FOOTY supporters are an optimistic lot as a rule. Every year, the die-hards front up for another season with the expectation that last year's kids will take that inevitable 'next step' or the interminably injured star will finally have his worries behind him.

Add the endless supply of players who have been 'flying' over the pre-season and it's easy to see why supporters are confident the coming year promises to be so much better than the one before.

But for North Melbourne fans, the optimism during this pre-season spreads far deeper than how impressive Lachie Hansen was in the first NAB Cup match or how a fit Nathan Thompson will give the team more flexibility compared with 2007.

No, unlike any other year in recent memory, the unbridled optimism that has engulfed the Roo faithful has as much to do with the off-field happenings as it does with anything Dean Laidley and his men have accomplished over the pre-season.

While James Brayshaw and his board offered little more than cautious hope when they rejected the AFL's offer to relocate to the Gold Coast late last year, it's hard to argue that that hope has turned into something much more tangible.

"We're going to chase new sponsors," Brayshaw trumpeted to an audience of true believers at Dallas Brooks Hall following the announcement the club would remain in Melbourne. Vodafone has since come on board to join Mazda as the club's new joint major sponsor. Others, it has been said, are set to follow.

"We're going to build our membership base here in Melbourne." A month out from the start of the season, the club has more members than it had for the entire 2007 season. 30,000 members now looks a real possibility for the first time in the club's history.

"We're going to get ourselves a top executive team." Barely a month later and highly regarded footy executive Eugene Arocca had come on board. A little more than six weeks later, Anthony Trainor returned to the club to take up a role as the club's director of commercial operations.

On top of all that, Brayshaw has introduced a new board, announced plans to embark on a money-rasing venture with Glenn Archer and Ricky Ponting, solidified the club's connection with its local community by holding key press conferences at the North Melbourne Town Hall and the Queen Victoria Market and has alerted the media to the fact the club will again be known by its name of 'North Melbourne'.

All that in less than three months.

While Brayshaw would be the first to admit that he and his team still has a lot to achieve – the Arden St redevelopment is still the most symbolic gesture that the Roos are here to stay – it's hard to argue that things are moving in the right direction.

For the first time in a long time, it seems that the life and death of the club won't hinge on how the players perform; that platforms are being built that will make the club rock solid in its home in Melbourne.

North Melbourne fans have been a pretty lucky lot over the past 30 years. The club has avoided the extended periods at the foot of the table that other fans accept as just a part of the AFL's cycle.

At the same time, however, the club's loyal following has lived with years of uncertainty and the thought that it was only a matter of time before…well, that is better left unsaid.

But for the first time in a long time, heading into 2008, James Brayshaw and his men have made optimism the prevailing theme at Arden St. So much so, that while Lachie Hansen was breathtakingly impressive in that NAB Cup loss to the Doggies, that's not nearly the most exciting thing happening at Arden St at the moment.

Isn't that fantastic?