It’s a lack of self-belief.”That, the 35-year-old former Milan, Rangers and England striker discovered, stems from having defeats and abuse piled on to you for year after year. In the space of 90 minutes the Hull message had gone from “we need to give our current players a chance” (Lloyd), to “we have to buy. I know the names and I know I can get them” (Hateley).It was not difficult to understand the 180-degree turn. Lloyd may not read football the way he can tennis, but it did not require any great tactical nous to see that Hull are not good enough. Nervous at the back and clueless up front, they could not even aim a decent cross towards their player-manager which, as he has terrified defences all over Europe, was criminal.A tall former Queen’s Park Rangers striker dominated proceedings, but it was not Hateley but County’s Devon White.

He scored a lovely goal and made another while he feasted on a steady supply from the flanks that had his former team-mate as enviously green as the pitch.Once County had gone ahead, Matthew Redmile glancing Dennis Pearce’s viciously struck free- kick after 32 minutes, there was only one logical outcome, which was confirmed with two goals in two minutes midway through the second half. White volleyed in a delightful cross from Shaun Derry, then he delivered the pass that allowed Gary Jones to go round Scott Thomson.It was a depressing conclusion to a day that had begun with such promise when Lloyd was acclaimed by supporters who feared the worst when the High Court served a winding-up notice last spring. “Show us your cash,” the supporters chanted at him as they left, although he had long rather than short-term ambitions.”People will have to be patient,” Lloyd said. Raising the sponsorship alone would have defeated a less driven woman. Yet by the time her boat, Maiden, returned she was hogging the headlines and being wheeled out to chat to Richard and Judy.

The blokes in the sailing world were, to put it bluntly, gobsmacked They had never expected Tracy and her “girls” to succeed. When my life is running very smoothly I’m bored.”

It is this single-minded determination that took Tracy into the record books in 1990 after she skippered Whitbread’s first all-female yacht crew in the Round the World Race When she left England there was barely a ripple of interest. “When I wake up in the morning I need to know that I’ve got something difficult to overcome. I’ll see how it goes.”"But so far I’m loving my life here and the course. The university is like its own little village, and there’s everything you need on site.”. The trouble with meeting someone like Tracy Edwards is you don’t know whether to feel extraordinarily guilty or wonderfully inspired: she is so evangelically convinced that with just a bit more effort all of us could achieve a whole lot more. “I have a desperate need to succeed and improve myself,” she says fervently.