Well, whether you're looking forward to it or not, Division 3 football is back with us again and to be honest, having looked at the opposition, I see no reason why we shouldn't go up as Champions this time. Other teams look weak and our pre-season games produced some encouraging results, particularaly the 2-1 win over Derby County. In a recent interview Michael Knighton was quoted as saying :
"I am more determined than ever to get back in the Second Division. This city deserves a good football team and so do the hard core of fans."
But there are still a lot of knockers out there waiting for the team to screw up again. All I ask is that at the games the supporters get behind the players like they did after the last match and give them good vocal support - sometimes Brunton Park sounds like a graveyard.
I only attended one of the pre-season games this summer - the home match against Derby County. Although Derby County were mediocre at best, Carlisle did look good and on the strength of this performance I am confident that we will get promoted again this season. Hell, we may even have another Wembley appearance to look forward to!
The reshaping of the squad during the summer will have had a lot to do with this :
Summer Ins and Outs : | |||
| In | From | Out | From |
| Andrew Douglas | YTS | Stephane Pounewatchy | Free |
| Mark Thurston | YTS | Ross Milligan | Workington Reds |
| Paul Heritage | Barnsley | Alan Gray | Workington Reds |
| Steve Finney | Swindon | Lee Taylor | Workington Reds |
| Damon Searle | Stockport Co | Allan Smart | Watford (£75,000) |
| David Brightwell | Northampton | Richard Liburd | Free |
| Scott Paterson | Bristol C | Nick Wright | Watford (£100,000) |
| Stuart Whitehead | Bolton Wanderers | John Foster | Free |
| Dariusz Kubicki | WolverhamptonWanderers | ||
| Peter Clark | Arsenal | ||
For most people 1998 was World Cup year, but unfortunately we crashed out undeservedly at the hands of yet another penalty shoot-out. While many are now forgiving David Beckham, I cannot bring myself to. I still believe that it was his petulence that cost us that match and, judging by the performances of the other teams, the World Cup. I watched the second game of the group phase in Dundee's Bar in Montreal whilst I was on holday there. There were 8 of us English fans, two Romanians and a handful of neutrals.
As a footnote, the pre-match music can be a bit boring at Brunton Park and so I asked the mailing list for nominations for songs with a Carlisle United "theme", however vague.
| Points received | Artist | Song |
| 33 | Yazz | The only way is up |
| 22 | The Smiths | (and there's panic on the streets of Carlisle) |
| 20 | Cannon & Ball | The Boys in Blue |
| 20 | Madonna | True blue |
| 19 | James | Sit down (Stewards song) |
| 19 | Rocky Horror Show | Timewarp (.. Not for very much longer, I've got to keep control) |
| 16 | The Beautiful South | Blue is the Colour |
| 15 | Status Quo | Down, down, deeper and down |
| 13 | Jimmi Hendrix | Foxy Lady |
| 12 | The Doors | 20th century Fox |
| 11 | Lonnie Donegan | Michael Row The Boat |
| 10 | The Beautiful South | Pretenders to the throne |
| 10 | The Smiths | Bigmouth Strikes Again (obvious MK reference there) |
| 9 | Allison Bernard | Keepin' the blues alive |
| 9 | Pulp | Something Changed |
| 7 | Bobby Vinton | Blue Velvet |
| 7 | It Bites | Calling all the heroes |
| 6 | The Beegees | Saturday night fever (Saturday Knighton Fever) |
| 6 | Everything But The Girl | Night and Day (Knighton-Day) |
| 5 | Shakin' Stevens | This Old House (The West Stand?) |
| 3 | Stealers Wheel | Stuck in the middle with you (clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right) |
| 2 | Brotherhood of Man | United We Stand |
| 1 | Spice Girls | Who do you think you are (.... some kind of superstar Mr Knighton?) |
| 0 | The Doors | The End (Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain, and all the people are insane) |
| 0 | The Smiths | Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now (usually 4.45 on a Saturday afternoon) |
| 0 | The Smiths | Hand In Glove (especially for Caigie) |
| 0 | Manics | Everything must go |
| 0 | Boyzone | Coming Home Now (Michael Knighton returning from the Isle of Man) |
| 0 | Shirley Bassey | Hey Big Spender |
| 0 | The Beach Boys | I know there's an answer |
| 0 | Echo & the Bunny Men | Nothing lasts for ever |
| 0 | Ride | Leave them all behind |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | No mercy |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | Trip to mars |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | To be a dreamer |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | Misery |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | Its not a crime |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | Incidently....its over |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | If I say it, its so |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | A fool like me |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | I'll cry tomorrow |
| 0 | Nils Lofgren | Big tears fall |
| 0 | Johnny Duncan and The Blue Grass Boys | Blue Blue Heartaches |
The News & Star is launching two new services for Carlisle United fans this season.
The first is a link between internet users and the paper. If you would like to give your comments and views about United over the weekend the News & Star would like to hear from you. If your email gets to the paper by noon on Sunday there's a good chance it will be in the News & Star's sports supplement the next day. As an incentive the paper will give £10 to the sender of the best comment.
The News & Star is also launching a weekly newsletter for exiled united fans everywhere. For £19.20 for the whole season fans will get a copy of Monday's News & Star every week featuring extensive coverage of United's weekend game and a newsletter containing all the rest of the week's news and views about United. To subscribe send a cheque to :
Memories wanted - good, bad or indifferent.
Did you ever visit Eastville - the original home of Bristol Rovers? We're two Gasheads who are putting together a book of peoples memories of Eastville and as well as recollections from our own supporters we'd like to include a section on what away fans thought of the place.
Eastville has now been near enough completely demolished to make way for a new branch of the Swedish MFI (Ikea), which managed to get the planning permission we never have very easily from Bristol City Council, and we just want to keep it alive in some way.
If you have any stories or can pass this message on to people who might via your clubs mailing list, fanzines etc then we'd be very grateful and of course we'll send a copy to any contributors.
E-mails, disk (MS Word all versions to 97) and paper versions are all OK.
Thanks
Ian Marriott & Hazel Potter
17 Glyn Road
London E5 0JB
e-mail: the2ndofmay@msn.com
| RIOA Index |
Editorials | Email the webmaster |