Cod Almighty | Diary

Don't Change Hoses Mid-Stream

17 August 2023

Tuesday night's victory over Salford got the twitchier Town fans to calm down a bit. As usual, there was nothing much to panic about in the first place. History under Hurst shows that we usually come good, as long as he's backed to ride whatever wobble we're experiencing.

Granted, a dismal performance at Mansfield followed a decent opener against Wimbledon, and that was enough for the negative nellies to latch onto. Hurst made several changes for that cup match at Field Mill. My dad winds me up when he asks me if we played a strong side in the cup. I know what he's getting at. In some ways, it's become a rhetorical question; if he doesn't already know our line-up, he's become accustomed to the fact that all football managers now use the early rounds of every cup competition to put minutes in the legs of the peripheral squad players, and so knows the answer before he even asks.

My dad is a retired school teacher. But if you've lived with someone who worked as a school teacher, you'll know that school teachers never retire. He suggested to me the other day that the word 'strong', in footballing terms at least, has become a contronym.

As a student of English Language, your West Yorkshire Diary is always up for these types of conversations. It's much more high-brow than his usual rhetoric, like "What happened to that bloke who used to be at Liverpool and played for England, but went to Turkey and no one heard of him again? Oh, you know, he was in those adverts and did a silly dance." He's 72 now (my dad, not Daniel Sturridge), so he's reached the age where he's allowed to not remember anyone's name.

But, getting back to his point about the word 'strong', he reckons it now means 'weak' in football circles. "Pep's named a strong side to face Small Fry FC in the FA Cup third round" can, in fact, be loosely translated as "Pep's rested his best players and named a weakened Manchester City side to take on Small Fry FC, but it's still expected his weak side will be too strong for them."

My dad lives a simple life. If it's not your strongest side, it's a weakened side. There's no denying it. Don't be claiming it's a strong side when you're playing the players who weren't good enough to start the previous league game.

Naming a 'strong' side is the phrase the media uses when elite managers rest their best players. But, according to West Yorkshire Diary Senior, you can't go around insulting elite managers with words that are on the nose because the media are "scared to death of upsetting the likes of Pep".

Looking for Grimsby Town news? Sorry, I don't have any. I'm on holiday, so I've not really been concentrating. It's a bit like supporting the Mariners pre-internet, when you'd seek out the next day's newspaper and scan the back pages for last night's results.