You've got the aforementioned other halves, the perils of the British weather, and the indifferent public transport that declares it impossible to get back from Torquay on a Tuesday night unless you leave 20 minutes before the end of the bloody game!

Then you've got rearranged TV fixtures, personal illness, and I haven't even started on the financial implications of being there throughout another pointless mid-table campaign. Just see what the Judge says when you plead that the only reason you turned to gun crime was to fund getting to Darlington away in the Carling Cup.

With so much uncertainty, it's good to know that there are a few things we can rely upon. Teams will let us down, mates will fall asleep in drunken stupors, but to know you've got two cans of quite heavy and very definitely warm Coca-Cola hovering above your head, possibly dribbling a sticky mass of sugar down the sides of your cheeks to the attraction of Southend's finest insect and wasp population .. well, suddenly maybe the season ahead doesn't seem quite so much of a challenge, eh folks?

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