Its 48 BC and the Roman leader Julius Caesar is sunning himself by the Nile as he playfully fingers the hair of Egypt’s beautiful Queen Cleopatra. He glances over to his armour, and the little rust peeking through the polished steel reminds him of the cold rainy nights he spent back in England only a few years earlier, leading his Roman Legions, and making alliances with kings such as the King of the Trinovantes. I know I am no George Bernard Shaw, but I was just setting the scene for you. The Trinovantes were a tribe that is known to have lived in Essex, and the Romans are known to have landed there.
Next to a little river known as Prittle Brook, a Roman villa or farmhouse was built, and slowly the village of Prittlewell became established. A thousand years later and the Doomsday, or Domesday survey was made, and St Mary’s Church Prittlewell is mentioned in the book. At the south end of the village, a new town was being established and soon the Church of St Mary The Virgin, became the mother church of Southend. Today, few have heard of Prittlewell, but the town which grew from its south end has become famous among north Londoners, who flock there for their holidays by the sea. Eating candy floss on the pier and fish and chips on the front, or at least they used to before Essex girls and boys started flying out to Ibiza to get their bits out, and dance to music my father would call a “bloody noise”. Have you seen the uncovered programmes on the telly? I’m no prude but I have seen enough sun-tanned south ends to last me a lifetime, but I digress.
Southend swelled, and soon formed a football team, then another, and another. Southend Victoria, Southend Corinthians, Ramblers, Wesleyans and Athletic to name but a few. So, a meeting was called at Prittlewell’s Blue Boar Hotel in May 1906, to form a club that could compete with the bigger boys of football. Prittlewell United was proposed as a name to rival Southend Athletic, but Southend United won the day and the newly elected directors were told to go out and find professional players for the club. It was not long before the semi-professional United left amateurs Athletic in their wake, did you notice the pun, in reference to the sea? I thought not.
So, to the badge and firstly I must thank, Michelle Williams, Southend United Administrator, for her help and details of the badge. In the beginning of Southend’s evolution, the badge they wore, like nearly all clubs at the time was the town’s coat of arms, or at least a part of them. (PIC 1) The shield and the crest are from the arms. The complete arms were granted to Southend in January 1915. (PIC 2) The shield is blue, representing the sea. On this are placed symbols of the old parishes that made up the town in 1915. The lilies and vase, allude to the Virgin Mary, and are for St Mary, Prittlewell. It was originally a Cluniac Priory or medieval monastery. Cluniac is taken from the French town of Cluny, where a Benedictine abbey was founded in 910. The anchor is the symbol of St Clement and the area of Leigh. The gridiron is for St Lawrence, and the trefoil, symbol of the Holy Trinity, is for Southchurch. The crest is a ship’s mast in a mural crown for the historic port of Leigh-on-Sea and the mural crown represents a city wall. The supporters are medieval fishermen and a Cluniac monk. These together with the motto are suggesting the original growth of the town. The motto is “PER MARE PER ECCLESIAM”, and translates from the Latin as By the Sea and by the Church.
The present badge is made up of a shield and a scroll with the club’s name. (PIC 3) The shield is quartered, and in the top-left of the shield three swords, these are from the Essex coat of arms. (PIC 4) The arms were granted in 1932, although they were regarded as the county arms long before then. The swords are in fact sea axes, and alludes to the word Saxon. Essex is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Eastseaxe, or East-Saxon. The Saxon way of life was well established in Essex by the 6th Century. In the top-right quarter is a football, and no prizes for guessing what that means. Bottom-left we have Sammy the shrimp. The club’s nickname is “The Shrimpers”. The Cocklers would be nearer the mark as there are not many shrimps around Southend but plenty of cockles. Poor old Sammy was dropped in the mid-1980s by the club when former chairman Vic Jobson wanted to update the badge, and at the same time have a design that he owned the copyright to, and therefore the royalties. Sammy was replaced with a lion and the football with an anchor. (PIC 5) The lion is a symbol of England and looks to be riding a unicycle, but is more likely playing with a football. The anchor represents Southend’s long history with the sea. But Sammy and the fans were not happy and a mutiny was in the offing, mutiny ha, that pun and reference to a life at sea was not intentional, but none the less funny. The supporters club did continue to use Sammy, and at the start of the 2001 season Sammy retook his rightful place back on the badge, and the badge took its rightful place back on the shirts, and Mr Jobson took his rightful place somewhere else. The wavy lines bottom-right are a better reference to the sea than mine were. 12,392 capacity Roots Hall is the home of Southend United. Colchester United, Leyton Orient, and West Ham are considered rivals. To catch more on “The Shrimpers” cast your nets wide to www.southendunited.co.uk
