The 32-year-old goalkeeper has seen and done plenty between the sticks for Southern United.
He is the only player remaining from the Otago United days, and the progress the club is making has kept him coming back.
A reliable last line of defence, in past seasons he has been employed regularly.
As time has gone on though, the defence in front of him has improved.
While he still pulls off his share of impressive saves, they have become less frequent.
The team will be hoping that continues tomorrow against Waitakere United at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
Little would not mind it either, although he admitted he would not want to become completely redundant.
"Somewhere in the middle," he laughed when asked how busy he liked to be.
"I don’t want to be too busy, but I don’t want to be bored as well.
"I like to get an early touch on the ball in a game; the longer you have to wait the more nervous [you become].
"But I try to keep myself involved by organising defenders and talking to them.
"I haven’t been too busy this season — the defence is usually pretty solid.
"We’re starting to score goals now too, which is good."
Little had returned to Dunedin for the national football premiership, having spent the winter in Melbourne playing for Mornington.He had been there two years ago and returned to play for the same club.
While it had not won the title as it had last time, it had still been a great experience.
The league was of a high quality, and he enjoyed playing at that level.
However, the move was always a temporary one, as he returned to his job at Playball.
That enabled him to rejoin Southern, and he felt the club was going in the right direction.
It hoped to break into the top four in the coming years.
Little felt attracting a couple more quality New Zealanders to the side could help it make that jump.
That may be a big ask this year, as it is eight points off the top four with six games left.
However, a repeat of last year’s fifth is a very realistic target. Southern, in seventh, is just three points off Hamilton Wanderers with a game in hand.
A win this weekend against Waitakere would go a long way towards closing that gap, and Little was expecting a tough game.
"It’s always a close game when we play Waitakere.
"There’s not too much between us. It’s always quite physical. The way they play is very direct — so I’m expecting to be busy.
"I suppose we beat them twice last season and drew with them this season, so going on current form we’ve got plenty of confidence going into this weekend.
"If we play the way we can play I think we’ll get across the line — just."
National football premiership
Southern Utd v Waitakere Utd
Forsyth Barr Stadium
Tomorrow, 2pm
