Having been following various posts on social media for many a month and in particular the two-page spread and front page headline in Friday’s Echo I am now as concerned as I was ten to 12 months ago about the future of our Southend United.

When the takeover was agreed last year and having attended the ‘get to know the Consortium’ meeting at the Cliffs Pavilion ages ago now, I was feeling pretty reassured that the takeover was fairly imminent and once the consortium was in place everything was looking positive for the club’s future.

When the council gave a favourable response to the deal though subject to the “due diligence” being carried out with a six to eight week expectation of completion at the beginning of this year, we all thought this should be done and dusted months ago.

However we are now told that it isn’t, and that there is no definite date for when it will be done, but it is likely to be after the date of our final court hearing in around five weeks’ time over the unpaid debt to the solicitors who had acted before for the club in previous court appearances.

It seems impossible now for everything to happen in time.

Having read Southend Council leader Daniel Cowan’s comments in the Echo, there are three options for the deal as it stands at Fossetts Farm.

Even if the “due diligence” confirms and recommends acceptance, the council now says they then have to refer to this to their auditors to review everything, to confirm if they are satisfied that everything is in the council’s and taxpayers’ best interests!

So yet more delays even if they also recommend acceptance to the deal!

And I’m afraid that’s the best option!

The other options will delay matters for even longer and then in the worse case, the deal will be completely rejected!

My feeling is that currently the only option therefore to keep the club from going under, is for the solicitors bill to be paid before the court case and as he is still the owner, in my opinion this should be paid for by Ron Martin, not the consortium, who have already generously and riskily invested £3.5million to keep the club afloat without owning even a corner flag!

So Ron do the right and honourable thing and pay it!

As such, and I hate to say it of course, it seems likely that we have already seen our last game at Roots Hall barring a miracle!

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