Tilly deserved millennium title

It was interesting to read a letter from a supporter in Echosport last week questioning the choice of Steve Tilson as Blues' Player of the Millennium.

I reckon even Tilly, honest man that he is, would agree that there have been more exciting and skilful men pulling on a Southend shirt than him over the years.

But what the selection underlines is that supporters will always take kindly to someone who they feel has the club at heart and always gives maximum effort.

Tilson was Southend United through and through and the biggest mistake was when the Shrimpers let such as superb clubman leave to join non-league Canvey a few seasons ago.

He deserved the award for his honesty and total commitment to Blues on and off the field.

Louts threaten club's efforts

We certainly witnessed distressing and ugly scenes at Roots Hall on Saturday which every decent soccer fan must have wished were long gone - violent hooligans trying to take us back to the dark, bad old days.

A group in the 500-strong Swansea contingent attempted to invade the West Stand with the obvious intention of picking a fight with innocent Blues fans.

Stewards acted quickly to stave off trouble, putting a human barrier between the two sets of supporters to restore an uneasy peace.

Unhappily, it now throws a huge question mark over the club's brave decision to remove barriers at the visiting end.

No one likes to see fans caged in like animals and the Blues directors made the laudable decision to give people the chance to prove that football has become more civilised.

But if that puts decent people, families in particular, in danger then it may be time to think again.

We know that Southend supporters have a superb track record when it comes to behaviour at matches, home or away, but unfortunately the same cannot be said of some followers - I refuse to call them fans.

Swansea is one club with a tarnished reputation when it comes to having troublemakers in their ranks and I fear they may not be the only ones.

And so it may be necessary for the club to restore those fences in the visitors' section, if only to ensure the safety of people whose only interest in football is to watch the game and cheer their team, win, lose or draw.

Blues have gone to a great deal of effort to encourage mums, dads and kids back to the ground and it would be nothing short of a disaster if a few mindless morons were allowed to put those aims in peril.

On the brighter side, it was great to see a storming Southend performance which booted the form book out of the window against the high-flying Welshmen.

Hopefully the players will have learned that it takes honest sweat and toil to win a soccer match - the effort and comittment Blues put in simply swept aside a Swansea outfit boasting nine succesive wins.

The players restore a lot of lost pride and must now look to keep that level up for the rest of the season and at least give the long-suffering fans something to cheer about.

No one complains if a team loses after putting in that sort of 100 per cent endeavour - sadly that has not always been much in evidence in the previous 12 League games.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.