Disaster-on-sea

Jonathan Crewe re-lives the trauma of Southend away

An early start from York. A half hour walk to the station for the 8:30am to Kings Cross, meet more other exiles in London and get to Southend about 12:30pm. Following our failure to beat Preston we’d pretty much given up on making the play-offs and were just hoping to have a good day out.

Beer and food in a local boozer gave us the chance to meet several Southend fans - a friendly bunch planning various protests against their manager and chairman. We accept a handful of red cards to be shown at half-time. As 3:00pm neared we headed for the ground, slightly the worse for wear.

We started slowly. Neither side looked capable of defending and a few heads were buried in hands as Southend went one-up. It sounds like hindsight now but I honestly felt we would win this game (I just didn’t believe all the other results could go our way). Just before half-time, a brilliant free-kick from Wardy gets us level and everyone feels it might just be our day.

Hopes of the play-offs are abandoned as half-time scores come in. Everything is against us. As we relieve ourselves of the pre-match booze, Radio 5 mistakenly tell us Bristol Rovers are 2-0 up (in fact, as they later correct themselves, it’s only 1-0).

We are excellent in the second-half and news spreads from those with Walkmans tuned into 5 Live that some results are turning our way. As we completely overpower Southend with two more excellent goals, the game before us becomes irrelevant and we’re glued to the radio. The adrenalin has now overpowered the alcohol and I’m a nervous wreck.

Then the miracle happens. News comes through that Bristol Rovers are now at 1-1 and we’re in a play-off spot. There are obviously plenty of people with radios as the whole Wrexham end seems to find out simultaneously. The celebrations don’t go unnoticed by the team and they clearly realise what’s happening.

With only minutes to go it’s announced that Bristol Rovers have scored again. You can hear hopes splinter and an eerie silence slips over the Wrexham end. The emotional battering leaves me numb as the final whistle goes and Marriott enquires what’s happened elsewhere. Southend fans invade the pitch in protest. They show no aggression towards us but do break the crossbar in their frustration! We desperately hang on for the classified check, hoping against all reason that something ridiculous has happened and we’re through.

So close yet so far. Mark Barnes (holding the radio) listens out for other results.

As we leave the ground I console myself that two hours earlier I had written us off and expected nothing. It doesn’t help much but you’ve got to appreciate how far WFC has come since the bad old days. I remember celebrating avoiding re-election (two years running!) and not being relegated to the Conference. After all, would you swap places with those Southend fans?