Southend United's Roots Hall

Anyway, we to the ground, after a 40 minute walk from the hotel. The walk took us through what seemed like a rather large town centre. we finally arrived at half 1 and went in the club shop, there was nothing except the programme which took my fancy so we headed to the turnstiles, we were a fair bit early but the stewards and ticket takers were cool and let us in the ground early. In later visits Southend had changed to an electronic gate system, although the gates were so wide open that you could easily sneak someone over if the stewards weren't paying attention.

Infact, we were so early in the ground that we were there before a lot of the stewards were. It was bitterly cold so we went into the make-shift canteen. Down the years this canteen has changed quite a lot and whilst being one of the cheapest places that sells food in the Football League, the room looks like a room that your child would learn it whilst at school.

The ground was fairly average. The away end, despite holding nearly 2700 was fairly poor offering a bad view of the action at the other end of the pitch and numerous posts made it a bit difficult to find a suitable seat to see all of the goal just in front of the stand. Also, the fans were only allowed to fill half the stand and were not permitted to go into the blue section.

The stand to our right looked ready to fall down, not because it looked old but just because it had so many supporting pillars I imagine it's impossible to find a seat anywhere but the first few rows that didn't have a post in the way of your view somewhere. The far stand behind the other goal was fairly similar to the away end of Bradford, infact, it was identical except for the colours and I've only seen Colchester's Layer Road and Southend to have a smaller seating section in a stand than at Southend. The final stand made me thinking that they couldn't make their minds up which colour they want the stand, this was because every section was a different colour and looked very untidy.

The view from the away end is restricted and it's hard to find a seat that doesn't have at least one pillar blocking either goal. With the first five or six rows below pitch height, you don't get an overly good view of the action at the other end of the pitch, and due to the aforementioned pillars it is also difficult to get a decent view of the action down at your end of the pitch. Southend have now also reduced how much of the stand they actually give to fans, limited it to the first two blocks of the away end.

In terms of atmosphere, I've never hard consistent or lengthy singing at Roots Hall, and it has often been restricted to the very rare occasions that have taken the lead against the Imps. The away end does actually have the potential to create a decent atmosphere with an unusually shapped semi-circular roof.

 THE WEST STAND

Overall Southend is ok but it's definitely not one of the best that the league has to offer. Apparently they're getting a new ground at Fossetts Farm soon so let's hope it's better than this. In terms of it's uniqueness then I'd agree it is fairly strange. There aren't many away ends that are divided into two and are two different colours.

I doubt that I would ever come to Southend for a random game, mainly due to the distance, but even if I lived within a 30/40 mile radius, it would still take a lot for me to go there when City weren't playing.

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