Southend joins 2018 World Cup bidding

The Southend Afternoon Echo Sportsdesk can exclusively reveal that Southend has made a dramatic late bid to become a 2018 World Cup host city.

The ambitious plan will make use of Southend United's state of the art new stadium at Fossetts Farm, which is due to be completed in 2019.

The bid is seen as the centre-piece in making Southend a modern sports metropolis. It also follows hot on the heels of news that Hadleigh will host the Olympics and Essex County Cricket Club will play their matches at Garons Park whilst the County Ground in Chelmsford is being redeveloped.

To support the bid, the town has rolled out a whole host of former world cup stars with links to the town, such as Efetobore Sodje (Nigeria), Mike Lapper (USA) and Ronnie Whelan (Ireland).

A Southend 2018 official offered an insight into the depth of planning that has gone into the bid: "the plan is to have Ronnie propping up the bar chatting to delegates who like a tipple; Efe will go round grinning and glad-handing; whilst Mike Lapper is to don a pair of plastic tits to neutralise the Gazza effect [Paul Gascoigne is a Newcastle-Gateshead bid ambassador]. We're pretty confident, after all we've got the Olympics and three first class cricket grounds [Garons Park, Southchurch Park and Chalkwell Park] in the town, so a football world cup is the next logical step."

With Hollywood and Southend legend Andy Ansah lending his expertise to the promotional video and thick-lipped, cockney twat and part-time chef, Jamie Oliver, who was born in Southend, promising not to get involved, signs are looking good for the 2018 bid.

Echo Exclusive: Planning Permission Granted for New Stadium

The Southend Afternoon Echo can today exclusively reveal the exact same story that we posted a couple of months ago.

As there is no news (thefts from sheds are down) and we need to fill our pages, we were going to re-run a negative story, but thought that would appear churlish in light of our recent spat with Ron Martin.

So instead of rehashing a story that an access road still hadn't been sorted out yet (without mentioning the possibility of a compulsory purchase order) that would make it sound as if the whole new stadium project - and with it the future of Southend United - was under threat, we've instead decided to concentrate on the positives and remind everyone that planning permission has been granted. Hoorah!



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