Cheltenham Town	Lincoln City	Rochdale	Cambridge United	West Ham United	Bristol Rovers
Macclesfield Town	Rushden & Diamonds	Wycombe Wanderers	Notts County	Kidderminster Harriers	Colchester United
Darlington	Boston United	Swansea City [3]	Scunthorpe United	Shrewsbury Town	Northampton Town
Shrewsbury Town [2]	Oxford United	Luton Town	Yeovil Town	Grimsby Town	Northampton Town
Leyton Orient	Bury	Chester City	Wycombe Wanderers	Mansfield Town	Rushden & Diamonds
Kidderminster Harriers [2]	Boston United	Notts County	Mansfield Town	Swindon Town	Darlington
Swansea City	Scunthorpe United	Bristol Rovers	Northampton Town	Shrewsbury Town	Bury
Chester City	Bristol Rovers	Lincoln City	Cheltenham Town	Rochdale	Cambridge United
Bristol Rovers	Wrexham	Leyton Orient	Macclesfield Town	Oxford United	Yeovil Town
Grimsby Town	Northampton Town	Northampton Town	Lincoln City

The iconic view of Eastwood with his arm raised in celebration

Thirty-eight starts. Four substitute appearances. Twenty-four goals. Ten assists. One yellow card. No red cards. Seven TLG Man-of-the-Match awards. An average TLG match rating of seven point one two. One unbelievable debut campaign.

Yet Eastwood, unlike all of the other players that have deserved TLG’s attention, did not begin the campaign at Southend United. He was an early-season signing, and a loan signing at that. Nay, he was an early-season, panic, non-League signing by boss Steve Tilson, worried, correctly, that his team lacked firepower.

Drewe Broughton was out of touch, and couldn’t make the natural link to Wayne Gray. Gray could barely net from open play. Lawrie Dudfield and Tesfaye Bramble had proved to be a flash in the Rushden & Diamonds pan. Hell, Rushden & Diamonds – relegation cannon-fodder. How were Southend United going to go up with that motley crew?

And yet suddenly, the capture of Eastwood changed that all. For he made a scintillating reserve team debut at Millwall, scoring Southend’s only goal at the New Den. Yes, it was only the reserves, but I’ll let you into a little secret. Myself and Southend Evening Echo reporter Chris Phillips agreed before the game that we were going to talk up the Grays Athletic loanee. At ninety minutes, we agreed that we didn’t need to.

He was immediately named on the substitutes’ bench for the forthcoming Friday night fixture with Boston United. That dastardly Darryl Flahavan then had his say, but in the end it was a telling one. Flahavan was sent off with Blues 2-0 up against the Pilgrims, and he effectively cost Freddy his debut, with Tesfaye Bramble forced to go in goal. Undoubtedly United would have scored more that night, and Eastwood would have been introduced with the result safe.

Instead he had to wait. And wait he did for eight days, playing again in the second-string against Hornchurch in an embarrassing behind-closed-doors friendly mauling. Then came Freddy’s big day against Swansea City. He was named as a starter, mainly because Bramble was now out with an injury picked up between the sticks. He laid the ball off to Kevin Maher, darted up the pitch and 7.63 seconds later connected with Wayne Gray’s cross to head Southend 1-0 up against the League leaders.

In the second half, he added two more, one from a Gray centre, the other a deflected strike that owed a little to luck, more to individual brilliance. A hat-trick, on his debut, and Eastwood celebrated a first game for the club that was even more impressive than that of modern-day legend Stanley Victor Collymore. And at this stage, nobody was even spelling his name correctly!

The scoring run did not stop properly, really, for the rest of the season. He netted in his next match, three days later against Scunthorpe United, and after a brace in the LDV Vans Trophy against Shrewsbury Town and another, a pivotal opener at home to Oxford United, finally took a forward past Adam Barrett’s tally for the season.

Grimsby Town, Leyton Orient, Wycombe Wanderers and Kidderminster Harriers (twice) were on the end of Eastwood’s sharp-shooting boots, before lean spell led to a period on the bench. It was not for long, as he came off of the sidelines to ping Darlington back into their seats with a 2-0 win, at a time when the two clubs were vying for a play-off place.

When he got back for good, it appeared that he may even give Barrett a run for his Player-of-the-Year money. He scored against Shrewsbury at Roots Hall. He scored against Bury at Roots Hall. He scored against Chester City at the Deva Stadium. He scored against Bristol Rovers at Roots Hall. He scored against Lincoln City at Roots Hall. He scored against Cheltenham Town at Whaddon Road. He scored against Rochdale at Roots Hall. He drew level with Billy Best as the club’s record post-war goalscorer in consecutive games, and all the time, Southend United were undefeated, a run of sixteen matches by this time.

When it became seventeen at Cambridge United’s Abbey Stadium with a 2-0 win, onlookers were amazed that Freddy’s name was not on the scoresheet. He fell short of the club record eight scoring games set by Billy Hick in the late 1920s, but he had written his name in Southend legend. Everyone on the pitch had tried to set him up once Barrett put Blues 2-0 up.

Eastwood scoring perhaps the goal of Southend's season

Five games passed without Eastwood’s name on the scoresheet, and other than Cambridge, Blues won just one, the last at Macclesfield Town. He returned to fluke a strike at Oxford, lost out in the battle of the forwards to Phil Jevons in a 1-0 loss to Yeovil Town and scored in a lost promotion cause against Grimsby Town.

The Play-Offs awaited. A blank at Sixfields. Then, a foul on Nicky Nicolau at Roots Hall against Northampton Town in the second leg. Eastwood stepped up for the vital penalty kick, and stroked it home with aplomb. It was the moment that Southend United again felt that they could go up in 2004/5, and in extra time, it was Eastwood that opened the scoring, and broke the Millennium Stadium hoodoo against Lincoln City.

With a season like that, no wonder Nottingham Forest and Brighton & Hove Albion are interested!

Robert Craven
www.thelittlegazette.com