Well, first up it's a big thankyou and welcome back to my two reporters, RowZ and Cobra, who have both contributed match reports from Southend. I'm looking forward to reading their accounts over the season as we push for promotion... or whatever the next nine months may bring.Winning at Southend has to be the perfect way to start the season, and the Evening Echo (the Shrimpers' local paper) was kind enough to send us one surplus copy in the bundle for my son's delivery round, so I got to read their somewhat biased reports. Thornton came in for some stick for his "antics" (translation: falling over when he got kicked) and Tilson accused him of diving for the full 90 minutes. Managed to stay on his feet for our equaliser though, Steve! To be fair to the Echo they did give Thornton a rating of 8/10 (equal top rating with Jamal Campbell-Ryce) so he must have impressed their reporter a bit.As for the red card, I've watched the video several times, and can't see anything wrong with the decision. OK, Thornton didn't exactly try too hard to stay on his feet, but the challenge was rash and unnecessary, and shows that McCormack has learned nothing since we had him on loan. I wonder what Tilson will be saying to him in private, when he doesn't have to put a positive slant on the incident for his own fans? posted by MSW 8:45 pm . . .
