Roots Hall

Sunday 15 September 2013

Southend United 0-1 Scunthorpe United

Aerial shot of Roots Hall (Bing Maps)

The Isle of Sheppey in the distance

Southend Pier

The Thames Estuary

North Stand

The aging exterior of Roots Hall

One of the four floodlight pylons towering over Roots Hall

West Stand

Looking down on Roots Hall from Roots Hall Drive

East Stand

South Stand

West Stand

Clubshop

North Stand

West Stand

South Stand

North Stand

West Stand

South Stand

A hole in the East Stand roof which Adrian noticed when the rain came down!

North Stand

West Stand

South Stand

North Stand

West Stand

South Stand

West Stand

North Stand

South Stand

West Stand

North Stand

Southend United 0-1 Scunthorpe United
Both Adrian and I found the international break far too long to cope without the Football League. We therefore decided to head to Roots Hall for our fix of Friday Night Football, Southend United vs Scunthorpe United!
Both teams only a few years ago were playing at their peak in the Championship yet now find themselves in the basement division of the Football League.
We decided to make a full day of groundhopping and set off at 8am.
With a plan in mind, we made our first stop at 9:30am where we visited the newly built Rowley Park, home of St Neots Town.
Positioned in the middle of a new housing estate, Rowley Park proved to be difficult to photograph with the ground being completely locked up and no one around.
Not too far away just down the Old North Road is a small town called Royston who of course like most towns have a football team!
Royston Town play at the rather quaint Garden Walk which appears to be surrounded by trees and the stands are built out of wood giving the ground an overall forest look.
Only a brief journey down the M11 before we reached Bishop's Stortfords' Woodside Park where we were let in by the club operations manager, John Turner, who also told us that the club spent £20,000 on coaches last year to transport the team around the Conference North yet predict to only spend £8,000 this season being in the Conference South!
Our last stop before lunch at Sainsbury's in Harlow was Harlow Town who play at the modern Barrows Farm.
Harlow Town famously beat Leicester City (to our despair) in the FA Cup 3^rd round in 1980.
Barrows Farm has a 3G pitch which can be hired out to people with profit going back into the club!
A member of staff who kindly let us in to explore Barrows Farm told us that there was a film being filmed there the day before called ‘What’s the Score?’ which is a football comedy (similar to Mike Bassett England Manager) staring numerous football stars including Tony Cottee and Chris Kamara!

Following lunch, we headed towards Braintree where we suddenly found a non league ground on the way!

Takeley compete in the Essex Senior League and play at the locked up Station Road which again proved to be tricky to photograph whilst the driving rain came down on us.
We continued our journey and found ourselves in Braintree not long after.
Set back amongst the flat roofed houses of Clockhouse Way, is the well hidden Amlin Stadium home of Braintree Town where we were kindly let in by a member of staff in order to take some photos.

Next we took the winding roads towards East Thurrock United’s Rookery Hill which proved to be tricky to photograph being locked up.

By quarter to four, we were on Canvey Island at Concord Rangers’ Thames Road which is bizarrely situated amongst the Thorney Bay caravan site. Upon our arrival, we could smell gas which may have been leaking from a neighbouring caravan.... DON’T LIGHT A MATCH!!

Even though Thames Road was locked up, the low wall made it easy to photograph unlike the previously visited St Neots Town and East Thurrock United.

With Adrian and I getting slightly light headed with to the smell of Calor Gas, we travelled no more than 5 minutes before reaching our next stop, Canvey Island.

We noticed an open gate and decided to go in. Even with the sudden downpour, it didn’t stop us capturing our moment at Park Lane. We took a few photos from the TV gantry which towered over the low lying island before being kindly shown round the ground by groundsman Dave Leigh.

With all nine stop complete, we drove to the Essex Riviera, Southend –on-Sea where we ate our sandwiches (bought earlier from Sainsbury’s in Harlow) on the misty seafront.

Once we finished our sandwiches (plus being left a nice present by a few seagulls on the car!), we drove up towards Roots Hall and parked on a road not too far away called Burr Hill Chase (nicely parked for our quick journey back up the A127).

From there we walked up to Roots Hall to take some photos of the exterior of the ground.

We noticed, like at Canvey Island, an open gate so we did the correct thing by asking a steward, unfortunately we chose a steward who didn’t know. We then decided to walk in and noticed a groundsmans who we asked if we could take a few photos inside the ground, to which he kindly gave us permission.

With the start of another downpour, buy our programmes and take cover in the Blue Boar pub on Victoria Avenue!

By the time we read our programmes and had a pint, we were bone dry and ready to walk back to Roots Hall and go into the ground.

Roots Hall was built in the early 1950’s and hasn’t changed much since then! The ground remained the youngest in the Football League until the opening of Scunthorpe United's Glanford Park in 1988. The construction of Roots Hall had not been completed when the ground was opened, with some stands only running for a short distance along the touchline whilst others were still not finished.

The west bank roof, originally set back from the pitch, was extended forwards to the touchline creating a double-barrel effect, whilst work also commenced on finishing the terracing.

The job was finally finished in 1964; after all 72 steps of the giant south bank had been concreted. The East stand was extended in both directions so it ran the full length of the touchline in 1966, and around the same time the club installed floodlighting.

During the mid-1980s, the club were struggling financially. In an effort to keep the club afloat, most of the South bank was sold off, and eventually the remainder was replaced in 1994 by a small two tiered all-seater stand. All this came after the west and east stands saw work in 1992, when the west bank was turned into an all-seated stand and the paddocks in the east had seating attached. The final stage of development at the Hall came in 1995, when the west stand roof was extended at either end to meet the south and north stands, with seating being installed in the north-west corner of the ground. Southend United plans to leave Roots Hall to a proposed new ground at Fossetts Farm.

With the pouring rain coming down (mainly on Adrian’s head due to a hole in the roof!), the game wasn’t the most entertaining that myself and Adrian have ever seen.

For major parts of the game, both sides were evenly matched and a goal was almost a doubt with the heavy rain now affecting the pitch.

Out of nowhere, a Scunthorpe cross swung in from the left was bizarrely headed by the Southend defender into six yard box where Chris Iwelumo neatly nodded home.

After the game we didn’t mess around. We left the ground quick in the pouring rain and even running the short distance back to the car, we got completely saturated!

In no time, we were travelling out of Southend on the A127. Once we got on the M25 anti clockwise, we noticed there were delays on the M25 (possible accident), we therefore chose to take the alternative route up the M11and A14. We eventually got home at 12:30pm and both exhausted yet really enjoyed our full day of groundhopping!

Thank you to the staff at Bishop's Stortford, Harlow Town, Braintree Town, Canvey Island and even Southend United for letting us explore their grounds which made our trip really enjoyable!