Southend United's Neil Harris: York City will present us a tough test (From Echo)

Southend United's Neil Harris: York City will present us a tough test

5:00pm Thursday 25th October 2012 in Sport By Southend United striker Neil Harris

IT’S York City at home for us this weekend and they’re a side who have been doing well this season.

They have momentum behind us after winning promotion from the Conference and got a great result at Accrington on Tuesday night.

We will need to do our homework properly in the build up to the game because there will be a few players we haven’t faced before.

But I know the team will be fired up after a very disappointing result against Aldershot.

We started badly, conceding an early goal, and never really got into the game. However, I thought the main positive of the night was the performance of midfielder Alex Woodyard. He was brave and also did well on the ball. He made the odd mistake, but that will happen because he’s a young lad learning his trade at this level.

We certainly don’t have a problem with that in the dressing room and I think Woody’s shown he has a bright future in the game.

Unfortunately, I’m still struggling with my knee injury and the injection I had hasn’t sped things up the way we were hoping. I’m finding it hard to twist and turn and we’re now going to go down a different route.

I’ve had a good couple of days and hopefully things will keep on progressing because it’s very frustrating not being able to play.

PFA DO CARE ABOUT RACISM

BEING on the PFA management committee I am fully aware that racism in football is something which remains right at the top of the agenda.

Progress has been made in the past 20 years or so but so much more can still be done.

There have been high profile cases lately involving John Terry and Luis Suarez which have been damaging for the game and Jason Roberts has been very outspoken about his thoughts in the past week.

He’s been backed by the Ferdinand brothers who also decided not to wear the Kick It Out T-shirts at the weekend.

That’s an individual decision and I can certainly understand their concerns.

But, having been at Millwall for 11 years, I know how much is being done to make things better and how far we have come.

We do need to keep progressing and doing even more but I know that the PFA take this matter very seriously indeed and will always support the players involved.

MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT HALL'S DEPARTURE

RYAN Hall has now moved on to Leeds after a well documented few months.

Hallsy is a very good player and there has never been any doubts about his football ability.

Off the pitch, he wasn’t always as professional as he should have been but hopefully going to Leeds will help him get the discipline he should have had in place with Southend.

He has a second chance to prove himself in the Championship now and good luck to him because he's someone I always enjoying playing alongside.

FULL COLUMN IN THURSDAY'S ECHO