Roots Hall

The ground at Victoria Avenue sits on what used to be a rubbish tip. The contractor who built it, Sid Broomfield, had worked as a groundsman at the club before he took the job on, and the money came from two directions at once: a grant from the Football Association and a fund raised by the Supporters Club. The whole thing cost £73,997. Southend United played Norwich City there on the opening day, 20 August 1955, and the match finished goalless.

What followed was three decades of adding on rather than starting again. The West Stand roof was extended in the 1960s, the South Bank concreted, the East Stand lengthened, floodlights put in. Then the Taylor Report arrived after Hillsborough and the terraces had to go. The West Stand was seated in 1992 using second-hand seats bought from Manchester City; the East Stand followed. In 1994 the old South Bank terrace came down and a two-tier seated stand went up in its place, designed with the involvement of chairman Vic Jobson. A year later the West Stand roof was carried round to meet the North and South, and the north-west corner was fitted with seats.

The stands are another matter. In August 2022 the West Stand became the Gilbert & Rose West Stand; the combination of words drew enough public objection — the association with the serial killer Rose West — that it reverted to Gilbert & Rose Stand, or simply the West Stand. Other stands carry sponsors too.