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West Ham, who finished in the top half of last season's top flight, trounced United 5-0 on their last visit to Roots Hall in July 1998 a match in which ex-Hammers midfielder Frank Lampard, son of the former Shrimpers player with the same name, scored a hat-trick.
Although Southend will obviously hope for a better result tonight, they certainly will not mind anothers capacity crowd and reports from Roots Hall suggest that a near sell-out could be on the cards. Whilst standing in reception yesterday I must confess that the Club were inundated with enquiries about the match with all three ticket office numbers already engaged. As it stands it seems that only single seats are still available, so if your hoping to go and haven't as yet got your ticket, make sure you get to the ground as early as possible!
Unfortunately United haven't been able to produce the special laminated programme that they promised for £2.50, instead a 32-page programme will be issued at £2.
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Also at Roots Hall tonight are the band Bad Manners who are performing a set live on the pitch at 7:15pm, the match itself kicks-off at 7:45pm.
On the football side of things, Rob Newman once again has no injury worries following Saturday's defeat at Margate. Newman however expects a much imprived display; "Saturday was poor" he told The Little Gazette yesterday, "it was the defending from corners that let us down again, but perhaps it's best that we lost the game, because had we put in the same performance and won it would have papered over the cracks somewhat".
Newman it seems has a very good point, he continued that "if we lost every pre-season game, but won at Hull on the opening day I'd certainly take that" and so would most Shrimpers fans I'm sure, but victory over West Ham is always sweet, even though United have only managed it once - Brett Angell netting the clincher in a Division One match in April 1993 - and every one wearing a blue shirt tonight will be urging their heroes onto victory.
Incidently, Southend will be wearing their new Martin Dawn-sponsored strip for the first time tonight before they return to action at Heybridge Swifts on Thursday evening.
SOUTHEND (from):- Darryl Flahavan, Daniel Gay, Damon Searle, Stphen Broad, Matk Beard, Phil Whelan, Leon Cort, David McSweeney, Stuart Thurgood, Kevin Maher (captain), Danny Maye, Steven Clark, Ian Selley, Barrington Belgrave, Tesfaye Bramble, Mark Rawle, Tony Richards, Daniel Webb.
Mark Wallis
www.thelittlegazette.com