Underdogs, Injuries and Hard Luck at the Cottage 80 years ago!

Saturday 5^d October 1929

FULHAM 2-2 SOUTHEND UNITED

Match No. 9 Division 3 (South)

So Southend were proudly in second place in the League, and where were Fulham only ninth, so why were Southend underdogs?

Fulham were a bigger club, proved by the attendance on the day of 21,578 which was more than the Blues had ever been able to muster.

The Cottagers had only played three of their eight games at home, winning one, drawing one and losing one. The game started with Fulham dominant pushing forward trying to gain an early lead, but paid the price after only seven minutes when Dickie Donoven opened the scoring for Southend.

Fate played a big part in this game when John Armitage the Southend centre half was badly injured with a knee injury after only fifteen minutes although he did return briefly as a "passenger" the Blues had to play with ten men for the last hour of the game. This injury likely to keep Armitage out of the side for some weeks came as bitter blow so soon after losing Brophy in the game against Luton.

While down to ten men Fred Baron charged down a clearance and went on to score a second for the Blues, who had come into the game a lot more and were causing the Cottagers a lot of problems. The score remained 0-2 at half time.

Despite being two goals up, being down to ten men was a big handicap, and also luck was against them. Fulham pulled a goal back after clearly handballing the ball to bring it under control, everybody saw it except the referee. Even the biased London Press acknowledged that the goal was not legitimate.

Inevitably Fulham went on to score a second, but the ten men bravely hung on until the final whistle, to claim a well deserved point. This result kept Southend in second place but they were now a point behind Plymouth who were still unbeaten, winning seven and drawing two of their nine games.

Team: Moore; French and Robinson; Dixon, Armitage and Campbell; Barnett, Jones, Baron, Donoven and Borland.