Harrison's winning mentality was ingrained by a large and competitive family, Evan hoping the extra work pays dividends
Growing up with seven siblings always meant summer Peterborough United signing Harrison Jones would become ultra competitive.
The 21 year-old midfielder joined Posh from Sunderland for an undisclosed fee last month. Jones signed a three-year contract after spending his previous 15 years with the Black Cats as an Academy footballer and first-team player. His younger brother Jaydon has also worked his way through the ranks at Sunderland.
Leaving the North-East was understandably a big wrench for Harrison, but he’s enjoying life at London Road so far. He made his club debut in the Tuesday night friendly win over FC Magpies of Gibraltar and he believes he’s bringing a winning mentality to his new club.
"I play to win,” Jones told the Posh Plus service. “That’s been ingrained in me for ever. I come from a big family and we’ve played football from a very young age.
"I don’t even mind the running during pre-season. I enjoy the race element of it and seeing how far I can get. I always believe if you can through pre-season you will get through the actual season. Pre-season is so important as it’s just an extreme version of what we do all year and if you can tolerate it you will go on to do well.
"I’m also getting to know new people. I knew everyone at Sunderland as I’d been there so long, but everyone moves on in life at some point and this is my version of that.
"I’m not viewing it as a challenge though as I enjoy meeting new people and finding out about their backgrounds as they are usually quite interesting. We’ve all had different journeys up to this point.”
Fellow new recruit Evan Weir has also settled in well at Posh. The left-sided defender was the first Posh signing of the summer.
Weir was also speaking to the Posh Plus service: “It has been really enjoyable as the lads are a good group and they have helped me settle in. I have enjoyed the training sessions and myself and Dave Okagbue were doing extras as well so when the day was done, I was shattered, but you have to put the work in.
"We have done quite a few double sessions with tactical work in the afternoon and that has been hugely beneficial. It really helps us understand the way the manager wants to play and you understand players a lot more in terms of their qualities when you are doing 11 v 11 sessions. I like to learn and improve every day.
"It is good to be out here in Spain with the rest of the squad. The first day was a lot of travelling, so the training session was short and sharp, but we knew the rest of the week would be tough, but we were looking forward to it.”