Southend chief ’embarrassed’ by Rose West controversy and will change renamed stand

Southend United chairman Ron Martin has confirmed the club will rename the recently rebranded ‘Gilbert and Rose West Stand’.

The Blues were left red faced when fans noticed that one of their stadium’s recently renamed stands featured ‘Rose West’ as part of its new guise.

Southend, who now play their football in the National League, sold the naming rights of the West Stand to local estate agents Gilbert and Rose, and the unfortunately juxtaposition led to unwanted media attention on the club.

West is one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers after she and her Husband, Fred West, were charged with the murder of at least nine women between 1973 and 1987. Rose is currently serving a life sentence in prison.

After initially stating they had no intention of changing the unfortunately named stand at Roots Hall, the club has since performed a U-turn.

Chairman Ron Martin has admitted to talkSPORT he has been left ’embarrassed’ by the situation and confirmed what the Shrimpers will change it to.

Speaking on White and Jordan, Martin said: “It’s not the most advisable thing, it is unfortunate.

“I suspect that the Gilbert And Rose are delighted with the press that they’re getting but it’s not good for the club.

“I suspect that the people in our commercial department were not born at the time of that tragedy and so I guess that’s why that’s happened.

“To be fair, it should have been picked up by the senior management, it wasn’t, and it came to my attention the night before last and we’re changing the name of the stand to ‘The West Stand sponsored by Gilbert And Rose’.

“I spoke to Tom Lawrence, the CEO, about it and we’re definitely going to change it.

“We’re probably not going to change the season cards as that’s probably an unnecessary expense unless people really want us to revisit that. They’ve been issued so we don’t really want to reissue 3000 season cards again.

“We’ll certainly change the name of the stand it won’t be as is being construed at the moment.”

He added: “It is unfortunate and really disappointing, but these things happen.

“My apologies go to everybody and we will get it changed.”

Asked if he feels embarrassed, he said: “I do, actually.

“I’m not based at the club day-to-day so operationally I’m not seeing those things come across my radar. If it had done, it would never have happened.

“That’s not a criticism of Tom Lawrence, he’s a great guy and doing a really good job but nevertheless it should have been picked up and it wasn’t.

“I am embarrassed and I think it’s really disappointing.”