no evidence to back up the 2021 claim by former home secretary Priti Patel, and re-asserted by current home secretary Suella Braverman, that “70% of individuals on small boats are single men who are effectively economic migrants”. Campaigners opposed to the Stop the Boats bill point to this rhetoric as nothing more than a blatant attempt to further demonise and dehumanise immigrants. As there is no evidence to substantiate the claim, they have a point.
The SNP disarray continues north of the wall, following the resignation of first minister Nicola Sturgeon. Humza Yousaf won the vacant leadership seat by a narrow margin, very much on a ‘continuity’ ticket, and endorsed by Sturgeon herself. Probably an ill-advised move with hindsight, now that Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell is under intense investigation related to party finance allegations (sounds a bit Trumpian?). Police have searched the residence of the erstwhile “power couple”, including it appeared digging up the garden, and the party HQ in Edinburgh. Opponents of the SNP are struggling to disguise their glee, with Douglas Ross (leader of the Scottish Conservatives) suggesting supporters should vote Labour at the next election to oust the SNP once and for all. Needless to say, that messaging hasn’t resonated well with his Westminster apparatchiks.
In a move more reminiscent of the Jim Crow laws, two young black Tennessee Democrats, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, have been expelled from the Tennessee Republican-dominated House of Representatives. They were charged with a breach of decorum over their role in a peaceful (albeit boisterous) protest in the House to draw attention to the issue of gun control following the murder of six people, including three children, in the recent Nashville school shooting. A third member of the protest, representative Gloria Johnson, was spared expulsion. Ms Johnson, needless to say, is white, further emphasising the ominous racial overtones behind this expulsion. The County Commissions in the districts will now choose temporary replacements ahead of special elections, and they can if they wish choose the two expelled representatives. Even if they don’t, Jones and Pearson are eligible to stand (and almost certainly will do) for the special elections, likely winning by landslides. As an interesting twist, which may ultimately backfire on the Republican majority, the Tennessee Constitution stipulates that lawmakers cannot be expelled for the same offense twice.
As mentioned on the board, streaming service DAZN looks to have missed out on winning the streaming rights for every single EFL match for the 2024/25 season onwards. The EFL confirmed last week that although DAZN had submitted a bid, Sky Sports were the “preferred bidder”, and have now entered a month-long negotiation period with the EFL. The current £119m per year Sky Sports deal results in the broadcast of two Championship games per weekend, 20 League One matches per season and just ten League Two games per season.
However, the vice-like grip Sky Sports currently holds over televised football in the UK is still under pressure. This week it has been announced that the Premier League are actively considering ditching partners Sky Sports (and BT Sport) and going it alone broadcasting their own games on their own platforms. The Mirror think there’ll likely be one more season of the multichannel deal before the Premier League ditch them. It would be great to see some of the influence of Sky Sports removed from the game, but I’m not so certain handing direct control, described by The Mirror as a “license to print money”, to the Premier League is necessarily an improvement?
U’s World So Good Friday was a rare, long overdue and enjoyable awayday for yours truly, and it was great to meet up with both old friends (including briefly Noah) and new in the process. The latter included the Connor Hall friends and family entourage at the Old Post Office both before and after the game, who’d travelled down from St Neots to cheer on Connor. Perfect then that they got to see him score a rare goal for the U’s.
As for the game, although the U’s took the lead with Connor’s slightly mis-hit hook on 18 minutes, that only just bobbled past Stevenage goalkeeper Lo-Tutala, at that point it was very much against the run of play — not that the 624 U’s faithful, noisy from start to finish, were complaining. From then on until half-time, we grew into and started to control the game, but without really testing the impressive Lo-Tutala that much.
Unfortunately, all that was undone virtually straight after kick-off for the second half, with (of course) former U’s Alex Gilbey, whose shot from a tight angle somehow evading O’Hara and squeezing into the net. The U’s still pressed though and should have gone back in front from a Chambers header, only to be denied by a fine save from Lo-Tutala.
Chuck Norris appeared on the hour mark, accompanied by a few catcalls from the away end, but it proved to be a cameo role, going off again injured in the 82nd minute (reports suggesting that’s his season done), and the U’s remained comfortable holding on to a fourth draw on the bounce for Ben Garner — surely one day we’ll turn one of these into a win?
In other news, Noah Chilver’s fantastic solo effort to rescue a point at league leaders Leyton Orient has been nominated for the EFL League Two goal of the month competition for March. Voting closes at 5pm tomorrow, so crack on and register your vote if you haven’t done so already.
Stat attack Since our formation, and including most recently at Stevenage, we’ve played 117 matches over the various Easter weekends, winning 39, drawing 32 and losing 46. Although hardly impressive stats, the picture is much better at home, playing 59, winning 29, drawing 15 and losing 15, and we haven’t lost at home on an Easter weekend since 2014.
Not surprisingly, given Easter weekend fixtures are usually against relatively nearby teams, our most frequent opponent is Peterborough United, with nine games, followed by Guildford City (from back in our non-league days) on eight games, with Southend and Walsall equal third with six games each. Guildford is an interesting stat, as for four seasons (1938/39 and consecutively 1947/8 through to 1949/50) we played both Easter weekend fixtures home and away against the Sweeney.
No, not them, as in Sweeney Todd, demon barber, red and white stripes, barbers pole etc.
On Good Friday Stevenage became a new name on the list, with their first appearance, and tomorrow will be Crewe’s second game against the U’s over an Easter weekend. Our previous game against the Railwaymen was a dour Easter Monday 0-0 at Gresty Road under Joe Dunne back in 2014.
In that time, for high notes there have been two 4-1 victories, both at home, for Cyril Lea’s U’s in 1985 against ‘Hollywood Dragons’ Wrexham, and Kevin Keen in 2016 against Doncaster Rovers. There have also been six separate 3-0 victories, two against Posh in 1971 and 2005 (the latter at London Road under Parky), but probably the most emphatic of our 3-0 wins was at Roots Hall in our first Championship season, but more of that later. There’ve been some shockers too, none worse than the U’s 6-0 demolition at Bristol Rovers under Jimmy Allen on Easter Monday in 1952. Arguably worse though was Parky’s 5-0 defeat against Luton Town at Layer Road in 2003, with Cyril Lea’s 5-1 loss at Aldershot in 1984 a close second.
Easter weekends are usually accompanied by better than usual attendances, the largest at Vicarage Road in 1964, when Neil Franklin’s U’s lost 3-1 in front of 18,393. Mid you, our second largest attendance was also at Vicarage Road in 1979, when remarkably Bobby Roberts’ U’s won 3-0 in front of 17,903 (mostly) pee’d off locals. Interestingly, though not one of our Easter weekend fixtures, the 9,443 that jammed into St Joseph’s Road for our end of season 1938 visit to Guildford City remains their record league attendance.
At home there’ve been a handful of five-figure attendances, predominantly in the football heydays of the 40s and 50s, with our best Easter home attendance of 12,770 in 1957 when Benny Fenton’s U’s beat Walsall 2-1 at Layer Road. In the modern era, since our return from the Conference, the largest Easter crowd was 7,393 at the JobServe against Millwall in 2010, a game we lost 2-1. Perhaps a more pleasant memory would be when 5,916 turned up to watch George Williams’ U’s beat mighty Leeds United 2-1 at Layer Road?
Match of the Day Southend United v Colchester United 6th April 2007 Coca-Cola Championship (Tier 2) Attendance 10,552
Keeping with the Easter theme, Match of the Day for this blog combines both Easter fixtures for the U’s and matches from my memorabilia archive, as we go back to that Good Friday game at Roots Hall in our first season in the Championship. I don’t have a programme for this one, just one of my usual calendar entries, so once again I am indebted to the ColuData website for the programme cover.
This game was a 12.30 kick-off — given the local derby spicy edge it had been chosen by Sky for a live broadcast. As I didn’t have Sky (still don’t), that meant an early drive over from Wiltshire, which kind of helped as I had to be back late afternoon to pick up Lauren and Sam. I think it was all-ticket too, or at least I know I had to meet up with my brother-in-law and various other members of the family before kick-off to pick up my ticket — though possibly that was just to ensure we all had tickets together, can’t remember?
After a shaky patch from mid-February into March, the U’s had recovered their form with back-to-back victories at Southampton and at home over Norwich City to go up to tenth place and genuinely in with a chance of the play-offs. It wasn’t going as well for Southend United, promoted as champions from League 1 the previous season, and looking like they were going to be relegated straight back again this season. However, even with their current form, the early kick-off and Sky broadcast, there was still over 10,000 jammed into Roots Hall, helped no end by a near sell-out for the U’s faithful.
Geraint William’s U’s lined up that afternoon:
13..Dean Gerken 7….Karl Duguid 12..Pat Baldwin 5….Wayne Brown 18..Chris Barker 14..Richard Garcia (3. John White 88’) 6….Kevin Watson 10..Kem Izzet 4….Johnnie Jackson 8….Jamie Cureton (24. Hogan Ephraim 83’) 11..Chris Iwelumo (15. Jamie Guy 72’)
Many eyes were on the rematch between Shrimpers skipper Chris Maher and our very own master of shithousery Karl Duguid, after Doogie’s antics had played a major part in Maher’s red card at Layer Road during our 3-0 victory back in November. Despite branding Doogie a ‘cheat’ and a ‘disgrace’ at the time, Maher insisted pre-match the Roots Hall game was going to be all about securing a much-needed win for Southend. Pity then that Jamie Cureton hadn’t read that particular script, because virtually straight from kick-off the U’s were 1-0 up!
Latching onto a poor headed clearance from Blues defender (and former U’s) Efe Sodje of the Sodje Footballing Dynasty, Jamie in an instant volleyed perfectly past Darryl Flahavan to send the away end ballistic — there were only 38 seconds on the clock. Almost in an instant, the two-way pre-match banter between U’s and Blues became very much one-way traffic, and they just had to stand there and take it — “What’s that coming over the hill, it’s relegation, RELEGATION!”.
To say that knocked the stuffing out of a beleaguered Southend United low on confidence anyway was an understatement, and on a beautifully sunny day the U’s spent most of the remainder of the first half probing and harrying Southend United, giving them no time on the ball, and not even a sniff of a serious goal opportunity. It wasn’t a matter of if but when would we get a second, such was the dominance of the U’s in our South Essex cousin’s own back yard.
The fact that we had to wait until after the hour mark is in some way testimony to how determinedly the Blues where hanging on for dear life, but eventually it had to come, and who other than Jamie Cureton for his second. And what a peach it was too! Picking up a pass in the middle of the pitch, Jamie ran on, steadied himself, and drilled a 25-yard rocket that had Flahavan beat all ends-up, right into the goal in front of the delirious U’s support — we were in heaven!
On 72 minutes Chris Iwelumo, who had run his socks off all game, was replaced by Jamie Guy, but just when we might have been mistaken into thinking that was the end of our goals that afternoon, up popped Jamie with his third. With eleven minutes to go, a perfectly weighted through-ball from the sublime Chris Barker beat the offside trap, and Jamie made no mistake nicking the ball past the onrushing Flahavan, and to a deafening roar from the away end.
And that was that.
Southend had been humiliated at home with the Sky cameras watching on. Cureton was subbed a few minutes later to a tumultuous ovation from the U’s faithful (and, to be fair, a half-decent round of applause from some of the Southend supporters who hadn’t already headed for the exit). There was no way back, with the U’s making it a double 3-0 double over Southend a few minutes later.
Southend United 0 Colchester United 3 (Jamie Cureton 1’, 63’, 79’)
This was Jamie’s second hat-trick of the season, after one against Derby County. In taking home the Southend match ball he became the first U’s player to net 20 goals in a season since Tony Adcock back in 1985. The U’s moved up to 9th place, Southend slipped down to second from bottom, and would end up relegated out of the Championship a month later. A Southend supporter on their Shrimperzone forum post-match described it quite succinctly — “It was the football equivalent of being lead out to the centre circle in front of all watching, having your shorts pulled down and your arse thrashed”.
It’s worth also remembering that a group of U’s (and a few Blues) fans, organised by well-known U’s diehard Lea Finch (left in the photo), took the opportunity to do a sponsored cycle ride from Colchester to Southend for the match, in memory of Emily Begg. Emily was a U’s fan who sadly died aged just 14 of leukaemia the previous November, and the ride was part of a concerted series of fund-raising initiatives by players, staff and supporters (including Koopa) which raised well in excess of £10,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Heroes!
I can’t find an official highlights reel on YouTube, but there are several clips of video taken from the away end out there. Although it looks like it was filmed on a potato, this one catches Jamie’s third goal.
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