PREVIEW | Southend United (H)

THE DETAILS

Wealdstone v Southend United

Vanarama National League

Grosvenor Vale

Monday 30th August, 3:00pm kick-off

TICKETS

Tickets for Saturday's Bank Holiday game are priced at £15 Adults, £10 Concessions and £5 U18s and they MUST be purchased in advance by clicking HERE. Home tickets will be available up until 2PM on Monday 30th August and must be bought in advance online, away tickets sales were handled by Southend United Ticket Office and have now sold out.

Season tickets are also available to collect on the day in The Vale Social Club.

THE CONTEXT

Wealdstone fans get ready for their first 'big' National League game as they face freshly-relegated Southend United at Grosvenor Vale on Bank Holiday Monday. The Shrimpers have had a fairly decent start to life in non-league, winning 1-0 away at King's Lynn Town on the opening day of the season and then being narrowly defeated by title favourites Stockport County 1-0 last Saturday live on BT Sport.

WHAT WAS SAID?

Stuart Maynard: "If we can keep to these performance levels then results will come, they always do in football, you've just got to perform to that high level which the lads are. We need a little bit of luck in that final third and more end product and if we get that then we will give them a surprise.

"We need to fill The Vale, they're bringing 800 fans, we need to make sure our end is full with 2,000 fans and need them as loud as they was at Chesterfield. They was so loud, they competed noise-wise with 5,000 fans. So if we can get 2,000 fans at The Vale and make it rocking and make it a fortress then it will be hostile. It's got to be proper hostile, let's try to get into the ground 40 minutes before kick off so when they go out to do their warm-up it's hostile. We have to make The Vale a place that's hostile and a place that teams do not want to come to."

TEAM NEWS

Zach Dronfield is in the last of his three-game suspension and Connor Stevens remains out with a foot injury. Danny Parish is also unavailable after joining Billericay Town on loan for a month last week.

FORM GUIDE

Stones:

Chesterfield (A) 2-0 L Woking (H) 1-2 L (Umerah)

Hungerford Town (H) 3-1 W (Umerah 2, Lewis)

Watford U23s (H) 3-0 W (Fasanmade, Trialist, Wishart)

Dorking Wanderers (A) 1-2 W (Browne, Fasanmade)

Southend United:

Stockport County (H) 0-1 L King's Lynn Town (A) 0-1 W (Dalby)

Norwich City U23s (H) 2-1 W (Murphy, Bridge)

Ebbsfleet United (A) 1-1 D (Rush) Brentford B (H) 2-3 L (Bridge, Dalby)

WHO TO WATCH FOR?

Nathan Ferguson: Ferguson joined the Shrimpers last January but his performances were not enough to keep Southend in the EFL, notably scoring a 40-yard screamer in a win over Forest Green Rovers in one of his first games. Stones fans will know Ferguson from his time at Dulwich Hamlet in the National League South, where his performances earned him a move to league side Crawley Town in 2019. Returning back to non-league, he will have a point to prove.

HEAD-TO-HEAD

Played - 1

Won - 0

Drawn - 0

Lost - 1

LAST MEETING

Nov 1979 - Stones 0-1 Southend United

SPONSORS

We would like to thank our match sponsors for Monday's game Ray Corner and Peter Carter and also our matchball sponsor for the day Nick Woolford.

Preview by Chris Woods