Well here we are on the eve of our new season, with a mixed bag of unconvincing pre-season friendlies behind us, several players gone, and a to date unconvincing influx of replacements (or not). Concern is mounting amongst fans for the season ahead of us, and for a change I am with them. However, I am still not in the ''hate Abbott'' camp yet. Again I emphasise my long held belief that any manager must be given a full season to make their mark. Abbott will have had that at the end of the coming season, and so I reserve my judgement until then, if not my concern.
So, the pre-season friendlies. In the end I actually only got to a couple, of which I will pick out two:
Workington Reds. For the first time ever I saw a Carlisle United team beat Workington! This was due to the fact that for the first time ever, Carlisle put out a strong team, rather than just reserves or even youths. However, the game didn't build much confidence amongst Carlisle fans, especially because Workington were missing a couple of key players.
Dean's Fairy Gala An interesting drive up the A7 after work got us to Galashiels comfortably early and allowed us to sample the delights of Scottish cuisine via a chippy. I asked for haggis and chips and was presented with an entire battered haggis! It was nice enough, but not worthy of a recommendation. The match itself was, well, interesting! We actually lost count in the first half, with Carlisle scoring eight in total.
So far we've had quite a nice early summer, and I've already had some BBQs on the Cathedral Of Fire (copyright C.Van Tilburg & M.Jackson), and also got quite a bit of gardening and landscaping done. It hasn't been as nice for the last couple of weeks though, which doesn't bode well for my fortnight's leave coming up!
Thankfully the online excitement over my anticipated candidacy for Member Of Parliament for Carlisle seems to have died down now, so with any luck everyone will have forgotten by the time the election comes around ;-)
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