Southend United Football Club (SUFC) and #Martinout

According to Wikipedia: “Southend United Football Club is a semi-professional association football club based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England, and competing in the National League, the fifth tier of English football. Southend are known as “The Shrimpers”, a reference to the area’s maritime industry included as one of the quarters on the club badge. Founded on 19 May 1906 in the Blue Boar pub, Southend won the Southern League Second Division in both of their two initial seasons and were admitted into the Football League in 1920. They spent the next 44 years in the third tier of English football, before dropping into the Fourth Division in 1966. They spent the next 24 years moving between the third and fourth tiers, winning promotions in 1971–72, 1977–78, 1980–81 (as champions), 1986–87 and 1989–90. They were promoted into the Second Division for the first time at the end of the 1990–91 season. After six seasons in the second tier they suffered a double relegation in 1997 and 1998. Under manager Steve Tilson, Southend again secured a double promotion in 2004–05 and 2005–06 to win a place in the Championship as League One champions. However, they only lasted one season in the third tier and were relegated back to League Two in 2010. They secured promotion as play-off winners in 2015, but suffered another double relegation in 2020 and 2021, amidst financial problems, to drop—after 101 years in the Football League—into the National League, where, still financially-troubled, they remain. The club is based at Roots Hall Stadium in Prittlewell, but since 1998—when property developer Ron Martin, now chairman, took ownership—has been planning to move to a new stadium at Fossetts Farm. In 2023, Martin put the club up for sale”.

According to Wikipedia: “Ronald Martin (born 17 January 1953) is a British businessman who is chief executive of Martin Dawn PLC, an Essex, United Kingdom-based property development company. After taking an ownership stake in the club in November 1998, he has, since 2000, also been the chairman of Southend United Football Club, championing the club’s move to a proposed new stadium at Fossetts Farm during financial struggles, including 18 winding-up petitions, at the club. Under his ownership, the club dropped from the Championship (second tier of English football) in 2007 to the fifth tier National League in 2021”.

One of my daily routines is to drive my wife to work at our local hospital. On the way, we pass the ground of our local football club – Southend United (SUFC). We also pass two pubs – the Railway and the Blue Boar. In recent days, banners have appeared outside both of these pubs with the words “#Martinout”. This is making reference to Ron Martin, the owner of the club and in the light of well publicised troubles as referred to in the above Wikipedia quotes. Significantly, the Blue Boar was where SUFC was founded, 107 years ago! Checking up on the current state of the National League table, where SUFC compete, I find they are at the bottom, having recently had ten points deducted for financial irregularities (and this in the light of earlier being at the top of the table).

Now for confession time – I am a lifelong supporter of SUFC (the Blues, the Shrimpers) albeit not a good one as I haven’t watched a live game for a few years. Even so, the first result I look for when games in the top flight leagues and below are played is Southend’s. I harp back to when I was nine when my dad took me to see my first game at Roots Hall (then and now the ground of SUFC) and several games after that, and after that until recent years (my own son was not interested) to see them play. While disillusioned with the way money dominates professional football, I still love the beautiful game. Nowadays, I am physically unable to play but going back to when I was a boy with kick-a-rounds in the road or local park, onto the world of college and work, playing with colleagues, and on all sorts of occasions when people thought it a good idea to get an impromptu game going, I have joined in, although my contributions were modest at best. I have even organised games and tournaments among the youth who I was connected with and further contributed, even becoming a qualified referee, officiating over many games.  

Back to SUFC, I do not have a view on whether or to what extent Ron Martin is to blame for the club’s problems and, as for the #Martinout brigade, as is the case generally, there is likely more than one side to the story. While putting up a scapegoat invariably happens when a team is not doing well, or in this case facing bankruptcy and penalties by the League, I don’t know enough to offer a well-rounded analysis, just as I don’t have a view on the possibilities that are floating around that there will be some white knight figure coming to own and rescue the club, not just to restore its fortunes, but to do football’s equivalent of “build back better“.

Then there is the prospect of doing what has been on the cards for many years – build a modern, new stadium at Fossett’s Farm. I have a knowledgeable and loyal supporter friend, whose perspective is likely superior to my own, who is sympathetic toward Mr Martin’s dilemma, and he may well be right. In the meantime, I will continue to follow SUFC’s fortunes, remain a fan and hope for the best. Moreover, I have no doubt a viable, successful club to be beneficial for my city, and hope fellow citizens would want this.