First time around was way back in 1913! The two sides met in the F.A. Cup as members of different leagues. Chelsea were in the Football League, we were in the Southern League. The Shrimpers were missing their influential captain Heneage Wileman through a broken collar bone, but Chelsea played much of the game with ten men after right-back Walter Bettridge hobbled off.
Their prolific centre-forward Bob Whittingham converted two penalties, not making the ref a popular man in South East Essex, and scored two more, with the legendary gentleman amateur Viv Woodward adding the fifth.
The scorer of Southend's two was Frost - an appropriate name given that most of the weekend's fixtures were ruled out or abandoned as a result of sleet and snow showers across most of the country. Plus ça change! (Ask Christophe for a translation.)
Dad of Dave the Shrimper has written an excellent account of the match for TLG here: www.thelittlegazette.com/news/loadsngl.asp?cid=EDY3&id=424846
37 years ago on September 6 1972 we were at Roots Hall for a League Cup 2nd round tie. I remember standing in a packed North Bank, where Chelsea fans will be Wednesday sadly.
The West Londoners wore red shirts in front of the home teams biggest crowd for years, Liverpool was still 7 years away, and had to endure a second half siege from the Shrimpers. Bill Garner led the line superbly, too well, he was a Chelsea player three days later for 100,000 pounds, the sixth forward Dave Sexton has bought for the club for a six figure fee and our first. His replacement Chris Guthrie become another three years later but went further north, to Sheffield United. We could spot a striker in those days!
Chris Garland turned in John Boyle's knock down from a Peter Houseman corner in the 17th minute. (A mate insists he back healed it in, but the memories gone there!) They then went on to the semi-final where they lost to Norwich.
Southend United: Bellotti, Ternant, Smith, Elliot, Albeson, Harrison, Johnson, Best, Garner, Bennett (Woods), Booth.
Chelsea: Bonetti, Mulligan, McCredie, Hollins, Webb, Harris, Garland, Kember, Osgood, Boyle, Houseman.
Read about Bill Garner's illustrious playing career here: www.thelittlegazette.com/news/loadsngl.asp?cid=EDY3&id=424599
After playing 299 games for Chelsea between 1968 and 1974, Shrimpers messiah David Webb managed us on four separate occasions between June 1986 and November 2003. Webby guided Southend to succesive promotions from the old Fourth Division in 1990 to top of the old Second Division for half an hour on New Year's Day 1992 to finish a very respectable 12th by May.
Following the sacking of Chelsea boss Ian Porterfield in February 1993 Webb was brought in by Ken Bates as manager to save them from relegation. Starting with a 1-0 win over Arsenal he successfully guided them to mid-table by the end of that season to be rewarded by Bates with.......the sack!
There was a pre-season friendly, which I'd forgotten about, I remember Spurs and Gazza, but not Chelsea! Anyway, it was July 1994 at Roots Hall and Spud Taylor was our manager, Glen Hoddle for the visitors. Believe it or not there will be one player in the two squads that was involved in that match. Not too difficult, yes, 40 year-old Paul Furlong was a sprightly 25 year old back then, he went on to score 17 goals for Chelsea between 1994 and 1996 after joining for 2.3million from Watford, a club record at the time. And the old bugger scored for them in this game as well in a 2-1 victory, along with former assistant boss, Steve Clarke, now at West Ham, while Dominic Iorfa grabbed ours.
Lee Sawyer, who was on the bench for Chelsea in the first cup tie between the sides, is yet another player who has worn the Blue of both sides. (And wouldn't we love to see wear ours again, we'll take another loan spell!) Lee played for Chelsea reserves Monday night, (1-1 home draw with Fulham, even the second team are catching the disease), being mentioned in dispatches.
(Jimmy) Smith's colleague in midfield Lee Sawyer, always a powerful runner, was looking sharp early on after his loan spell at Southend and it was one of his advances that led to a booking for Fulham captain Adam Leijer for a foul. (That's our Lee, well their's I suppose!)
Of course, all Shrimpers are aware of the last match, most of the town are saying they were at Stamford Bridge on Saturday January 3rd and that famous 1-1 draw. Still, if you weren't, or you just want to relive the memories all over again, here's a report with player markings, a certain 6ft 5 ex-Yeovil shot stopper was the TLG man of the match after making a couple of decent saves.
So Wednesday will make it four, competitive matches that is, and whatever it brings for both sets of supporters, enjoy the game and have a great night.