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Northend Thistle will play a reformed Southend United Team today (Saturday) in front of the television cameras as Sky Sports film them for their Gillette Soccer Saturday programme.
Johnny Phillips from Sky Sports said: ‘The programme I work for – Gillette Soccer Saturday – is a long running Sky Sports show on Saturday afternoon.
‘We are always looking for quirky and interesting stories away from the Premier League and when we heard about Northend Thistle’s plight it was too good an opportunity to miss.
‘Myself and a cameraman will be there and the presenter Jeff Stelling may even read out Saturday’s result on the programme if I ring in with it.
‘The piece will go out some time in September and obviously we’ll stay in touch with the club, monitoring their progress (or lack of it) in future.’
Northend are reputedly the worst team in Britain as they have failed to win a single game in more than 14 years.
However, Southend United who once lost a game 33-0 could already have claimed this coveted position.
An article in The Arran Banner from January 14, 1989 said: ‘Arran’s Cinderella football team, Southend United, always get full marks for trying but no points for defeating their opponents.
‘Their best players tend to be quickly poached by other island teams and the goals against them in each match are often in double figures.’
For years Southend United continued to make headlines in The Banner. On Saturday June 29, 1991 the front page story was dedicated to the team after a 12-year-old Alan Picken accidentally disposed of the team strips.
The Banner said: ‘Last Friday Phyllis Picken was carefully finishing washing the strips in time for the next match and when she was finished she popped them into black plastic bags.
‘She then asked 12-year-old son Alan to run up the road with them to his uncle Eddie who is a star player for Southend United.
‘Nobody was in when Alan reached the house so to make sure Eddie saw them, Alan just left the black bin bag on the wall.
‘However, Eddie was not the first person to come by.
‘Unfortunately that was Tosh the binman who without a thought threw the bag into his lorry.’ That was the end of Southend United’s kit.
Shortly after that there was talk of a dramatic breakaway league with just Southend United and Northend Stags.
United captain George Lammie said at the time: ‘It’s simple. We aspire to winning the league one day and Northend Stags are the only team we can beat.’
Saturday’s game could prove to be an important one for Northend.
