The night the Borient were bashed

Last updated : 20 January 2009 By Shrimpers24
The nightmare is over, once again you can tell the kids about Southend and Orient games and smile as the mighty Blues erased memories of only three wins over their East London rivals in twenty years.

Just spare a thought for Mark Salter, his claim to fame in a Blue shirt has finally come to an end.

United took just 57 seconds to take the lead, which came when a brilliant Dougie Freedman pass split open the Orient left side defence and Kevin Betsy's cross from the right byline was not adequately cleared leaving the good Lord Lee Barnard to find the net from six yards out. Good to see you back mate.

The Shrimpers doubled their advantage in the 12th minute when Dan Harding crossed from the left and Dougie Freedman doubled his height, heading back to Lee Sawyer, who lashed the ball past Glenn Morris from eight yards with a precise finish.

Southend continued to look the sharper side in the first half and saw Morris save a Sawyer header and Barnard screw a 12-yard effort wide of the right post.

Betsy then squared to Freedman whose shot from 18 yards was palmed out for a corner by Morris.

New dad Sawyer was celebrating by covering every blade of Roots Hall grass, a fantastic performance which just edged out Dangerous Dougie for man of the match. As for our Dougie, Orient had decided he should be taken out early as early as possible but they couldn't get near him. We'd better get used to this treatment to our top scorer when he comes up against lesser teams.

Even young Ian was the victim of several poor challanges, Borient having no answer to the wave of Southend attacks, deciding to trip, pull down, generally foul anything in a Blue shirt. Yellow cards might have been shown earlier but this ref, whose lenient reputation was justified, got away with a match that might have got out of hand on another night.

Orient's chances were few and far between, with Ryan Jarvis heading wide from six yards before John Melligan and Paul Terry saw shots from distance easily held by debutante keeper 'Aussie' Adam Federici, who is on a month's loan from Reading, and looked very capable. A smart kicking technique which allows him to find the length of the pitch with a ball that never seems to get higher than three yards off the ground! Picked up playing Aussie rules no doubt!

Martin Ling brought on Andre Cave-Brown and ex-Blue loanee Dean Morgan at the start of the second half and that, along with his half-time pep talk, saw Orient begin to have more of the ball. Jarvis mis-hit a shot way off target when well placed and Morgan's effort from 20 yards was well saved by Federici.

Now, the one thing Southend cannot do with this side is try and defend a lead, so it was with great delight, and for us Blues/Orient veterans, that saw Hal Robson-Kanu first fire wide, HRK was brilliant on the left wing and well done Tilly for making the decision to drop Walker for the other Reading man, before the midfielder set up the third goal on 70 minutes. His cross from the right evaded Barnard, but, who else, there was Freedman at the far post to score.

The good Lord then dispossessed keeper Morris after a disastrous back pass but saw his effort from a tight angle cleared to safety.

There was time for mass substitutions by Tilly, applauding Shrimpers becoming a Mexican wave as they stood and showed their appreciation for Dougie as he limped around the ground from the West Stand to the tunnel.

When Grant, on to close the game, got into a spat with an O, blimey they got annoying at the end, this ref, as he had showed earlier when Barnard squared up to an Orient defender who had held him back but nothing given by Mr. Hegley, was never going to send anybody off.

Not everything was perfect but that can wait till the morning when TLG presents a special 'Borient Bashed Day', (I like it, maybe we can make it an annual event, in fact lets make it twice a year, Sunday January 4 will be the next one), when we'll review the match and see how good the Blues really were as we wake up tomorrow in 8th place, having wiped out our three goal deficit, on the same points as Carlisle who are in the play off zone.

Even the Farmers winning at Tranmere couldn't wipe the smug smile off my face while standing at Prittlewell station, catching an earlier train than usual thanks to Dougie's third goal.

"fuxxing shit", "fuxxing shit", was the view of one angry young man wearing the red of Orient next to me. "We were torn apart", were the words on his mobile of a more well spoken eastender to his poor girlfriend whose excitement at the thought of a fun night out on the Leyton High Street were fading fast. "Left when the third went in, just wanna get home to bed." Sweet dreams my friend, sweet dreams.

Coca-Cola League One, Friday, 26th September 2008 @ 19:45; Roots Hall
Click for Southend United squad list
Barnard 1
Sawyer 12
Freedman 70
Click for Leyton Orient squad list
Starting Line-ups
32Federici 8
23Harding 7
2Francis 6
5Clarke 7
6Barrett 7
20Christophe 7
21Betsy 7
28Sawyer (McCormack 74)9
17Robson-Kanu (Grant 73)7
9Barnard 7
16Freedman (Revell 74)8
Substitutes
15Sankofa
8McCormack (Sawyer 74) 6
7Grant 7(Robson-Kanu 73) 7
10Walker
11Revell (Freedman 74) 6
10Goal Attempts8
7On Target6
3Off Target2
0Hit Woodwork0
2Offsides1
4Corners6
15Fouls20
Starting Line-ups
1Morris 5
20Demetriou 7
4Thelwell 5
19Palmer (Cave-Brown 46)5
6Saah 5
2Purches 5
7Melligan 6
17Terry (Morgan 46)5
8Chambers 6
18Boyd (Dawkins 67)6
23Jarvis 6
Substitutes
12Jones
16Cave-Brown (Palmer 46)6
25Ashworth
11Morgan (Terry 46)6
14Dawkins (Boyd 67)6
Referee
G Hegley, Hertfordshire 6
Attendance
9261
Southend Utd. Cards
Barnard48unsporting behaviour
Leyton Orient Cards
Saah48unsporting behaviour
Chambers58unsporting behaviour