We are appealing for your help after seeing our plans for a community corner go up in flames at Roots Hall.

The Trust have spent close to £100,000 into the area of the car park which suffered severe fire damage earlier this week.

"I want to call on the community and businesses to give to the club, to the town and Trust with this. People will look at this being the football club that's been hurt but in reality it's the charity that's been damaged. The irony is we think its youngsters who have broken into the car park and made a fire, but they've destroyed a facility that was to stop them being bored and to get them off the streets." Dale Spiby, CEO.

SUCET have worked hard before the pandemic and during it to put something in place for our community for after the pandemic but that has been ruined now. We hope to raise at least £50,000 to enable the necessary repairs to take place.

Essex and Southend Sports Trust (EASST) have agreed to match donations made by the public up to the sum of £25,000 (including Gift Aid), in a bid to help re-build Community Corner.

We recognise the work Southend United Community and Educational Trust do and how they are a major community asset. I implore people to dig deep and support the organization in their hour of need. Peter Butler, Chairman of EASST

We had already launched seven initiatives in the now ruined area including gym sessions, traineeships and schemes to tackle loneliness and mental health issues.

The corner of the car park was also to act as a fan engagement area on matchdays with live music, gaming stations, wellbeing sessions and birthday packages.

Those plans are now back to square one.

We've spent the last two years building a facility that is equipped to moving us forward after the pandemic. We wanted to use that area seven days a week as a community facility and have something going on there every day. We wanted to get local singers in and make it a great area on matchdays for fans to create a good atmosphere too.

It would make for much better experience for everyone and this is a real blow.

We estimate we've put around £100,000 into the area in the past two years and it was almost ready to go. We were about to put the Astroturf down and it was ready so we're really disappointed.

Staff from Southend United Community & Educational Trust (SUCET) have decided to take part in a sponsored cycle to support the donations made for the Community Corner re-build.

They have decided to pledge their support by cycling 500km in five days, which is the equivalent of travelling from Southend to Dundee.

Many will be wearing fancy dress costumes in an attempt to earn more sponsorship for their efforts. Persons are encouraged to sponsor individual staff members or the staff team as a whole.

We are determined to get the area back to what it was but its going to take a lot of work and a lot of help.