The inevitable happened on Friday night when the dismal reign of Southend United boss Alvin Martin finally ended after the latest in a long run of miserable results.

However, the burning question on the lips of most fans after chairman John Main's tearful announcement is whether it's all too little too late.

The 1-0 home defeat at the hands of fellow strugglers Hull City plunged Blues deep into trouble and left them staring down the barrel of a third successive relegation season - only this could be the most serious as it would take them out of the League.

And to be honest it's hard to see a way out for a side so totally lacking in confidence, method, ability and showing a frightening lack of commitment.

Assistant manager Mick Gooding has been handed the poisoned chalice on a temporary basis, but he will need to produce a miracle akin to that achieved by Barry Fry and Steve Thompson in the past if that proud League status is not to be sacrificed.

Whether Martin fell on his own sword or was pushed through the exit door is now irrelevant because the big thing is that it should all have happened a long time ago.

That's not being wise after the event. I wrote in Echosport after the home defeat at the hands of Barnet way back in December, which followed hot on the heels of an FA Cup disaster by non-League Doncaster, that drastic action was needed to stop the rot.

I felt that Martin's own pride would make him bow to public pressure and quit, but when that didn't happen the board should have been brave enough to step in and force the issue.

Instead they gave the manager the go-ahead to sign numerous players in the desperate hope that he would pull them out of the fire.

Yet all that happened was that Southend got worse and worse and the club are now left with a big squad of inferior quality men who any new boss will be lumbered with.

Let me say straight away that few Blues managers have worked harder or been more dedicated than Martin but, for whatever reason, his message was not getting across as the team stumbled from one mediocre performance to another.

It's difficult to see how Gooding, who, as Martin's right hand man, was presumably a major part of the team's decline, can halt the slide.

I know that sometimes a change at the top can bring about an amazing reversal in form, but this smacks of the bosun taking control of the Titanic after it had already hit the iceberg.

No doubt speculation on the new manager has started already and whether it is to be fans' favourite David Webb, ex-Colchester boss Steve Wignall, or Uncle Tom Cobbly, I would urge the directors to move fast.

We have already lost Roots Hall and the training ground because of what many see as a lack of positive and responsible action in the boardroom and to be dumped out of the League could be the final act of folly from which Southend United may never recover.

A lot of people are rightly demanding the directors now take the vital decision to try and yet salvage something from the wreckage - to dither and delay could prove fatal!

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