It’s 10am on Saturday and Michelle Gargate, the owner of The Blue Boar pub, is about to open the doors. She’s anticipating a busy day ahead.
In three hours, Southend United will face Gillingham at Roots Hall, situated just 350 yards away from the pub where the club was formed in 1906. It may only be a pre-season friendly, but it is a significant occasion for thousands of supporters, heralding the start of a new era that many were unsure would ever begin.
Eight days before the game, the Custodians of Southend United (COSU) consortium, led by Australian IT millionaire Justin Rees, finally completed their takeover of the club, ending the disastrous 26-year reign of former owner Ron Martin.
On 26 June, the latest in a long line of HMRC winding-up petitions issued against Southend was dismissed. For the first time in forever, fans can allow themselves to be more concerned about results on the pitch than results in the courtroom.
i arrives at The Blue Boar at 10.30 and there are already pockets of people congregating around the bar which doubles up as a shrine to the Shrimpers.
A vibrant collection of classic shirts hang neatly from the ceiling, flags adorn the windows and photographs of famous days and favourite players from the club’s history are fixed to the walls.
A signed Freddy Eastwood shirt, from Southend’s memorable 1-0 humbling of Manchester United in 2006, is understandably given a position of prominence.
There is a palpable buzz about the place. Virtually everyone present is wearing one of the club’s shirts for the new season despite them going on sale just 24 hours before.
Over 3,500 season tickets have been sold only a week after release, already marking an increase from the 3,000 that were shifted for the 2023-24 campaign. Sunlight streams through the windows of a room that for so long was a vessel for doom and gloom.
Gargate is also on the board of The Shrimpers Trust, the club’s largest supporters group, and was previously involved with Save Our Southend, a protest group that sprung up during lockdown during a particularly perilous period for the club.
“I lost my voice on Friday and it hasn’t come back yet!” she tells i.
“It’s been great. There’s so much good feeling, everyone’s really positive. I think it has kind of caught everyone a little bit off guard.
“Today almost feels like the first game of the season, even though it’s a friendly. We haven’t had a friendly at Roots Hall for over two years. Last year, all our home friendlies got cancelled because the stadium didn’t have a safety certificate.”
The timing of the announcement came as a surprise. There have been a few false dawns over the past 12 months. COSU agreed to buy the club last October and contracts were exchanged just before Christmas, but complications surrounding the Fossetts Farm housing development delayed the takeover.
Martin had long planned to relocate Southend to the site and received clearance to do so from Southend-on-Sea council. However, COSU pledged to keep the club at Roots Hall, their home since 1955. A new Fossets Farm project without the stadium needed to be ratified, which included a deal for £20m of profits from residential development at the site to be given to Southend to rebuild Roots Hall. Negotiation between the three parties became more protracted than anyone envisaged.
Uncertainty swirled as delays mounted. In April, Stewarts Law LLP lodged a winding-up application to the high court over unpaid fees and on 24 June, the National League ordered the club to pay a £1m bond within five days due to concerns about their “ability to fulfil financial obligations” for the 2024-25 season. Fans naturally became twitchy that Rees, who had already committed £3.5m in funding to the club, would cut his losses and walk away.
Thankfully, a compromise was reached and documents were finally signed off, allowing the change in ownership to proceed. It is a team effort – there are 10 consortium members, many of whom are lifelong fans including Tom Lawrence, the CEO who has been in position since March 2021 – but Rees is the figurehead of the new regime and the poster boy for what supporters will hope can be a prosperous future.
Underneath the blue plaque which commemorates Southend’s inauguration at The Blue Boar is a cardboard cut-out mask of the new chairman’s face. There are more inside the premises too. Around 90 minutes before kick-off, the man himself crosses the pub’s threshold. He’s one of 800 people that has managed to secure himself a brand new Southend shirt.
Within seconds, Rees is posing for selfies and being asked by every supporter he meets what he would like to drink. He kindly peels himself away briefly to speak to i, with a freshly poured pint of Moretti in hand.
“I think that for the fans, it’s probably been more that outpouring of joy and ecstasy,” he says. “For me, it was probably more relief. It was a very, very difficult process. We could have lost a lot of money and of course, a year of our lives and achieved nothing.
“I mean maybe all’s well that ends well, but it was a very, very difficult year. But maybe the more arduous the journey, the more enjoyable the next chapter will be. Maybe it’s easy to say that now! Try to get me saying that two weeks ago…”
In 2021, Rees was on the lookout for a new challenge after selling his majority stake in the hugely successful IT and consultancy company that he had co-founded a few years previously. His love of football, inspired by his English father, and expertise in project management drew him to Southend, a historic club in need of salvation.
“I don’t know if obsession is the right word but it’s the one that comes to mind,” he says. “Ever since I came here, I was like, ‘I want to do this’. I couldn’t envisage how to do it, I didn’t know how the deal would eventually look, I didn’t know I was going to put a consortium together or know anyone in the consortium. But as soon as I was here, I knew this was what I wanted to do in my next chapter.
“It just feels right and it just feels like where I want to be. It’s a wonderful story. It’s one of those where I think you can see the impact that a well-run club will have not just on the fans but on the whole city. It’s important and it kind of feels… it’s a bit of a privilege actually to go ‘hey, I think I can help with this situation’.”
He attended his first game in October, a 5-0 victory against Solihull Moors. By that point, Southend had already got under the Sydneysider’s skin in a way that only football clubs can.
He has visited regularly ever since, often stopping by at The Blue Boar for a drink before and after games, as well as in other Southend supporter strangleholds, The Spreadeagle and The Railway.
The Australian’s down-to-earth persona and desire to engage with the community have further endeared him to Southend supporters who are just happy to have anyone other than Martin in charge.
“The relationship with the fans is important because obviously we’re in a honeymoon period now, but that relationship has to be maintained relentlessly forever, you know? You can’t just have a good few months,” he admits.
“We’ve got to make sure that we’re always listening to fans and to do that efficiently we’re going to put a fan advisory board in place and ensure there are efficient ways of fan voices coming up to the board.
“And then of course all the interactions you have in the community, in the pubs, they all add to it. So we’ve got to have some official channels and we’ve always got to be listening to fans and not lose that connection.
“There are signs that the fans are really ready to get behind the club, which we already knew, but also local businesses too. We’ve announced a lot of sponsorships this year. [Front of shirt sponsor] CTC is a big brand, a big regional brand. So more businesses are wanting to be part of that story and part of the next chapter.”
“I love the fact they’re so they’re so about the community,” Gargate adds. “They’re not just about trying to make the club amazing, they are trying to make the city amazing. And they’re getting involved in a lot of projects like the Southend City Jam [art festival].
“They are very much into supporting the pub, supporting the fish shop, supporting everybody. So I really like that about them. They’re really grounded and it’s really refreshing and really nice to have the complete opposite of what we’ve been used to.”
Getting the fanbase onside was the easy bit. Renovating the stadium will be a far bigger challenge. Bringing Roots Hall into the 21st century features prominently on the consortium’s list of priorities.
i was warned what to expect from Rees beforehand. “Our facilities are tired. You’re going to Roots Hall after this. It needs a refurb.”
He may have undersold it. Years of neglect have left it looking almost apocalyptical. A lovingly cared-for pitch and the presence of human life in the stands are the only indicators that it is a facility still in regular use and not a white elephant.
The stadium’s facade is characterised by cobwebs and peeling paint. Inside, a burger stand looks frozen in time. The blue and yellow seats are faded, some to the point of being virtually colourless. A toilet seat lies detached from its bowl in the men’s cubicle behind the stand where Rees sits. Scaffolding casts a shadow over one of the goalmouths.
Despite the clamour for tickets, the attendance is just 2,225, less than a fifth of the overall capacity, because vast swathes of the stadium are unsafe for use.
Rees is confident that the team itself is in much better shape. Manager Kevin Maher, a club legend as a player, has worked wonders over the past three years, while veteran head of football John Still possesses an encyclopaedic knowledge of the lower leagues. The squad possesses individual quality too.
Josh Walker, the scorer of a well-taken goal just after half-time, and Harry Cardwell, a tall, technically accomplished centre-forward, are standout performers in an evenly contested game that League Two Gillingham win 3-1. The defeat fails to dull the swell of optimism that has taken hold and supporters stay behind to applaud Maher and the squad.
It is Southend’s last home game before the National League season gets underway. They host York City on the opening day in a fixture that is noteworthy for the generosity shown by their visitors during tough times.
“York helped us out an awful lot when we were going through our worst times when our staff weren’t being paid,” Gargate says.
“Their fans actually collected for us outside their stadium. Matt Uggla, the York chairman, put £10,000 into the hardship fund. So we owe a lot to York. If it wasn’t for them our staff probably wouldn’t have been paid, we probably would have been kicked out of the league and we wouldn’t still be standing. So it’s really nice that our celebration day will be when York are here as well.”
Rees will be in attendance again. The chance to watch the club play in a competitive fixture for the first time under his ownership is not one to be missed.
He is under no illusions – he knows this will be anything but a quick fix. A Wrexham-style ascent up the divisions would obviously be welcomed but is not the dream being pitched. Instead, sensible sustainability is being preached.
“I think there’s a logical five-year plan for the club,” Rees says. “To renovate the stadium and all the other facilities. By doing that we can be a financially stable club with better facilities to allow us to then achieve our potential on the pitch and move up the divisions.
“That’s what every football club should aim for, particularly one of this size. Five years feels about right to restructure things and bring the club forward to where it needs to be.”
Given the instability and chaos that has defined the club’s recent past, a steady approach suits Southend supporters just fine.
“They are more looking at the long-term plan, which I like,” Gargate says.
“I would much rather somebody come in who’s sensible, who wants to get the basics right and pay the staff, maintain the stadium, get all the fans on board – which they pretty much have already – and then build on that rather than having some rich owner that will just come in, blow some cash and bugger off and leave us high and dry.”
Southend’s supporters have long been unified. A collective effort to pressurise Martin into selling the club required collaboration. Various fan groups mobilised as one, bound by a common goal. Now that unity is being channelled into something more positive. Hope for the future has replaced a fear of tomorrow.
“The Trust do so much work than I had initially realised,” Gargate says. “They do so much in terms of fundraising and behind the scenes like liaising with the council and the consortium and with the FSA and all sorts of different governing bodies to try and do what they can.
“There’s been so much happening in the background. But it’s paid off because we have now got what we wanted in the first place, which is our club back.”
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