Well done to triumphant Billericay

I'd like to congratulate Billericay Town on their great 3-1 FA Trophy victory over Hereford United, which has handed them the plum draw of the next round against Rushden and Diamonds.

Billericay's achievement against Hereford, who took Premiership side Leicester City to an FA Cup replay a few weeks ago, was an amazing effort, but now they have an even bigger task on their hands with Rushden visiting New Lodge.

But I'm sure it's a task all the club's officials, players and fans will be relishing against a team who can be rightly classed as the biggest in non-league football.

Rushden have a lot of money behind them and are favourites to win the Conference this season, following their own FA Cup exploits, which saw them narrowly beaten by First Division Sheffield United over two games.

However, Billericay won't care about Rushden's big reputation. They'll just want to beat them and get through to the competition's quarter-finals, as well as enjoy what should be a huge pay-day for the Essex club.

It wasn't pretty but it worked!

We staged an amazing comeback to grab a point from our 3-3 Roots Hall draw with Rochdale at the weekend - but we still weren't pleased with the result!

To fight back from three goals down during the second-half was a super-human effort from the lads and is the biggest deficit I've ever helped to pull back.

I remember winning 4-2 against Arsenal at Highbury on the opening day of the season once, after being 2-0 down at half-time.

The Gunners absolutely smashed us during the opening period and we were scared to go out for the second-half, but we fought hard and scored four goals against a great side, which underlines that anything is always possible.

Rochdale are no Arsenal, but the result we gained was just as impressive, even though spirits were low in the dressing room after the game because we knew we had let our fans down badly.

Our display in the opening period, when Rochdale grabbed their goals, was not just our worst performance of the season, but possibly the most awful 45 minutes I've played in during my time with Southend.

Rochdale never had a shot on goal until they scored, but built their lead in a fashion we were both powerless and passionless to stop.

All three of their goals were nothing special - it wasn't like Rochdale had put together a stunning four-player move leading to a quality shot or header, which had finished us off.

They just hit us in a quickfire burst which was a shock to our systems, although no more than we deserved because we had been abysmal.

We lacked all the basics and desire to win this match during the first-half, which are qualities any team needs to be a success at this level.

But it was a completely different story after the interval. The gaffer threw on three substitutes, changed the tactics around and made us do things differently, which, thankfully, paid off.

We pushed our back four up field, condensed the play and began getting the ball forward as quickly as possible to batter Rochdale into submission.

It may not have been attractive to watch, but it was effective and caused Rochdale the sort of problems we have failed to inflict on the sides we have faced recently.

At this stage of the season it may be time to throw our football ethics out of the window and play in this way, because it seems to be the only style of play which will get you out of the Third Division.

You only have to look at the teams who won promotion last year - Brentford, Cardiff City, Cambridge and Scunthorpe United - they all had good players, but they were physical and punished the opposition by playing direct football.

League points and a push up the table are more important than pretty football and I for one will be glad to mix things up a bit to help us achieve better results than we have been getting of late!

Get stuck in - Kevin Maher puts in a challenge during our comeback against Rochdale

All the best for the future Stylo

Simon Livett left Roots Hall this week on a free transfer and I'd just like to wish him all the best for the future.

Stylo - as he was known among the lads because of his good looks and classy clothes - is a great dead-ball specialist and is on a par with any free-kick or corner taker I have ever played with at any level of the game.

I hope he can find himself another league club or at least a good-quality Conference team as he looks to rebuild his career.

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