22 Going on 23

Sunderland's latest victory over Newcastle was their fourth in a row; depressing I suppose, but we've had it worse. New Year's Day 1992 for instance, when we lost 4-0 to Southend United, Here's a piece I wrote about that game for Southend fanzine All Across The Sea...

On New Year’s Day 2015, it will be 23 years since the very worst period of my football supporting life began. January 1992 was absolute hell for fans of Newcastle United as we fell to the very foot of the table in Division 2; the horror began with a 4-0 trouncing at Roots Hall, followed by an almost encouraging 2-2 draw at Watford where we’d been 2 down after 4 minutes, a 4-3 home loss to Charlton, courtesy of an injury time Liam O’Brien own goal, when we’d led 3-0 at the break, a defeat on penalties in the FA Cup to Division 3 Bournemouth, before rounding things off in style with a catastrophic 5-2 pummelling at Oxford when the fog was so dense you couldn’t see the edge of the penalty area. Frankly the high spot of the month was my auntie’s funeral on the 28^th.

As this is a Southend United fanzine, it would be reasonable to expect I would now proceed to give a sentimentalised account of a boozy, bleary-eyed journey down from Tyneside for that famed lunchtime obliteration at your hands; except, I was still asleep when that particular game kicked off. You see, I spent New Year 1991/1992 in South Yorkshire with the in-laws, who are all Barnsley fans. With typical bad timing, the Tykes were away to Sunderland (of all teams) that day, so me, the father-in-law and her sister’s bloke, decided on our football fix between Sheffield Wednesday v Oldham Athletic in Division 1 and Rotherham United v Carlisle United in Division 4, after the spin of a coin . The Owls won out and we paid a staggering £12 each to sit in the top deck of the Leppings Lane End supporting Joe Royle’s team during a muscular 1-1 draw, as my two companions drew the line at voluntarily intermingling with Wednesday followers.

The world was a very different place slightly less than quarter of a century ago; while attending top flight football wasn’t prohibitively expensive, mobile phones were unattainably pricey for ordinary fans. In the pre WiFi era, the only scores available over the tannoy at Hillsborough were other Division 1 fixtures. In addition, my father-in-law didn’t have a radio in his car, denying us the opportunity to listen to Sports Report. Hence, I didn’t find out the result from Roots Hall until nearly 6pm, when we returned home in time to see QPR hammer Man United 4-1 at Old Trafford live on ITV. Incidentally, Rotherham would have been a far more realistic £6 in and The Millers won 1-0. I was disappointed, but not surprised by our score; Newcastle were rubbish and Southend were near the top of the table, so the game had gone to form.

The game at St. James, back on 20^th November 1991, had seen us triumph 3-2 in front of 16,185, which was a fairly standard attendance before Keegan came back as manager in February 1992. Of course the really ridiculous thing was this game took place on a Wednesday, making it doubly difficult for away fans to get there. Sadly, I don’t remember the fixture in any distinct detail, other than our ex player John Cornwell racing to get the ball out the net after you’d pulled it back to 3-2 late on. In many ways, that’s a shame as it’s the only Newcastle v Southend game I’ve ever seen, because of circumstance.

After the dismal fare for most of 1991/1992, Newcastle suddenly became brilliant under Kevin Keegan the year after. We won 29, drew 9 and lost 8 in 1992/1993, winning the title by 8 points and kicking off with a 3-2 victory over Southend on 15^th August. Despite having owned a season ticket since I came back home after university in 1989, I missed out on this one as we were on holiday in Corfu at the time. Pre Sky TV, ex pats, thirsty for beer and updates, had only one option. Hence why so many crowded into a beach bar in Agios Georgios to listen to second half updates from Arsenal v Coventry on the BBC World Service. The woozy, waning signal sustained long enough to allow the final scores to be listened to in respectful silence, with attendant smiles, winks, shrugs and grimaces from the assembled throng. A clenched fist at an opening day win led to several more Amstels; I got to see Paul Bracewell’s debut strike that set us on our way on video at my parents’ house when we got back the following Tuesday.

The return fixture was scheduled for 6^th February, but was moved back to 20^th January, a Wednesday. Not for television, but on Police instructions, mainly because the Young Conservatives were holding their AGM in South on the first weekend in February. Crazy eh? Or perhaps not when you consider what the Tories did to my region between 1979 and 1997… Anyway, keeping politics out of sport, it ended up in a 1-1 draw and I caught 30 seconds of highlights on the local late news.

And that’s it; the 4 league encounters between the 2 clubs took place in 14 months. However, I did get to see Southend once more that season. On 18 April, it was my sister-in-law’s 21^st birthday, so we headed down from Tyneside. As it was Millwall away at the old Den and I’m a complete coward, I was glad of the family intervention providing me with an excuse not to go to Bermondsey. However, there was a game to watch; Barnsley hosted Southend in front of the lowest crowd in the country that day. A mere 3,185 thronged Oakwell to see Stan Collymore put Southend ahead, only for the home side to come back to win 3-1.

23 years on, whenever I think of Southend United, it isn’t Phil Brown’s bizarrely hued epidermis that occurs to me, but a 4-0 hammering at lunchtime on New Year’s Day.