"Great for eating - not great for football!"

facebook-user-36939 has rated Southchurch Park Arena 2.0 out of 5.

facebook-user-36939's review of Southchurch Park Arena

How this place can be classified as a football ground by the Essex Senior League and by the club as an 'arena' is a bit misleading to say the least. The clubhouse I'll grant you is fantastic, Sky TV, nice chairs, cracking kitchen/bar to get drinks. You name it aside from the club house not having a games machine and a snooker table it's got the lot.

Now back to the ground, the pitch is in poor condition. The stand's ok, a few broken seats, but the reason why I hate this ground (not the club or the club house) is that its basically one stand in a park where people can easily get in for free.

Overall though I did enjoy my day there as my team won, however there are a lot of grounds like this so maybe I'm being too over-critical. The football side of the ground is poor but the clubhouse is brill.

Location

Location of the ground is right by the coast, so about 15-20mins walk away from the sea - so thats good, but the fact the ground is located in a park is awful. As was the Essex Senior League and/or Essex FA's decision to host an Essex Senior League Challenge Cup final there as other grounds perhaps were more worthy of hosting a final.

View

The one thing about a crappy ground like this is that because there are no advertising boards and only one stand you can get as close to the pitch as possible.

Facilities

Fantastic facilities, the clubhouse as I mentioned above was great.

Food & Drink

Food and drink - very good, there are some nice shops/good stores 5 mins away and the food I got at the ground was good.

Police & Stewards

As the ground is located inside a park its very hard for the stewards to do their job as efficiently as they could. I at least saw 2-3 people jump over railings and into the ground, but the location of the ground is to blame here not the stewards - who all wear fluorescent yellow jackets to identify them.