Carlisle United. The new boys in Football League 1. Preparing for a difficult but a thrilling season in a new higher league. But there is one rule with Carlisle: Nothing is impossible.
Carlisle have an amazingly lucky history. The number of times they have avoided relegation or defeat by ... Read review
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A review by kingchris on Carlisle United August 4th, 2006
Author's product rating:
Physical Effort
Good
Skill
Good
Are they fun to watch?
Sometimes
Quality of defence
Good
Quality of management
Good
Advantages:
(Nearly) always exciting to watch, fantastic team spirit, great players, amazing fans ! ! !
Disadvantages:
Could be a hard season with being in a higher league, (but so far, so good) !
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Carlisle United. The new boys in Football League 1. Preparing for a difficult but a thrilling season in a new higher league. But there is one rule with Carlisle: Nothing is impossible.
Carlisle have an amazingly lucky history. The number of times they have avoided relegation or defeat by the narrowest margins, only to overcome the odds to come out victorious.
Carlisle now have to overcome a new challenge, survive the new league without Paul Simpson. Paul Simpson was the miracle worker who masterminded the success for the last two seasons with Carlisle, but the result of a brilliant manager at a low division club, is that that manager will be snapped up by a bigger, more luxurious club, and in this case it was Preston North End, and he has also took some of the backroom staff with him, so Carlisle have been on the lookout for some new staff to help us survive this season.
The Carlisle United Chairman has found his man, that he believes will help us this season, and that man is Neil McDonald, from Crystal Palace where he was the assistant manager. Carlisle fans hope that he can be the man to help us.
So our recent history, well it's been pretty much like a roller coaster. We have mainly been surviving in League 2 for the recent part of our history. But only just. In 1991-1992 season, we only avoided the conference by Aldershot resigning from the league after going bankrupt. The in the 1998-1999 season, we survived the drop again by a goal from the most unlikeliest source, our goalkeeper that was on loan to us from another team. It was the last match of the season, and to stay up, we needed to win, nothing else would do. We went 0-1 down early in the match. And that was how it stayed until about the 80th minute. We got an equalising goal, but that was not enough. We managed to get a corner in the 4th minute of injury time. Jimmy Glass sprinted up the pitch arriving into the opposition penalty box. The corner was taken, the ball went into the box and there were a lot of ricochets and bobbling about, but the ball finally ended up at Jimmy Glass' feet and he volleyed the ball into the net, sparking wild celebrations, with nearly the whole of Brunton Park running onto the pitch to celebrate the team's survival.
But Carlisle ran out of luck in the 2003-2004 season, when they just couldn't get enough points to avoid the drop, and we ended up in the conference for the first time in 76 years. So, January 2005, in the conference, Carlisle are mid-table, and it looks like we are going to be playing non league football for another season after this one. But no, Paul Simpson managed to get us into 3rd place, enough for a play-off place, and we managed to win 1-0 in the Millennium Stadium to get us back into League 2.
Few people thought at the beginning of the 2005-2006 season that we could achieve mid table, never mind getting promotion. But Paul Simpson knew what he had to do. His plan was to make us hard to beat, and to try and survive league 2. Making us hard to beat didn't help us survive league 2, it helped us beat league 2. For years of struggling to survive league 2, that season we managed to win the league as champions scoring 84 goals in the process.
Not only did we manage to get promoted as champions, we also came runners up in The Football League Trophy, only just losing to Swansea City 2-1 in the final. Carlisle's last home game of the season is against Swansea this time, expect a very exciting match!
So Brunton park, the home of Carlisle. The total amount of people the stadium can hold at one time is 16,981 people. There are 4 stands, as with most football stadiums, but these stands are very different from each other. There is oldest stand and this is called "Warwick Road End." This stand has the most history because it was the original stand at Brunton Park. This stand cannot hold as many fans as the other two home stands, but there is a lot of atmosphere in this stand. It is a standing stand so the price of tickets is quite low. The next stand is the paddock. This is a large stand that is split into two parts. The lower tier is a standing section, and the upper tier is a sitting section. A lot of fans go into this stand. The last home stand is the Cumberland Building Society Stand. This stand is the most modern stand. This stand is an all seating stand, so it is definitely the most comfortable stand. I always go in this stand, and I think the view you can get of the whole pitch is fantastic. The last stand is the Visitors Petteril End. This is where the away fans are in the matches. This is an all-standing stand, apart from a new corner of the stand where there are a few seats, but on big match days, where the away fans totally fill up the stand, some are placed into the very end of The Cumberland Building Society Stand, which is next to the Petteril End. The atmosphere at Brunton Park is absolutely amazing. The fans are always singing and chanting, and it is at stadiums like this that you can understand what the pundits mean when they say that the fans make all the difference to how the team performs.
Pundits often say that teams are spurred on by their fantastic fans and it seems that the team has a 12th player on the pitch because of the fans, and this is definetely the case with Carlisle. A couple of seasons ago, the attendance was very low, about the same as you would expect from a conference game, but the return to form has being mirrored by the Brunton Park faithful, with average gates of 7,000 topping the league 2 attendance table. On more than a few occasions, the stadium packed in more than 12,000 and this statistic beat more than a few league 1 team's attendance averages. Expect large attendances this season because of being in a higher league. On the first two weeks of the new 2006-07 season, the 'Real Football Roar' competition took place. This was where FA officials went around the stadiums in the championship and leagues 1 and 2 with a decibal meter, and this measured how loud the fans were at the beginning at each game at each stadium. Carlisle didn't do too bad, they only came 3rd overall out of all the fans in the Championship, leagues 1 and 2, and were the offical overall loudest in league 1!!! Not too bad really is it? Here are the official tables of the 'Real Football Roar' competition. See if your favourite team is there!
Real Football Roar Top 10 1 - Colchester United (Coca-Cola Championship) 2 - Norwich City (Coca-Cola Championship) 3 - Carlisle United (Coca-Cola League 1) 4 - Crewe Alexandra (Coca-Cola League 1) 5 - Bristol Rovers (Coca-Cola League 2) 6 - Southend United (Coca-Cola Championship) 7 - Rochdale (Coca-Cola League 2) 8 - Southampton (Coca-Cola Championship) 9 - Stockport County (Coca-Cola League 2) 10 - Plymouth Argyle (Coca-Cola Championship)
Top 5 Coca-Cola Championship Results 1 - Colchester United 2 - Norwich City 3 - Southend United 4 - Southampton 5 - Plymouth Argyle
Top 5 Coca-Cola League 1 Results 1 - Carlisle United 2 - Crewe Alexandra 3 - Bristol City 4 - Brighton and Hove Albion 5 - Swansea City
Top 5 Coca-Cola League 2 Results 1 - Bristol Rovers 2 - Rochdale 3 - Stockport County 4 - Hartlepool United 5 - Milton Keynes Dons
There was a worry about what would happen with our stadium, because there were huge local floods in Cumbria, and this resulted in the stadium been completely flooded, and only the tops of the goals were visible from the water. But once the floods subsided, a goldfish that had somehow made it's way into the stadium was found in the water, and this fish has it's own place in a stadium backroom now, and the superstitious believe that the fish could have contributed to our recent run of good luck.
On this review I will keep a running list of the fixtures and results that will be going on this season in League 1 so you can find out how Carlisle are doing whenever you read this review. Hope you find it helpful.
2006/07 League 1 fixtures and results
August 5th Doncaster (H) 1-0 (Won) August 9th Chesterfield (A) 0-0 (Draw) August 12th Yeovil (A) 2-1 (Lost) August 19th Leyton Orient (H) 3-1 (Won) August 26th Oldham (A) 0-0 (Draw) September 2nd Cheltenham (H) 2-0 (Won) September 9th Northampton (H) 1-1 (Draw) September 12th Bradford (A) 1-1 (Draw) September 16th Nottingham Forest (A) 0-0 (Draw) September 23rd Brighton (H) 3-1 (Won) September 26th Blackpool (H) 2-0 (Won) September 30th Crewe (A) 5-1 (Lost) October 7th Millwall (H) 2-1 (Lost) October 14th Huddersfield (A) 2 -1 (Lost) October 21st Tranmere (H) 1-0 (Won) October 28th Gillingham (A) 2-0 (Lost) November 4th Rotherham (A) 1-1 (Draw) November 18th Bournemouth (A) 0-1 (Won) November 25th Port Vale (H) 3-2 (Won) December 5th Bristol City (A) 1-0 (Lost) December 9th Scunthorpe (H) 0-2 (Lost) December 16th Swansea City (A) 5-0 (Lost) December 23rd Brentford (H) 2-0 (Won) December 26th Blackpool (A) 2-0 (Lost) December 30th Brighton (A) 1-2 (Won) January 1st Badford (H) 1-0 (Won) January 13th Northampton (A) 3-2 (Lost) January 20th Crewe (H) 0-2 (Lost) January 27th Brentford (A) 0-0 (Drawn) January 30th Nottingham Forest (H) 1-0 (Won) February 3rd Doncaster (A) 1-2 (Won) February 10th Yeovil (H) 1-4 (Lost) February 17th Leyton Orient (A) 1-1 (Draw) February 20th Chesterfield (H) 0-0 (Draw) February 24th Cheltenham (A) 0-1 (Won) March 3rd Oldham (H) 1-1 (Draw) March 10th Millwall (A) 2-0 (Lost) March 17th Huddersfield (H) 1-1 (Draw) March 24th Gillingham (H) 5-0 (Won) March 31st Tranmere (A) 0-2 (Won) April 7th Port Vale (A) 0-2 (Won) April 9th Bournemouth (H) 3-1 (Won) April 14th Rotherham (A) 0-1 (Won) April 21st Bristol City (H) 1-3 (Lost) April 28th Swansea City (H) 1-2 (Lost) May 5th Scunthorpe (A) 0-3 (Lost)
Carlisle United League 1 Position- 8th
Won-19 Drawn-11 Lost-16 2006/07 Carling Cup fixtures and results
August 22nd Bradford City (H) 1-1 (AET) Penalties 4-3 (Won) September 19th Charlton Athletic (A) 1-0 (Lost)
Won-1 Lost-1 (Out of competition) 2006/07 Johnstone's Paint Trophy
October 17th Accrington Stanley (A) 1-1 (AET) Penalties 3-1 (Lost)
Won-0 Lost-1 (Out of competition) 2006-07 FA Cup
November 11th Swindon Town (A) 3-1 (Lost)
Won-0 Lost-1 (Out of competition) So, the players themselves. Carlisle have a great team, the new manager has brought in some new talent, and hopefully they will be able to help us do well this season. Here is a little bit of information about some of the players I think could really do well for us this season, and below is a full list of the team.
Kieron Westwood- Kieron is a fantastic goalkeeper. He joined Carlisle from Manchester City in 2004. He is very fast and agile in the goal. He has very strong goal kicks and he also has a great talent for saving penalties.
David Raven- Raven is a brand new signing from Liverpool. He looks like a really good right back.
Zigor Aranalde- 'Ziggy' has made the left back position his own. He makes great runs down the wing, he links up well with Simon Hackney, and his powerful throws into the box are very dangerous.
Chris Lumsdon- 'Lummy' is a great centre midfielder. His passing is fantastic, and he can also get a few goals.
Simon Hackney- The 'Roadrunner' is a very exciting prospect. He is a flying winger. He has electrifying pace and this can terrorise any defence. His crossing is superb and he also gets a few goals.
Kevin Gall- Kevin is a new pre-season signing, he looks like a great prospect as a striker who never gives up, even when he loses the ball. He has blistering pace, and has scored goals that pundits have compared to Thierry Henry's, you can't get much better than that, can you?
Karl Hawley- Karl 'the hitman' Hawley was simply superb last season. In the 2004-2005 season, he was an average striker, he got 13 goals and gave average performances. He is a completely now. In the 2005-2006 season, he got 22 goals, which made him the joint top scorer in the league. He got the league 1 player of the year, and he is a great fan favourite.
Squad list 2- David Raven 3- Peter Murphy 5- Danny Livesey 6- Kevin Gray 7- Paul Murray 8- Chris Lumsdon 9- Derek Holmes 10- Karl Hawley 11- Paul Thirlwell 12- Luke Joyce 13- Adam Bradley 14- Joe Garner 15- Paul Arnison 16- Jeff Smith 17- Neale McDermott 18- Simon Hackney 19- Johann Smith 20- Kieron Westwood 21- Zigor Aranalde 22- Raphel Nade (On loan to Weymouth) 23- Dan Kirkup 25- Kevin Gall 26- Pete Ferris 27- Liam Atkin 28- Stephen Hindmarch 29- James KrauseThe stadium has a lot of bars, so this means that the waiting lines are not too long. They sell items such as burgers, bread rolls, bacon rolls, teas, coffees, beers, fizzy drinks and water. All the items are reasonable prices.
Programmes are sold around the stadium and inside the stadium on match days. These give you helpful information about the two teams that are going to be playing, and also a bit extra, such as interviews with players, and past encounters with other clubs.
Tickets can be bought 2 weeks before the fixture that the ticket is for. The ticket office opening hours are Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm. Match days, 10am till 3pm. And telephone sales, Monday to Friday 10am till 5pm, and Saturday 10am till 12pm.
Prices for tickets are:
Cumberland Building Society Stand Adult- £18 Senior Citizens- £12 Juniors- £8 Child- £3
A new club shop was also recently built for Carlisle on Warwick Road. Outside the club shop is a statue of Hughie McIlmoyle, a fantastic former Carlisle United player. Inside the shop, there are a lot of things you can buy. Replica shirts, shorts, socks, tracksuits, programmes, pens, pencils, hats, gloves, etc. It really is a great shop for the team.
So to conclude, this season is going to be a very interesting season for Carlisle United. Last season, the team had fantastic team spirit, and it will be interesting to see if they can carry it into this season, and how well they will manage in a higher league.
Whatever happens, there is only one rule: You can never rule out Carlisle United!!!!!
Advantages: The Courtney Era has started, and Knighton has gone Disadvantages: The last 4 - 5 years
Carlisle United Football Club
Est.: 1904
Division: 3
Chairman: John Courtney
Manager: Roddy Collins
Club Captain: Peter Murphy
So the next op in my football series involves the team I supported since I was about 5. Although the first game I ever went to was a Newcastle game and that I’m now a Reading fan, Carlisle United were the club I was brought up on. My Dad being a die hard Cumbrian hasn’t made the switch to Reading quite as ... ...Blue of Carlisle at heart.
However despite my allegiance to the Royals I will always go to Carlisle games when they come down south and occasionally make that 5-hour trip back up home to Brunton Park for the odd game. Long gone are the days of Michael Knighton and hopefully John Courtney can steer them in the right direction.
Recent History
************
Following a failed bid to take over Manchester united, Michael Knighton desperate to fill ...
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Advantages: Atkins has worked wonders with the fewest resources in the football league. The team reflects his determination Disadvantages: Being 92nd in the league is depressing
...season under Mervyn Day, when Carlisle won promotion into D2 and the Autoglass Trophy at Wembley, beating Colchester on penalties, everything went downhill. Day was unjustifiably sacked by controverial chairman Michael Knighton, who promptly went on a managerial DIY course which ended in relegation back to D3. Funds from the sales of Rory Delap to Derby and Matt Jansen to Crystal Palace weren't reinvested, and the Cumbrians plunged to the bottom ... ...into injury time to grant Carlisle a 2-1 win and send Scarborough down in their place. The escape act was even more remarkable given Glass was loaned from Swindon after the transfer deadline, as Carlisle had sold keeper Tony Caig to Blackpool and their replacement, Richard Knight from Derby, was recalled. Pearson was sacked and Martin Wilkinson appointed, but "plus ca change, c'est la meme chose" as the 1999/00 season was also a relegation battle, ...
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Advantages: Try hard, lots of workers and some skill, Richy Foran looks good Disadvantages: Untried manager, lost some key players,going to be a tough season
...year to avoid the drop. Carlisle United are often amongst the bottom pack, and have been for many years. They only question I ask is how much longer can they survive?
The harsh reality is that the drop out of the football league means so much for the clubs. The divide between two divisions is wide, not in football terms, but in terms of money. Ok, so we are not exactly talking the Premiership millions, but every team in the third division will get ... ...Lincon, Kidderminster, and of course Carlisle competing together. A sort of sprit develops between the fans; both are in the same boat and go through the same emotions, and as much as you want to win at three o’clock on a Saturday, there is more to it than that.
Unfortunately Carlisle, do look to be one of the weaker sides at the bottom of the league, having lost several top players and the replacements I feel are not up to scratch. The loss ...
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Advantages: Great Atmosphere Disadvantages: View could be better
...When Leeds were relegated to League One, I was delighted (sorry Leeds fans), not becuase I didnt like Leeds, but mainly down to the fact that as a CarlisleUnited fan, I would get the chance to go to Elland Road. My luck was doubled, as I went twice, as we met Leeds in the playoffs (where we beat them at Elland Road but unfortunatly lost the home leg)
Onto the ground then from an away fan's perspective - I went once by using my club's coach travel, and once by car with two mates. Firstly, if you go by bus you will probably be dropped just opposite the ground. There is a McDonalds to your right hand side, which will most probably by packed full of Leeds fans - as will be the surronding street and also the space where you get into the ground - they are the nearest turnstiles to you and are the ones closest to the club shop. Due to...
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Advantages: Character, Size Disadvantages: Average Atmosphere
...As A season ticket holder at CarlisleUnited for over 5 years now, I think I know my stuff on our ground - Brunton Park.
Firstly, how to get there:
A very simple ground to get to. The train station is around a 15 minute walk away and you simply have to follow one road, very easy. Coming by car is also a simple task. Coming up the M6 predictably, take junction 42, take your first left at the roundabout. go past Tesco and carry on down Warwick Road and its there clear as day on your right hand side. Parking is decent, there is plenty of road parking around the ground, aswell as a decent sized car park at the ground. If you are really struggling, try the lakeland gate hotel/restaurant which also has a pretty good car park.
Now onto the ground itself - An old traditional ground, Brunton Park has four main stands on each side...
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Advantages: a brain stimulating challenge that will get some interesting answers from some people Disadvantages: Definitely my last challenge - well, probably!!
...an op about a washing machine that I knew nothing about for instance, if I was still unsure about the company that made it, how much it cost, and didn't get a complete picture then it wouldn't be a VH. I rate football ops as though I have no prior knowledge. Alas this has been the main source of my revenge rates. Just as an example of a really good football club op, I read one by Andy.Mack on CarlisleUnited - one of the best ones that I have seen on here.
4) What are your thoughts on the COT?
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The CoT is a good idea as long as it isn't abused. There have been so many times that someone has added me to his or her CoT and 3 days later taken me out. Now it is either because I haven't returned the favour or I don't write many ops (I do read quite a lot though). For either one of those...
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18.08.2008
