Martin’s inability to secure the club’s move from Roots Hall, its home since 1955, into a new ground on the Fossetts Farm site half a mile away is the primary factor behind Southend’s perpetual crisis that has been exacerbated by back-to-back relegations and the devastating financial impact of the pandemic. Southend’s ongoing stadium limbo is at the centre of the crisis. “It takes an enormous toll on people’s mental health and their time but we do it because the thought of not having the club is so unpalatable.” “There is a very real possibility that if we don’t start building in June that we’ll be in this same situation over the summer and we’ll have to do it all again,” Liam Ager, co-editor of the All At Sea fanzine, tells i. Things have become so bleak that fans have explored the option of starting a phoenix club, with documentation already drawn up. Since 2000, the club has faced 20 winding-up petitions, 10 in the last eight years and each time a historic community institution has been pushed closer to oblivion. Southend’s recent survival would be comforting for fans if the likelihood of it happening again wasn’t so grimly predictable. He is believed to have secured a £5m bridging loan in order to settle the debt. Like a university student pulling a Red Bull-fuelled all-nighter in the campus library, Martin eventually handed in his paperwork. Anna Firth, MP for Southend West, described it as the club’s “D-Day”. On 28 February, Southend confirmed that a £1.4m debt to HMRC had been paid a day before a winding-up hearing at the High Court was due to take place. Martin, meanwhile, has presided over a dramatic decline in which Southend have dropped out of the EFL for the first time in over a century and up until 10 days ago, been on the brink of collapse. Since buying Wrexham for £2m in February 2021, Reynolds and McElhenney have commissioned a money-spinning Disney Plus documentary series, attracted big-name sponsors like TikTok, significantly enhanced the club’s global brand, massively expanded its reach on social media, invested in infrastructure and assembled the best squad outside the EFL. In the blue corner, is Ron Martin, a 70-year-old businessman whose popularity in the seaside city has plummeted during the most turbulent period in the club’s 117-year history. In the red corner, there is Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, the Hollywood duo beloved in north Wales for reinvigorating a stagnant football club and revitalising the community around it. Wrexham and Southend may occupy the same division, but they operate in completely different worlds. It’s a fixture between two historic clubs, both of whom are far more accustomed to playing in the Football League than in non-league, and one that brings into sharp focus two extremes of football club ownership. National League leaders Wrexham will host play-off chasing Southend United at the Racecourse Ground on Saturday, weather permitting.
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