For April 3rd I'm going back 34 years to 1987 and Southend United's Friday night League Division 4 fixture against Cardiff City.
In these days of wall-to-wall televised football, it's amazing to think that it wasn't so long ago that almost all teams in the English Football League kicked-off their weekend home games at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. There were only a few exceptions who played the occasional fixture on a Friday night instead, often to try to avoid a clash with a bigger club on their doorstep. Tranmere Rovers, Stockport County and Colchester United were amongst a small number of clubs who did this, as were Southend. Torquay United often played on a Saturday night, especially in the warmer parts of the season in the hope of catching a few holidaymakers after their day on the beach.
At the time, Southend's home, Roots Hall, was the youngest in the Football League. Southend had moved there in 1955 and we were still a year away from Scunthorpe United's relocation to Glanford Park. The Roots Hall site is actually the location of Southend United's original ground but they were forced off at the outbreak of the First World War and moved to Southend's famous Kursaal , one of the world's first purpose-built amusement parks. Southend have had plans to once again move away from Roots Hall to Fossett's Farm for almost 30 years and indeed the club made an announcement as recently as November 2020 concerning the move but real progress seems to be as far away as ever.
In front of 3,917, Southend United won this game 2-0 with goals from Derek Hall and Richard Cadette. Cardiff City, under manager Frank Burrows, had Welsh international Alan Curtis in their side. Curtis is surely more closely associated with Swansea City having had three separate playing spells with the Swans and a further three spells there as caretaker manager. One can only presume that his 153 games (13 goals) with the Bluebirds didn't taint him in the eyes of Swansea supporters.
The 1986/87 season will be fondly remembered as a promotion season by fans of "The Shrimpers" (Southend's nickname not to be confused with Morecambe's nickname: "The Shrimps"). They finished in third place and went up automatically behind champions Northampton Town and runners up Preston North End pipping Wolverhampton Wanderers who were slumming it in Division 4 by one point. Wolves were forced to seek their promotion spot via the Play-Offs and, rather incredibly to modern eyes, they failed by 3-0 in the two-legged Play-Off Final against Aldershot! Cardiff were well off the pace and finished mid-table in thirteenth place.
CRB Match No. 498
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