Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 8 January 2013

8 January 2013

There is no news, and then there is No News.

The distinction is not always clear. For example, sports reporters will sometimes feel it worth saying that "Lionel Messi was not among the scorers". However, they do not feel it necessary to iterate the name of every Barcelona squad player, professional footballer or other sentient lifeform who fails to score. (Your Middle-Aged Diary is for the moment making the assumption that all professional footballers are sentient, despite the evidence to the contrary sometimes presented at Blundell Park.) Nor, however, do sports reporters feel it unnecessary to state when Messi does score. They might preface the report of his goals with a "needless to say". But they do still go on and say it, along, usually, with a lot of things that genuinely are needless to say.

A more pertinent example is that it is no news that Grimsby are not playing the Llantrisant Mint Second XI tonight. It is however No News that we are not playing Gateshead, the International Stadium pitch having been judged unfit for play.

In the age of social media, the distinction between no news and No News is especially blurred. For example, in Doncaster, it is simply not news that Rob Scott and Paul Hurst are not being considered for their vacant managerial post, just as it is not news that I am not, you are not and Chi-Chi the performing panda is not. In Grimsby, however, this is No News.

During the transfer window, the distinction becomes so blurred that we might as well make like messageboard nesbits and just assign capital letters randomly to every stray thought. In Bradford, as far as I know, it is no news that Alan Connell is still in their squad, but it is No News that Ross Hannah is also. As a result of some mischievious tweeting inspired by people not 1,000 miles from this parish, it also seems to have become No News in Dundee as well as in Grimsby.

In the absence of news, it's a good moment to take up Antony Chapman's suggestion from the last Postbag and compare the Conference table now with January 2012 and 2011. In 2012, eventual champions Fleetwood were already top of the table, although they had 12 points more than we do now, suggesting we may be in for a tighter finish than last season. Newport may take encouragement from the position of Crawley, second but with games in hand on the leaders, on 8 January 2011. Once again, though, Crawley had picked up more points from fewer games than we have.

In both years, Town were ninth, but the mood music was very different. In 2011, Neil Woods was never forgiven for failing to follow up two huge victories at Christmas with points from difficult games at Wrexham and York. We had been just below the play-off places all season and never got any closer. Last season, by contrast, we had recovered from a slow start and were embarked on a long unbeaten league run that fleetingly made promotion a real possibility.

If there is a lesson in all that, it is that the die has not yet been cast and it is the direction of travel that is important. Momentum being important, it is a shame there will be no news from Gateshead tonight, but that is nothing we can't overcome in the next few weeks.