Southend boss shares hopes for future with club on brink of possible collapse
On football's Death Row, Southend United are back in the High Court on Wednesday, and Judge Sebastian Prentis has warned the Shrimpers are in the last chance saloon.
If under-fire chairman Ron Martin hasn't settled a £275,000 tax bill, the club will be wound up - and 117 years of history will become an end-of-the-pier show. A club once managed by England greats Bobby Moore and Sol Campbell will be consigned to the past tense.
Amid the soul-destroying gloom, there are shafts of hope. Martin hopes to conclude the sale of Southend to a consortium headed by Aussie businessman, Justin Rees, this weekend, but the fans ran out of patience with his brinkmanship long ago.
Earlier this month, at the home win against Maidenhead, they held up play for four minutes by hurling plastic RATS on the pitch in protest at the soap opera. In a country where nobodies get a seat in the House of Lords and dressed in ermine, now we've got a football club owner being dubbed 'Ron the Rat' and lampooned as vermin.
And last weekend, hundreds of fans marched from Pier Hill to Roots Hall demanding Martin's abdication with the effigy of a clown mounted on a makeshift hearse.
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Against this backdrop of mutiny and discord, Southend manager Kevin Maher has heroically built a competitive team who would be on the verge of the National League play-offs, not marooned in the bottom four, without a 10-point deduction for breaking financial rules.
Maher is determined to keep spirits up at Southend (David Greaves/Focus Images Ltd)Seventeen years ago, Maher was the Shrimpers captain as they dumped holders Manchester United – with Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney playing 90 minutes - out of the League Cup. Freddy Eastwood's soaring free-kick and the seaside giddiness of a famous upset are light years from the club's current high-wire plight for a proud son of Essex who made more than 450 appearances as a player for Southend. Here's hoping that the tale of Shrimpers and a High Court judge's prawn ultimatum has a happy ending.
“I lived through the highs of knocking out United and two promotions in a row,” said Maher. “This is very different, but I don't allow myself to think that the club might not exist this time next week. I've not let myself go there and I'm hopeful of some positive news in the next couple of days.
Maher captained Southend to a 1-0 win over Manchester United in 2006 (PA)“It's been a difficult time for the fans, and the uncertainty has been unsettling for them, but I've tried to focus on giving them a team worth watching. My wife and three boys come to every home game in their Southend shirts so they know what goes on, and I don't have to pull the wool over their eyes when I come home from work.
"Football is an emotional game, it's been an interesting time to say the least, and you can't allow yourself to be distracted too much by the outside noise.
“But I believe in this club, I believe something positive is around the corner and I believe we will emerge from this predicament. That's what keeps me going every day.”
Somehow Maher, 46, has motivated the Shrimpers – who play Oxford City, also once managed by 1966 World Cup hero Moore, the night before their High Court date with destiny – to defy the odds despite multiple handicaps.
Already under a transfer embargo, Southend were hit by the water mains being turned off at their Boots & Laces training ground in July over, you guessed it, an unpaid bill.
He said: “On a daily basis we have faced different challenges and the problems have kept cropping up, whether it was a period with no water or a year without GPS technology, which a lot of clubs take for granted now. And on the pitch the National League is relentless - the intensity is high and we are demanding a lot of the lads when we've only got a core squad of 16 players.
"I want people to look at the quality of our football and the connection between the team and our supporters has been incredible. If we come out the other side of this situation, those fans deserve the brighter times ahead.”
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