An emotional night for Harris

 

When former Millwall scoring legend Neil Harris finally signed for his hometown club after years of rumours it was the signing of the summer for many of the Shrimpers faithful.

 

It's taken him a while to get going, an annoying groin injury not helping, but the partnership with top scorer Liam Dickinson seems to have got Bomber flying in the right direction and he finally broke his duck with the final goal in the 4-0 away win against Rotherham United on September 25th.

 

Then, as Southend were handed another spot kick in stoppage time of the Friday evening game against Shrewsbury that was to take them to the top of League Two and already two up, it seemed that Dickinson would step up again with the chance of his sixth goal of the campaign, five being successful penalties!

 

So it seemed strange when Harris did the honours and smashed the ball high up in to the centre of the goal for 3-0.

 

However, the Echo has revealed that Neil wanted to score on what was five years to the day that his Dad Roger passed away with cancer, the man who took his son to stand on the North Bank to watch his beloved Blues.

 

The very North Bank where Neil may have dreamed of scoring himself one day that Neil smashed the ball home Friday, though sadly now used by the away support.

 

Harris told www.echo-news.co.uk: “Scoring at the end was a special moment for me and my family who were watching in the crowd. The first football match I ever went to was a Friday night game at Roots Hall which my father took me to. To score five years to the day he passed away meant an awful lot to me and I’m delighted to have shared the moment with the rest of the boys because they knew it meant a lot to me.”

 

Which is the way it should be, because it's only teams that bond tohetther that end up successful, and what matters most to the Shrimeprs faithful is getting out of the bottom tier as soon as possible.

 

Harris continued: “It’s nice to be top of the league and we’ve done well to get there but we’re only in October. We want to still be there in April and May but we again showed the team spirit we will need to be successful. That got us through in the end and the spirit was also shown by Liam (Dickinson) allowing me to take the penalty when I told him what it meant to me. It was a fantastic thing for him to do.”

 

Certainly, where his old man is concerned, Bomber doesn't hide his emotions.

 

Back in December 2008 when he scored his 111th goal for the Lions to equal Teddy Sheringham's club record.

 

Harris, then 31, was pulled back from the crowd by a jobsworth steward from celebrating with the crowd displaying a vest with the words 'For You Dad' and '112' on the back, something he did a month later on January 13th 2009 when he did indeed break Millwall's all time goal scoring record during the 3–2 away win against Crewe Alexandra.

 

Neil had won his own battle with testicular cancer in 2002, and the steward, well, he was forgiven!

 

Harris said at the time: "The lad was just doing his job. He wasn't to know what the goal meant to me. My Dad died from cancer two years ago. As far as I'm concerned I'm top of the goals list. H comes before S for Sheringham."

 

Three years after that Neil had another chance to remember his Dad who would start his lad on the road that would eventually lead him to being a goal-scoring Shrimper.

 

No vest, and no stewards, were needed this time around, just a hard-hit strike high into the centre of the net from 12 yards.