Cod Almighty | Diary

Your miniature diary

1 April 2014

Today's diary (Middle-Aged Diary is the culprit) may have to be filed under "Hardly better than nothing", but here goes...

You don't really come here for team news (do you?) but perhaps you want someone to ponder on the semantic question of what exactly is an "injury worry". It is clearly not the same as any old worry, as Paul Hurst is quoted as being "unconcerned" at the prospect of facing Wrexham tonight without Lenell John-Lewis or Shaun Pearson. Not that they are necessarily unavailable.

"Worry" therefore qualifies "injury" to say there may not actually be an injury, while "injury" qualifies "worry" to say there may not actually be a worry. Possible injuries are therefore injury worries for the same reason that transfer windows always "slam" shut and teams always "crash" out of cups. There is a vacancy for the role of Cod Almighty professor for pedantically unpicking journalese, and that is my bid for the role.

Tonight at Wrexham, the Mariners are trying to do something we have not achieved since 26 December 2013: win two league matches in a row. That said, our return for March – four wins and two draws from eight matches – was respectable. Achieve something similar in the next eight matches and we'll be on 77 points with a trip to Braintree still to come. That is probably enough, by Hurst's calculations, to get us into the play-offs.

However, another bit of journalese doing the rounds is momentum. It would be nice if tonight we could break the pattern of the last two weeks, not by playing badly and losing but by playing well and winning.