Star Wars Index page RIOA banner Star Wars Index page

4 May 2009
May the Fourth be with you, annually!

Ladies and gentlemen, salutations to you all on this, Star Wars Day. Appropriate, as I believe the club drafted in some of the Scottish Police who listed Jedi as their Belief System - "These are not the Drab Four you're looking for".

I've done a few trips to away games on my own in the last couple of months, and on these I spent a couple of nights sleeping in my car on motorway services. For Cheltenham I set off on the Friday straight from work and slept at Strensham services, just to the north of Cheltenham. After a good night's sleep I drove in to the camp site in Cheltenham where I'd be spending Saturday night and left my car, deciding it should be pretty safe there as it was within sight of GCHQ! It turned out that the owner of this camp site is from Kendal! I then set off on a slow ambling walk across Cheltenham to the pub next to the ground - the Fox and Hounds. I was there just before 11:00, but it wasn't too long before other CUFC fans started to arrive, including some message boarders I'd not met before, but knew of - it was nice meeting you. The game itself was a reasonable performance punctured only by two sendings off.

I had a substantive season of CUFC watching, attending all but one home game and the following away games:

I also did all the pre-season matches except for Chester City and a couple of youth games, including the Workington Reds Cumberland Cup semi-final.

The last game of the season against Millwall was another example of CUFC in a last minute relegation or promotion battle. Someone on the message board posted that we should all change our pre-match rituals. As it was, I'd already decided to try a different route to the match, walking through Rickerby Park and across the bridge to the golf course. To add to this, I drank my morning coffee from my Cumbria mug rather than my CUFC mug, and didn't take a flask of coffee with me. This was topped off by not being allowed to put my flag in the Waterworks End, and having to put it on the side railings at the north end of the Paddock. I felt pensive but slightly relaxed and detached during the game itself. I'd decided on a sanity saving approach of resigning myself to relegation but hoping for salvation. I also refused to believe that we would score from inside the penalty box - which turned out to be the case, as both goals in our 2-0 win came from outside the box!

Post-match pitch invasions. I've never been a fan of these, but they've been getting progressively worse/disturbing in recent years at Brunton Park. This time it went way too far, with the idiots congregating on the touch line with time still to play, distracting the Carlisle United players and risking the referee abandoning the match and it being awarded to Millwall. They then stormed onto the pitch before the final whistle. One idiot in particular grabbed the corner flag at the Waterworks-Paddock corner before being tackled by stewards. He was abusive and seemingly drunk, and couldn't understand why the stewards nabbed him! And yes, not one police officer to assist, as they were all over in front of the Millwall fans. However, they were dealing with one person over at the Millwall section, but not sure if that was a Millwall of CUFC "fan". Someone also saw one man kicking out at Millwall players as they headed for the tunnel after the match. I just hope that the ref doesn't include it in his match report. It could lead to a heavy fine for the club, or possibly even a points deduction before the final league standings are confirmed, leading to relegation to Tier 4 after all. I'd have an Alsatian every five metres around the pitch! One of my fondest memories was watching an Alsatian take a nip one year at an idiot who was a bit slow getting back into the Warwick Road End after a pitch invasion :-)

Still, it is all over and we're now hopefully in Tier 3 for another season, barring a points deduction and relegation for crowd trouble. It wouldn't be the Carlisle United we've come to expect over the last twenty years if we'd not had a relegation or promotion battle, would it?

RIOA
Index		 Editorials Email the
webmaster
Site Meter