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TBV_Dan

Supporting The Blue Voice
This weeks 'Revelling It In'

Just when you thought you’d heard the last of it, history repeats itself. After not scoring for eight months of the season and then notching a few weeks ago, you could be forgiven in thinking that you’d be safe from another version of ‘The Goalscoring Exploits of Alan McCormack’ (I think it’s got mileage as a cure for insomnia!) until at least next season, but no, it had to happen again didn’t it!!

Needless to say I’ve been making excuses not to visit Boots and Laces this week as after I spent all of Saturday night listening to the Irishman waffle on I knew it would be bad come Monday. We’d gone to watch our friend cage fight in Southend and by about nine o’clock I was going to get into the cage with him just to find a means to shut him up!

One person who is safe from any Macca related torture is Clark Masters who is still putting the fear of God into the lads. This was highlighted last week when in training, Lee Barnard lobbed him followed by Jeff doing it to, causing the gaffer to give Sid (a helper at Boots and Laces) the nod and Sid subsequently went about boarding up all of the windows at the training ground. This was no mean feat on two counts, one, and those of you who have been to the training ground will testify, Boots and Laces is predominately made up of glass including the roof, and two, Sid is about 185 years old!!!

Rumour has it that the gaffer would have asked Parms (the Kit Man) to help out but he was too busy playing ‘Cuppy Doubles’ with the youth team to do anything that his day job entails.

Speaking of Lee Barnard, I’m afraid that as a result of the KIA’s national exposure due to Lee’s interview in The Sun, and ridicule he and his friends have thrust upon me, I’ve had to sell it. Apparently the car was ‘too masculine’ as apposed to Lee’s hairdresser mobile, so to blend in with Lee and the rest of the lads I’ve had to get rid of her.

As you’ll know from hearing me whinge about how frustrating my injury has been, you find yourself clinging on to anything that remotely makes you smile, and I can safely refer to something that happened last week as being one of the best sights I’ve seen for a while.

Last Thursday we had a lad called Ewan train with us as part of a prize that his wife had won for him. He took part in the session which at the end included our crossbar challenge, where lads take it in turns to hit the bar from the edge of the area, with the last person to do so having to wash the entire squad and management’s boots as a forfeit.

As the lads walked over to the edge of the area to set up for the challenge I saw the joy on Captain Barrett and a few others lads’ face as they lined up alongside amateur performer Ewan, who would surely be washing everyone else’s boots in ten minutes time.

Imagine my joy when ten minutes later I walked outside to see Captain Barrett scrubbing everybody’s boots, including Ewan’s who had actually been the first lad to hit the bar!

Needless to say I went straight round to Ricky Duncan’s lot and got them to throw their boots into the pile along with my flip flops, and even the ‘moon boot’ got a scrubbing, although I let Adam off dubbing it!

On Monday I heard the news that youth team player Craig Calver had been given a professional contract and I’d like to take this moment to congratulate him. At the Club we are pretty close with the young players and we all know how well he’s done this season in the youth and for the reserves and well done to him.

Commiserations also go out to the lads who were not given pro deals and I wish them luck in finding a Club to fulfil their dream at. I have no doubt it was one of the worst things possible for them to hear, but such is the quality of coaching at the Club that they should all have ample ability to make it elsewhere and I hope they do so.

Speaking of ability I’d like to single out Franno’s (Simon Francis) performance on Saturday which I thought was immense. On Saturday he showed what he is really about and the good news is that performances like that put a lot of pressure on future team selections which can only be a good thing, especially at this time of the season.

Whilst Simon played well I thought the lads all put a good stint in on Saturday against a team who are no doubt underachieving this season compared to last, and whilst it wasn’t vintage football they never really looked like breaking us down and I thought it was a solid show all around.

I thought the crowd was fantastic on Saturday and really boosted everyone there, especially as the glimmer of sunshine usually draws people to the Southend Riveria so thanks for taking the time out to come down to Roots Hall to get behind the guys, it was really appreciated.

On Monday the whole of the first team went for a team bonding meal down at a place called ‘Blue Banana’ on the seafront. There were two points of note that came out of the experience for me:

  • The restaurant boasts to have some of the finest fish dishes in the whole of Essex, so James Walker went and ordered burger and chips for his main course! As a result he’ll never be invited to Chez Revell when it opens in the future until he changes his eating habits!
  • I was coming back from the toilet when I noticed that Clark ‘Caveman’ Masters’ fish was still moving, and looked a little undercooked. When I asked the waitress why this was, she said that when she asked Clark how he wanted his fish he replied with ‘swimming’! Not only this, Clark eats an abnormal amount of food so he wasn’t full up after his main course, which was relatively unsurprising. What was surprising however was when he got up from his seat, he jumped straight into the Thames and tried to catch his next meal like you see those bears doing with salmon in the documentaries!
On the subject of food someone asked me the other week whether Granty (Anthony Grant) actually ate anything because he was so skinny. So to stop that person worrying I made sure that Granty ate all of his meal on Monday, although it doesn’t take much doing to get half a bowel of plankton down your neck!


Due to Monday my ‘dish of the week’ has a fishy theme to it:

‘Smoked haddock with Mediterranean vegetables and canary potatoes’ – the perfect summer dish!

Take care, and hope to see you all soon.

Up the Blues!

Revs
 
Last edited:
This week's installment, love the bit about Macca's shot at the burger bar! :)



Revelling In It

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Good news, things are officially looking up. Yesterday I had the dreaded visit to the specialist to see how my injury was holding up, and thank God he gave me the thumbs up as I was running out of things to cross!

So now I’ve officially lost the moon boot and can now walk unaided which is the biggest visual proof of any progress I’ve made since the injury. Saying that, my joy was short lived when I saw my new training plan back at Boots and Laces. I then pleaded with the hospital to give me the boot back!

On a serious note it means a lot to have been given the all clear to progress and anyone who has injured themselves before will vouch that in order to get back to full fitness you gauge yourself and set mini-goals, and this is the first one I’ve hit.

It also means I’ll be well and truly back in the banter loop with the lads as I’ll get to spend more time at Boots and Laces, and I’ve missed this side of things almost as much as not kicking a football.

More banter equals more blog content and as they seem to be coming round thick and fast at the minute this can only be a good thing. I’ve said it before but if anyone has any comments or any issues you’d like me to talk about then email them to the Club (email marketing@southend-united.co.uk ) and I’ll see what I can do.

Some of you won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve upset Lee Barnard this week as his dad read last weeks article and wisely informed his son of my comments about his ‘hairdresser’ car. We ended up having words about this and Lee explained that he found it very practical and by being a convertible it gave him more space to transport things on the back seat. This got me thinking and I actually agree with Barney on this one, after all, those perming units he must carry around with him to do Ian Joyce’s hair are quite sizeable!

Good results bring good rewards as the lads found out when the gaffer gave them the whole weekend off after the result on Friday night. As a result Captain (and SUFC ambassador I must add) Barrett went off to Center Parcs with the family for an enjoyable weekend. However, I don’t think the gaffer found it very enjoyable when he got a phone call from the Manager of Centre Parcs on Sunday morning saying that there was a middle aged man in SUFC speedo’s pushing kids out of the way to get on to the flume, and as his legal guardian (or at least that’s what Adam put on the forms) the gaffer had to go and pick him up!

On the field, last Friday’s result against Hartlepool was again encouraging and whilst Saturday’s results didn’t really go our way rest assured we’ll give it our all until it is mathematically impossible to reach the Play-Offs this season.

I thought the game contained some decent strikes, especially Franck’s fantastic goal, and not forgetting Barney’s expertly placed penalty between the keeper’s fingers!

Whilst the game should have been over by half time, the Hartlepool lads came out second half and gave one of the best 10 man performances I’ve seen by a side and they deserve a lot of credit for it. Saying that, it’s the overall result which matters most, especially at this point of the season, and I think we were fully worthy of the three points in the end.

It’s good to see that Macca’s still got that eye for goal he’s been rabbiting on about recently, as those of you who witnessed his forty yard effort will testify to. I thought he showed great technique and was very unlucky not to hit the target with his execution of the shot – that is if the burger kiosk in the Family Stand was the target!

There’s also a rumour going around that the two physio’s at the Club are taking bets on how many times Granty (Anthony Grant) goes down injured during the game, and it was surprising to see that he remained on his feet far more than normal last week. It was also nice to see him last the whole game without getting cramp, clearly eating three meals a day is really benefiting him!

In what’s turning out to be the special mention corner of Revelling In It, I’d like to make a special mention to Mark Coshever of Essex Car Rentals. The other week Macca, Adam Barrett and I went to watch Mark fight in a charity boxing match for Little Havens in Leigh-on-Sea. I know Mark had trained hard building up to the fight with help from the Eurofitness gym in Basildon and raised a tremendous amount of money for the charity in the process. You can never do enough for any charity so anyone who takes time out especially to do something extra special for them deserves a lot of appreciation.

Another shout out, and this one goes to Macca’s friend Dan who, when we all turned up and heard the news that one fighter had pulled out, volunteered to fight in their place if we all gave £100 to Little Havens. Now Dan has absolutely no boxing experience at all so to volunteer to do this for charity was very valiant, although he might regret it now as last thing I heard was that he was having facial reconstruction surgery after walking on to one of the hardest punches I’ve ever seen, worst of all, it was the first punch of the bout!!

So here it is, dish of the week time:

‘Homemade bolognaise pizza’ – simply substitute the tomato puree layer with bolognaise sauce, and use mince as a topping, enjoy!

Take care, and hope to see you all soon.

Up the Blues!

Revs
 

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