Southend United Football Club are delighted to announce Kevin Bond has been appointed the club's permanent manager on a two-year deal.

Bond secured Blues’ League One status in dramatic fashion after Stephen Humphrys’ late goal against Sunderland sent Roots Hall into raptures on the final day of the season in front of a bumper crowd.

Bond took over on a temporary basis on 2nd April and Blues were without a win in 12 matches, with only six games remaining in the 18/19 season.

Kevin galvanised the squad, managing two wins, two draws and two defeats in that spell which was enough to ensure League One football next season and Bond will now take the reins on a full-time basis and begin work in earnest ahead of the 2019/20 season.

His playing career began at Norwich City before he went on to play for Seattle Sounders, Manchester City, Southampton, Bournemouth, Exeter, Sittingbourne and Dover Athletic.

As a distinguished coach, Bond worked under Harry Redknapp in the Premier League as his assistant manager at Portsmouth, Southampton, Tottenham and QPR, while also working at the likes of West Ham, Newcastle United, QPR, Aston Villa and Birmingham City in a coaching capacity and a spell at Bournemouth as manager between 2006 and 2008.

"I couldn’t be more pleased,” said Bond. “I thoroughly enjoyed the last few weeks of the season, although it was a pretty tense experience, and I can’t wait to get started on planning for what we all hope is a bright future for Southend United.

"To a degree when you come in, in difficult circumstances, you’re firefighting a little bit and you haven’t really got enough time to make many changes, so you have to deal with what’s in front of you and put one or two things in place which you think may make a difference.

"Thankfully we got what we needed to get to stay in League One which is great and now we’ve got a longer period of time in order to put things in place which will hopefully move the club forward.

"That work starts right now on the playing staff side and the planning for pre-season.

"This is a really busy part of the season and it’s all about organising this period leading up to the first game of the season.”