Left Magpie: The Ides of March and the Known Unknowns

March was eventful.

Some big highs. Another extra time winner in front of the away fans in a game we were not good in. At the Bescot, Walsall. A Jodie Jones header. Scenes and limbs, and on a day which started at the legendary Ma Padoe’s in Netherton. A classic, old school, Notts away trip. Warnock vibes, even. We had the hammering of Cheltenham who arrived on a good run, after an away thrashing of Accrington where we scored four with no strikers on the pitch. We got Jatta back and scoring. And the Harrogate win – OK, they are second bottom, but so often when things are going the wrong way, they …. go the wrong way. Instead, the ship was steadied, and everyone else above us lost. It came back into our own hands, all SO unexpected after the lows.

And such lows. The fan podcasts after the Oldham debacle were doom and gloom. The season was drifting away again. Poor January recruitment, lack of depth, lack of energy, but also too much bad energy. 

What can we say about Ollie Norburn’s March? Those scenes at Walsall were all started by his superb strike to equalise. But then two double yellow card dismissals which were both completely unavoidable, at this stage in the season, costing us six points. Hero to zero, for sure.

“Beware the Ides of March’ is the phrase, as the middle of the month brings impending doom. Norburn’s moment of madness against Chesterfield, throwing Armando Dobra‘s boot from the pitch when he was already booked, in a must win game against local rivals, came on the 14th March. Caesar’s betrayal brought to bear on Meadow Lane. Ten days later, after the bounce-back over Cheltenham, Norburn doubled down on his act at Oldham and condemned us to a 3-0 defeat in a biblical storm. Like Martin Paterson, I have no words. 

These ‘Ides of March’ are a turning point, for fortunes. Pivotal shifts. In a bad way. But whether this is the case for Notts, as we head to Good Friday at Salford, with six games to play and knowing now that the incredible feat of winning all six would take us up, since we play the third-place team again soon, is one of a number of known unknowns. Here they are: 

Will we cope with all of our defenders injured? 

Lucas Ness is now the last line of defence. At Oldham, he was very bad. At Harrogate he was OK. But they are 91st in the football league for a reason.

Why is everyone injured? 

This does seem now to be more than just ‘par for the course’. What is the reason? A more physical playing style? How we are training? Just bad luck, again? Or something in the ‘data driven analytical’ recruitment model?

Is Jatta good enough? 

Clearly, he is. His job is to score goals, and he scores a lot of goals. But … chance to goal conversion, controlling the ball with a first touch, holding the ball up when we are under pressure…. with these elements there is much frustration, and in our weaker team performances, this all really matters. 

Was January another ‘bad window’? 

A familiar pattern is emerging whereby the new recruits, with the one very notable exception of ‘one of our own’ James Belshaw, may not be enough to replace key players, so we are over-resourced with game finishers but under-equipped with starters, perhaps? 

What did the Harrogate win mean? 

By the time this is published, we are likely to know. We were SO poor away at Oldham. Was that a one-off ‘bad day at the office’? Was it all about the red card, again? Did the bounce back at Harrogate mean now we will push on and take our A-game to Salford? Or not?  

Will the teams above us drop more points? 

The Harrogate day was so rare. For the last two seasons, it has not happened. Was that a freak event, or does it mean the pressure is on Bromley, Franchise and Cambridge and it can happen again? If so, County are in a very good place, potentially. 

Will Norburn play again? 

The question requires no further explanation.

Can we find the balance? 

Notts were lightweight, naïve, far too nice (in Mark Stallard’s phrasing) and generally lacking pragmatic shit-housery for league 2. Patto has transformed us in this respect. The problem is that we are now constantly getting sent off. The coach has acknowledged that five red cards is too many for promotion. Can we redress this for the final push? 

What does it all mean, then? 

When applied to the human capacity to comprehend the universe, the “known unknowns” refer to mysteries which define the threshold of the unknown. When Donald Rumsfeld evoked this to justify a lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups, this was a different appropriation. Now, of course, we live in a zeitgeist of conspiracy and epistemological relativism, so all bets are off with all this. 

Salford play at the Peninsula Stadium. Either way, then, 1459 on Good Friday, shall be where Notts County’s unknown threshold meets this tangible peninsula, creating a situation where we let go of any sense of the what the metaphor even means, itself now lost to the unknown, but known to be so, at least.  

Let’s just hope we win.