SOUTHEND United midfielder Will Atkinson compared his goalscoring exploits to waiting for a bus after he bagged a brace in Saturday’s 3-0 win against Bradford City.

Atkinson had gone 31 games and nine months without hitting the back of the net for Blues.

But he scored twice in quick succession against his former side at Roots Hall and could not contain his delight at the final whistle.

“To beat Bradford convincingly like that was really good and for me personally it was like waiting for a bus,” said Atkinson, 28.

“I’ve been waiting all season to get a goal and now two have come along at once which feels really good.

“It’s a really important victory for us against a team who are flying in the league and it was another really good performance.

“This is certainly right up there with my favourite wins I’ve had at Southend.”

However, the afternoon was nearly even sweeter for Atkinson as only a goal-line clearance from James Meredith stopped him from scoring a hat-trick.

“I very nearly had three goals and the chance for the third was probably the easiest one I had,” said Atkinson, who last scored twice in a game back in December 2009 while with Rochdale.

“I tried to reverse the shot into the corner but there was a player on the line who got to it. I thought it was in and was almost up and away celebrating.

“My shirt was going to come off and everything but I’m happy to take two goals.”

Atkinson also insisted scoring against Bradford - who he left in 2013 to join Blues after a delay in being offered a new contract - did not give him extra satisfaction.

But he enjoyed marking the occasion with a mannequin challenge style celebration, “When I scored it didn’t even cross my mind it was against a former team of mine and there was no way I wasn’t going to celebrate,” said Atkinson.

“We tried to recreate the mannequin challenge after the first one but I’m not too sure what it looks like or what Anthony Wordsworth was trying to do in it either.

“It was a bit of fun but we had to make sure we won after doing a silly celebration like that.

“Thankfully we did but I had a really good time with Bradford even though things didn’t really work out in the end so it wasn’t anything against them.

“But I came to Southend after that and I’m always going to celebrate scoring for them.”

Atkinson’s efforts moved the Shrimpers up to ninth in the League One table and made it six League games without defeat. And the energetic midfielder is delighted to have helped Blues recover from a shaky start to the season.

“It was hard when things weren’t going for us,” said Atkinson.

“We were in early some mornings. We had long video meetings and things weren’t going our way. Obviously they are now and that’s credit to the manager, his staff and all the boys. We want to ride this wave for as long as we can.”