Four Steps Forward, Twelve Steps Back

It’s 4.50pm Saturday 6th May 2006. The referee blows his whistle. Southend United have just beaten Bristol City 1-0. They are promoted to the second tier of football for the first time since 1991 as champions. The bench goes crazy, players rejoice, supporters storm the pitch. As the mad scene calms down one man emerges with a microphone. “One thing I will promise, I’ll never let you down.”

Just what chairman Ron Martin meant was not quite clear. Four years on and we’re back where we started twelve years ago. Relegation to the basement of league football is staring us in the face. So what has actually changed from those dark days at the beginning of the last decade? Is it as bad as it all seems on the surface? And has Ron Martin kept his promise?

One thing is for sure no one knew whom the property dealer from Billericay was when his company Martin Dean PLC took over United in 1998. No one really knew who he was until that famous year when we were promoted. Certainly no one had really heard from him as much as this season.

He seems like a man under extreme pressure made obvious by the nature of what has gone on this season and the decisions he has made in communicating with the fans. This becomes more apparent when you look at the most recent attempts to reach out. Don’t get me wrong there have been good, well thought-out statements, Q&A sessions and blogs directly from Mr Martin.

However, the most recent blogs have been waffly at best, desperate at worst. He boasts about the fact we were 8th in the league for highest wage bill last season and probably in the top ten this year. Which shows nothing apart from the fact it doesn’t matter how much you pay your players you can still get relegated. He seems to be a man hell-bent on explaining his difficult situation and this has come across as hostile. He has appeared to have a pop at the fans, the players and has some sort of gripe against the Southend Echo.

I, though, feel for a man who, I genuinely think, has the club at heart. When he asked supporters to write to the Home Office to show their desire for the plans of the new stadium to be approved, my dad submitted a letter explaining how my late grandfather’s tree was in the crematorium next to the proposed site and how this would have been something he would have loved. Ron Martin replied personally saying the letter touched him. Like-wise when my Nan passed away in 2008 my dad e-mailed Mr Martin telling him how much she loved the club and how they had always treated her well. He replied within the hour (baring in mind the e-mail was sent ten o’clock at night) expressing his sympathies and offered my dad to write an obituary for the programme.

These are not the actions of a chairman who doesn’t care. What people have got to understand is that Ron Martin has been unfortunate in what have been unique economic circumstances. No one could have foreseen the banking crisis. The diggers were one week away from moving in and the development of the new stadium could have started to take shape. Then Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. It must be difficult to take, being so close then suddenly having to face unpredictable financial hardship.

If there’s one thing I could have commended Ron Martin with in the past few years it was keeping quiet and letting the football grab the headlines. This season however has been a very different story and it didn’t have to be. His openness has not gone unnoticed but it has been misinterpreted. People have to understand that Ron Martin has had a very difficult season and it’s not all his fault, but Ron Martin has to understand that people don’t need to know everything. If I were Mr Martin I would invest in a PR officer next season.

Finally if we perceive these to be dark days then I say look at Newcastle United and closer to home Norwich City this time last year. Grown men crying at the sight of their once giant club falling to the pits of doom. Now it’s as if it had never happened and if anything they are over-succeeding. I expect us to do the same and although the club looks in financial meltdown it is because of the ambition to get us to a new stadium, which in turn will create a revenue stream from not only gates but also retail, health centres, hotels. This is the only option for us and it will benefit us in the future. So let’s ride this storm, nay, hiccup and hope that one day we can hear Ron Martin say, “I told you I’d never let you down.”