Vive la difference.

We’re going to have to get used to weeks like the one we've just had. You either have an up and coming young manager who is going to be linked to every management vacancy going or, more like our experience, a manager who is probably going nowhere fast. A bit like most of our history. I know which category I’d rather us be in.

It was the Grimsby Telegraph getting the rumour mill going and it’s a measure of our fragility that panic starts to set in on news of these suggestions. The Telegraph did had the decency to quote Danny Cowleys interview whereby he stated he was City’s manager for the foreseeable future but in all honesty he would have wanted, I’m sure, to be concentrating on plotting a progress through round one of the FA Cup where, frankly, we need all the help we can get to prevail even against relatively modest opposition.

Let’s keep our own minds on the job then and Cowley is certainly not underestimating the task in hand, confident though I’m sure we all are, deep down. He told the Echo of his thoughts ahead of the Altrincham game:

“They were in our league last season and have kept most of their squad together and now Jim Harvey has come in there," said the City boss
“He's a cup manager, as we saw with Halifax winning the FA Trophy last season.

“Sometimes, when a team is having a difficult spell in the league, the cup can give them a bit of freedom. And the magic of the cup is that it creates heroes and moments that individuals maybe otherwise wouldn't have been able to do."

How many times have we been in a winnable tie, even given our pathetic cup tradition only to fail miserably? Remember Whitehawk? You don’t have to have much of a memory.

Cowley is not going in for the fancy dan idea permeating down from the clubs above that the FA Cup is some kind of feeder competition that you can field your fringe players and youngsters in:

“We always look to try and play the strongest team available. That will always be our approach in every competition,"

“We're respectful of that and we need to make sure we reach our levels because we desperately want to be in the second round. We'll prepare very professionally for what will be a tough game.

“If we can win Saturday, then we'll be a game away from potentially doing something that we'll remember for the rest of our lives."

I do hope so. Reading that and seeing also the interview that Cowley was forced to give to Look North on the ever more tedious subject of the vacancy at Blundell Park I couldn’t help feeling that if he ever tires of football there’s a place for him in the world of diplomacy.