Southend's marathon has now turned into a sprint for the line for League Two promotion

LIFE BEYOND THE PREMIER LEAGUE: Phil Brown has overseen seven straight wins for Southend United – and eight clean sheets in a row

Southend manager Phil Brown (GETTY IMAGES)

Last Sunday was a big day for Phil Brown and it had nothing to do with his promotion-chasing Southend United side. It was the day of Brown’s first London Marathon and despite hitting the wall at the 21-mile mark, he was able to jog his way to the finish line. “At 55, I did four hours and 37 minutes, which I am very proud of,” he reflects. “For me it is a lifetime achievement to have got over the line at the marathon. I’ve just got to get over the winning line this season now.”

Happily for Brown, who has raised close to £10,000 for charity, there is no sign of Southend’s players hitting the wall – in fact they are the country’s form team. They have won seven straight League Two matches in a perfectly timed sequence which last weekend lifted them into the final automatic promotion place for the first time this season, two points above Bury.

It means that Brown, whose team visit Morecambe on Saturday, stands just one game away from his second promotion as a manager, following his high-profile success in taking Hull City into the Premier League in 2008.

The reason for their success is not hard to find: last Saturday’s 1-0 win over Luton was their eighth consecutive clean sheet. Brown traces this defensive excellence back to an evening in Spain last summer when, as he plotted to bounce back from last season’s play-off semi-final defeat by Burton, he had a reminder of the importance of getting the basics right.

He is not the first person inspired by watching Brazil but, as he tells The Independent, their 7-1 drubbing by Germany offered a different lesson. “I got worried about what happens if you let things go on the training ground – if you don’t give players the right information, that can happen. The players set about their work from that day. Saturday was our 23rd clean sheet so we’ve been seeing benefits for the whole season. It is something I pride myself on, working with back fours and midfields and starting defending from the front. I wouldn’t profess to be the greatest attack-minded coach but I certainly like working on defending and organisation and setting my XI out to be difficult to play against.”

Brown has been at Southend since March 2013 – after a 15-month hiatus following his sacking by Preston – and one of the early jobs for this trained electrician was to “mend a few fuses” in a revamp of the training ground.

“The building was an old nightclub called Boots and Laces,” he said. “It didn’t look like a place of work and we had to change it so we reinvested about 40 to 50 grand.”

He is also thankful to chairman Ron Martin for his investment in a sizeable backroom staff – a priority for a man who was Sam Allardyce’s assistant at Bolton. “The chairman has afforded me the luxury of an assistant manager and first-team coach, which is a rarity at this level. I’ve also got a chief scout and two fitness coaches, which again is a rarity.”

Southend, Brown explains, also benefit from one of League Two’s biggest squads – another factor in their late surge in which goalkeeper Dan Bentley has played a starring role. “He has potentially got a chance to go all the way,” says Brown of the 21-year-old selected in League Two’s PFA team of the year. “Dan has not conceded a goal at Roots Hall for 11 games and he has just broken the club record of eight clean sheets on the bounce.”

Another club record will follow if Southend achieve an eighth straight win at Morecambe but that is not Brown’s priority. “Saturday is not about records – we are one game away from promotion,” he adds, eyes fixed once more on the finish line.