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Hope, football, and ‘Meet the Board’ nights spring eternal. As the faithful, sceptical, and hopeful gathered, we wondered how this one would come across. That’s not to imply any lack of sincerity, just that there’s only a certain number of ways this could be presented—and unless the three amigos were about to deliver their thoughts in the medium of French mime, or perhaps a Sanskrit mantra, we’d likely seen similar before.

“Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.” Radcliffe away pre-season. Third game in and first out of Barrow. Stupidly delighted to be ‘going away’ again, I waited impatiently for transport to arrive. I guess we need to practise too. Acts of faith take work, though optimism has peeked through this summer’s gloom.

It's preseason, the football's on pause (well the proper stuff we mean), but there's never a shortage of things worth talking about at Beans!.

I was 19 years old when we were drawn away to Dover in the FA Trophy quarter final. We didn't know it at the time, but we were rapidly approaching the end of the Vaughan era. He was getting his collar felt by Customs and Excise and temporarily falling on his sword, stepping down as chairman. The first ruptures that something wasn't quite right. But at the time there was still goodwill, optimism and a bloody good team on the pitch. We were only eight years post Wembley and th