Southend United's £40,000 new boy Mark Tinkler today vowed to help Blues make an impact on this season's Third Division promotion race.

The former Leeds United midfielder, who has joined the Seasiders from York City, pledged to push the Shrimpers into the Second Division and achieve his personal ambition of returning to a higher level of soccer.

"I'm glad to have joined Southend because they want to go places and don't intend on sticking around in the lower leagues," said the 24-year-old, who has committed himself to a three-year deal at Roots Hall.

"I still had a season left on my contract at York, but I felt that I had to get away from Bootham Crescent because their long-term ambitions didn't match up to mine.

"York are quite content to just plod along in the bottom two divisions, but I want to play at a better level than that, which I think I can achieve with Southend, who are desperate to regain their First Division status."

Tinkler, who almost joined Second Division Cardiff City last week, admitted that Blues boss Alan Little also played a big part in his decision to join Southend.

Ex-York manager Little completed a hat-trick of raids on his former club when he signed Tinkler from the Minstermen - with his old team-mates Gordon Connelly and Neil Tolson already settled in among the Roots Hall ranks.

"I've always enjoyed playing for the gaffer and I jumped at the chance to be reunited with him at Southend," said Tinkler, who made his Blues debut during last weekend's disappointing 2-0 defeat at Rochdale.

"Alan's a natural winner who wants to go out and win every game and his motivational powers are second to none - which makes me confident that Southend are going places."

Tinkler played in Leeds' FA Youth Cup-winning side, who beat a Manchester United team including some of the European Champions' biggest stars, 4-1 on aggregate in 1993.

"In the two-legged final I played against David Beckham, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes, who are all household names now, which was a great experience," said Tinkler, who made 25 Premiership appearances for Leeds.

"I was doing well at Leeds at the time and I had a lot of involvement with the first-team squad when Howard Wilkinson was manager at Elland Road.

"But when George Graham took over my face didn't seem to fit and I moved to York to re-launch my career.

"I'm still only young and have the confidence in my ability to play at a higher level again - at least in the First Division - and I'm hoping the move to Southend will eventually give me the chance to do just that."

Top mark - Southend United's new midfielder Mark Tinkler aims to rise through the divisions with the Shrimpers

Picture: DAVE MONTIER

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.