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I am sure a lot of players in my position have tried the same tactic and invariably you don't manage to get hold of all the managers. One manager I did get hold of, though, was Glyn Hodges, who according to my list was manager of Barnsley. He answered the phone and I immediately went into my spiel including etc, not giving him a chance to interrupt for fear of rejection! He listened patiently and when I was finished, he commended me on my determination to get a club but added that he was not in a position to offer me anything. Why? Because ! Nice one Gav!

As a result of these phone calls, and ultimately putting up with the inevitable rejection that comes with them, I was offered a trial at Hartlepool United, which thankfully turned out to be successful. It led to arguably so far.

Without wishing to give the impression of patting myself on the back, the moral to this story is that to stay in this game, you have to stick at it. You have to be prepared to travel up and down the country , being the lad sat in the corner with the different kit on (because when you are on trial they normally just give you bits of old kit that do not match)! Ultimately, it boils down to having the desire to do it.

I am pleased to say that, after , I am now back in full training. It has taken a lot of hard work and a lot of pestering the physio to get back ahead of schedule. The trade-off for me getting back earlier than expected was that the physio insisted that we cram . He was not joking! He threw everything he had at me that day and was only satisfied when I lost the power of speech!

There is no getting away from it, we were on the receiving end of at the weekend. All we can do is apologise to the 300 or so County fans who made the long journey south. Credit where credit is due, Dagenham were excellent. They worked harder than us and thoroughly deserved their 6-1 victory. Even the fact I made the bench was no consolation on the day.

It is a tough place to go and you can see why they have a decent home record. It is a very small ground with a bumpy pitch and as a team , Paul Benson and Ben Strevens.

They like to get the ball into the box at every opportunity and against us at the weekend the crosses being put in were very accurate

We have a chance to regain some personal pride on Tuesday . As well as putting a smile back on the fans' faces, a victory would set us up nicely for . All games are important but the financial implications of getting to the third round and possibly being paired against a Premier League team are massive for a club such as ours.

County's defeat on Saturday was not the only reason why it was a bad football weekend in our household. The other was that my little boys' team lost 10-0 - yes, 10-0. At this point I would like to make it clear that as the coach of the team, I intend to take the credit when the team is doing well and blame the manager when it is not! Needless to say, the theme for !