AS I SAID in my interview for the Official Website, it's been a frustrating few weeks.

We haven't played a game since mid-December and, as a professional footballer, that's all you want to do - play football.

What has made it worse is that we've been all geared up to play the games. We'd rained and prepared for them only for them to all be called off on the day of the game. There's much anyone can do about it to be honest and, to be fair, hasn't it been cold?!

Training has been difficult too. The training pitches have been frozen so we went for a swim on Monday. There was no let up though. Jon (Whitney, physio) had us doing press up by the side of the pool and then laps after lap. The Gala baths must have wondered what was going on!

On Tuesday we popped to the Stadium to use the astro-turf. As I've said before, it's good to have that facility. I bet not many other clubs at this level have that luxury and it's a lot better than have to scratch around for somewhere to train.

We will have to see what the weather is like ahead of Saturday down in Southend. Put it this way, I haven't got my 'kiss me quick' hat out just yet! We all want the game to go ahead but the reports don't look great at the moment. We'll prepare properly for it though and just see what happens. We're travelling down on Friday, so we'll train tomorrow and on the morning we're due to set off.

Wherever you are, stay warm!

Mark Hughes