Southend to play in stilettos

The Southend Afternoon Echo Sportsdesk can exclusively reveal that Southend United will be playing against Port Vale in stilettos. The revelation follows the success of the white socks that were introduced to give the team a more authentic "Essex look".

Now the club are taking it one stage further by combining it with stilettos. As boss Paul Sturrock explained*: "the stiletto is even more associated with Essex than white socks, plus they give more grip than studded boots."

"As Anthony Grant seems to have trouble standing up in boots, we're hoping he can stop bruising himself when he falls to the floor every time he's tackled, by wearing stilettos.

The 6 inch heels should give more purchase than the usual studs he wears, and will make tackling more interesting. I'm looking forward to it."

The club is also apparently looking at playing around a couple of Alan McCormack's old discarded handbags.



* Please note the Southend Echo Sportsdesk accepts no liability over the accuracy of any Paul Sturrock's statements. To be honest we might as well make it all up, because we haven't got a clue what he's saying either, but he doesn't half say it in a lovely Scottish accent.

Refs refuse to apologise

The referees for last Saturday's game against Oldham and Tuesday night's trip to Brentford have controversially refused to follow the precedent set by Mick Russell, of apologising for a diabolical performance.

Earlier this season Russell was man enough to admit that he got three critical decisions wrong in Southend's 2-1 defeat at Swindon when he sent off Jean-Francois Christophe for being hacked, missed two blatant fouls in the build up to Swindon's first goal and then turned down a penalty for a clear foul of Franck Moussa.

However referee Keith Hill lived up to his reputation with an overly fussy performance in which football was only occasionally allowed to punctuate the constant flow of the referee's whistle. He then capped off a typically inept display with a controversial penalty. On-lookers suggested that Hill, who suffers from the disability of being crap, may have been blinded by Oldham's radioactive kit.

Oldham manager Dave Penney defended Oldham's kit saying that he designed it himself and you try coming up with a better one (including a goalkeepers' shirt) in 5 minutes using just highlighter pens.

Keith Hill's guide-dog was unavailable for comment.

God knows what the excuse for Tuesday night's ref was though.