Angry Southend United shareholders last night demanded the resignation of selected members of the struggling Third Division club's board at an extraordinary scene of events at their Boots and Laces club.

The emergency meeting was called to discuss and rubber stamp the £4 million sale and leaseback of Blues' Roots Hall ground by their new owners Martin Dawn plc, which aims to clear the Seasiders' crippling debts.

Shareholders attending the meeting claimed that members of the current board, who had also served under former chairman Vic Jobson's regime, should stand down for allowing the club to slip £3.85 million into the red.

One disgruntled shareholder said: "These board members should be made to resign after displaying their utter incompetence by allowing the company to trade in an insolvent situation."

Frenzied shouts from the floor called for a vote to decide the future of the accused, namely executive board member John Adams and non-executives John Bridge, Brian Gunner, Bill Kelleway, Michael Markscheffel and Ray Osborne.

However, current Blues chairman John Main intervened by saying: "This is a subject which needs looking at and we will address it."

Main then went on to say that strong feelings against board members would not be allowed to interfere with the club's new rights issue which is planned for the near future to raise desperately needed funds.

"If the planned share issue was to be jeopardised by these board members I'm sure they would step down for the good of the club," he added.

Underfire board member Osborne said: "I'm as gutted as everyone else about this as I am foremostly a Southend fan. However, I will consider my position on the board during the next few weeks."

Main also defended the club's decision to keep Mr Adams, Southend's former chief executive, on the board following Martin Dawn's takeover as majority shareholder last November.

"When we took over at Southend it was important to have some continuity of management," Main explained.

"The amount of litigation still outstanding against the club from people like Ronnie Whelan and Fairclough Homes is still causing us major financial problems.

"Therefore we needed someone on the board like Mr Adams who had knowledge of what had happened with these litigations in the past.

"But it is obvious that there is animosity among fans and shareholders towards Mr Adams which will be discussed amongst the board and dealt with."

However, most of the questions related to the sale of Roots Hall to Martin Dawn's venture partner, property investor Delancey, which will see Southend become tenants of their former home for a maximum of four years.

Following an initial 12 month rent free period, Blues will have to pay a staggering £400,000 a year rent while they seek planning permission to build a new home - funded by Delancey - in Eastern Avenue.

"It is a lot of money I know, but we have no choice if we want to lift this club away from death row and make sure it has a future," said Main.

"We would have liked to have negotiated lower rents and rates with Delancey, we even tried for a 99-year lease, but our current state of affairs didn't give us much bargaining power and we had to make as good a deal as we could.

"But I still believe by completing the sale and lease back of Roots Hall we can refinance the club and get our head's back above water.

"Don't forget we will still receive around £250,000 annual income from Roots Hall market which will pay a sizable chunk of the rent. We may even be able to own our new ground eventually, or at least enter a long term lease agreement."

Main blamed Southend's spiralling debts on ground improvements and new offices at Roots Hall, huge players wages and the loss of revenue commercially and through the gates, which has followed two successive relegations.

"We need to move to a new home to finance ourselves because Roots Hall alone doesn't bring enough money, as has been proved in recent years," he said.

"Football alone can't support a team - for example our wage bill is £1.5 million a year, but our annual gates only fetch £700,000.

"We need to make this money up through other revenue, such as the hotel and leisure facilities which can be part of our new home."

Martin Dawn's position as Southend's major shareholder made the decision to sell Roots Hall a formality, but Main still asked for a worthless show of hands which went 23-20 against cashing in on Blues' home.

Main revealed that once the sale had gone through this week, Blues could technically be given ten-days notice to leave their home if another buyer became interested straight away.

"We have first option to buy back Roots Hall of course, but our notice period is ten days if we can't find the cash," he said.

"This wouldn't realistically happen as Delancey are committed to going all the way with this project and as I have said before this club will never be homeless."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.