Family secrets will not be unlocked by York City manager Alan Little in the build-up to Saturday's visit by Colchester United.

The U's' last outing was on Bank Holiday Monday when they were beaten by visitors and table-toppers Stoke City, now managed by Little's brother Brian Little.

That success in Essex yielded the Potters their fifth successive win prolonging the Second Division's sole surviving 100 percent record that helped to land Little the manager of the month award for August.

But the York half of the managerial duo will not be sounding out his sibling about the merits or otherwise of Colchester.

Besides being able to call on his assistant Derek Bell, who attended the match to provide a dossier on Colchester, York's leader ventured it would be unprofessional to glean any tactical tit-bits from his brother.

"I don't think there's a need to be honest," said the York boss. "We have got to be able to look after those sort of matters ourselves.

"Maybe if I did not have someone at the game then I might give him a ring and find out what system a team may have played.

"But with Derek Bell there, there's no need."

The City manager maintained a belief that it was wrong to pick the bones out of other clubs' dossiers when each club should be doing their own.

"With teams in your own division you've got to be professional about it and sort things out yourself. Then you can draw your own conclusions from what you have prepared rather than rely on someone else. That's the way it should be."

Bell's file on Colchester meanwhile suggested they were unfortunately not to have come away with something from their clash against Stoke City.

Said York's Little: "Colchester have done very well, but we have seen enough to be convinced that we can look after them ourselves."City meanwhile were involved in a behind closed doors friendly against Grimsby at Blundell Park today.

The match was arranged to provide valuable match practice for a string of players returning from injury and those reserves, who were without a Pontin's League fixture in midweek.

While the bulk of the players were unlikely to press for a start against Colchester on Saturday midfielder Steve Agnew was still hoping to prove his fitness from a hamstring injury in a training session with the youth team today to enable him to make his long-awaited League debut at Bootham Crescent.

Meanwhile, City were nudged a place down the table to 11th by Manchester City after their 3-1 defeat of Walsall at Maine Road last night.

Among the 24,291 crowd was City boss Little, who saw the hosts inflict the first defeat of the season on Walsall led by a brace of goals from striker Shaun Goater.

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