Gary Bowyer looking for footballing snookers at Bradford City

For Bradford City, however, it is another pastime that is more apt considering their own predicament at the foot of League One.

The Bantams, nine points adrift of safety with just four games remaining, need the equivalent of footballing snookers if relegation is to be avoided.

So sorry is the club’s plight that even back-to-back wins over Easter might not be enough to save Bradford from the drop.

Instead, Gary Bowyer’s men are relying on favours from elsewhere to take the fight to the last weekend of April, never mind into May.

The axe could fall as soon as Friday, with defeat at Coventry City coupled with draws for Scunthorpe United and Rochdale being enough to seal the Yorkshire club’s fate.

Alternative combinations of results involving the likes of Southend United and AFC Wimbledon could also be enough to demote City even if the return journey from the Ricoh is made on the back of holding Mark Robins’s side to a draw.

Bowyer, for his part, insists on focusing solely on how Bradford fare and leave the various permutations to others.

“We have to be better in both boxes,” he said. “Those are the areas we have to focus on. I can only comment on my time here but progress has been made in terms of how we play.

“The same things, though, keep cropping up. And that means being better in both penalty areas.”

Bowyer welcomes back Callum Woods and Kelvin Mellor for the first time since the full-back duo limped out of his first game at the helm, last month’s 3-1 victory over Peterborough United.

“We have missed their experience and physicality,” added the City chief, who also has Eoin Doyle available.

At the end of a week in which Woods wrote one of the great sporting chapters by claiming a fifth green jacket at Augusta, Bowyer hopes his players can draw inspiration going into the Easter weekend.

“The players certainly need lifting, whatever way, shape or form they find the motivation,” he added.