Cod Almighty | Diary

Something so beautiful I can scarcely express it

1 May 2014

Can we do this? For the past year, year and half, your original/regular Diary has struggled a lot with that thing we call believing. But this week? No. We can do this.

What does Paul Hurst think? He thinks we don't want any more pain. As rallying cries go, it's halfway between world-weary and Fifty Shades of Grey, but that's our manager's style and if you don't love it you'll learn to love it. As Gateshead hurtle down the east coast for tonight's play-off semi-final first leg against Gateshead, Hursto is looking back at Town's display in the corresponding fixture last year, when the team he then co-managed limply surrendered to a very ordinary Newport side.

"It was one of the worst feelings I've ever had in my life," says the manager formerly known as Shorty. So what cause for optimism? Could you find many Town fans who'd agree with Hurst's ebullient recent claim that his current Town team are better than last season's? Probably not. So does that mean the team has no chance at all in the play-offs, where their 2012-13 counterparts failed? Absolutely not. We can do this.

Sure, you could count on one hand the number of times the Mariners have played convincingly in 2014. When I look at last year's play-offs, though, like Hurst, I take hope. Not from Town's own showing, but from Newport's. The mediocre side who Town drubbed 3-0 in the 46th league game of the 2012-13 season is the side that ended up promoted.

Contrary to the cliché, the play-offs are not a lottery. They're not a game of chance. The team that performs best in the play-offs is generally the team that goes up. But there is some degree of randomness. The way teams perform in these matches is very often unrelated to their form across the season as a whole. And we know these players can perform on their day. Their day just hasn't been very often lately. That doesn't matter. This is week zero. We can do this.

Town's official communications channels are certainly in excitable form. The club's Facebook has posted highlights of the victorious 1997-98 third division play-off against Fulham. And the newly superb new official website says: "We have just smashed through 4,200 home fans". Painful, but perhaps necessary.

We can do this. It certainly won't be pretty. It likely won't be the swashbuckling stuff we saw in the FA Cup run. But we can do it. As another cliché goes, it's a tough league to get out of. But ironically, you don't even need to be the best to do it.