SOUTHEND United is often surrounded by more drama than most football clubs.

But even by the Shrimpers own standards it has simply been an extraordinary few days with Phil Brown, Ron Martin and Stan Collymore all taking centre stage.

Towards the start of the week, Blues were beaten by local rivals Colchester United in a game Brown labelled the biggest in the club’s entire history.

And the setback made a first ever relegation from the Football League seem somewhat inevitable.

But since then Brown has slammed the way the U’s celebrated their derby day success and also revealed details of a training ground bust up he was personally buoyed by.

However, there was still more to come as soon former Shrimpers star Collymore emerged insisting he was desperate to help his old side.

The ex forward held a refreshing 90 minutes chat with Blues fans outlining just how and why he was willing to help before chairman Martin brought out a statement of his own which bizarrely mentioned how he previously attempted to appoint Mick McCarthy as manager.

Collymore has since withdrawn and then reignited his offer of support either side of the matchday against Leyton Orient, which was not short of drama either.

The afternoon got underway with close to 200 fans protesting against under-fire chairman Martin before Brown brought Blues’ whole matchday squad out to see and speak with the supporters gathering in the car park.

After all of that, it was easy to momentarily forget a match was also taking place.

But Blues dug deep to secure a 2-1 win and, with Barrow losing at Tranmere Rovers, Southend live to fight another day.

The Shrimpers sit five points behind Barrow with two games to go and relegation will be confirmed tomorrow night if Barrow avoid defeat at play-off chasing Forest Green Rovers.

Blues will be hoping that result can also go their way before they make the long journey to relegation rivals next weekend.

And Southend will be heading to Holker Street on the back of a far more positive performance as Brown secured his first victory since returning to Roots Hall earlier this month.

Second from bottom Southend went into the weekend with just one victory in their last 12 games during a winless run which had also seen them fail to hit the back of the net in nine of those outings.

To further underline Blues’ weaknesses and woes, they had also gone seven home games without a single goal.

With all that in mind, the Shrimpers are suddenly not going to start turning on the style and the heart-breaking decline at Roots Hall is going to take quite some time to turn things around.

Put simply, the side is not good enough and the League table, as they say, never lies.

But there were at least signs of spirit on Saturday and, especially in the second half, Blues looked far more of a threat in the final third.

Subsequently, the hosts were able to secure all three points and, in a rare moment of glee this season, it was fantastic to see Matt Rush secure all three points with the first senior goal of his career.

Rush has long been highly rated by the youth coaches at Roots Hall and boasted an incredible scoring record at junior levels.

However, making that jump into first team football can often prove problematic where forwards are concerned.

In recent times, the likes of Jason Williams and Norman Wabo have not been able to take their scoring form onto the senior stage.

But Rush has always been a clever player and fully deserved the opportunity which came his way at the weekend.

The strikers who had gone before him had certainly not been finding form in front of goal so it was long overdue to look elsewhere.

Rush will now be pushing for more opportunities to help Blues build on Saturday’s success but relegation remains odds on.

The Shrimpers have not won three games in succession in September 2018.

But, as we have seen in the past seven days, when have we ever been able to predict just what will happen in the wacky world of Southend United!