Three hundred and sixty miles is a long way to go to watch a football match. Furthermore it is a trip fraught with risk. See your team win and the exercise can be justified to even the most puzzled of non-believers. witness a defeat, however, and the questions do not come from others but from within - and there are 360 miles back.
Fortunately for the 300 or so Carlisle United fans who set off at 6am on Saturday bound for Torquay the journey home was not full of internal queries on the limits of sanity.
Carlisle won 2-1, stayed second in the Third Division behind Fulham and vindicated viewing the 720 mile round trip as a sign of passion rather than madness. Further reward may come tonight; if Carlisle beat Rochdale and Fulham fail to beat Torquay the Cumbrians will go top. A draw might even be enough to put Mervyn Day's side in pole position because Carlisle have a better goal difference due to the second meanest defence in the Division.
That record was at the forefront of Day's thoughts yesterday as two of those responsible for it were limping, not strutting around the corridors of Brunton Park.
In between visits to the osteopath - Day ricked his back on the coach to Torquay - the Carlisle manager of eight months explained that the teenager Will Varty had picked up an Achilles injury on the south coast Stephane Pounewatchy had been kicked in training yesterday morning. Varty's six week lay-off is a problem but the absence of Pounewatchy is a crisis because the Frenchman has been outstanding since his unlikely arrival in Cumbria two months ago.
The post-Bosman era has been marked by strange transfers and there are about 120 foreigners playing outside the Premiereship alone. That, according to the Football League, is an increase of roughly 40% over 12 months, a situation some within the game find disturbing.
Day has some sympathy with that argument but not in the case of his Frenchman. "If they are just brought over as cannon fodder and as an alternative to paying transfer fees, then I disagree" he said. "But if they are good players like Stephane, and good role models, then it is not a bad thing. If I could find four or five with Stephane's qualities and demeanour, then I would have them."
Consequently foreign agents play an increasingly important role in the life of an English manager and Day and his boisterous manager Michael Knighton had to go via one of them to get Pounewatchy. Tipped off that he was on trial at Southend, they got him up to Carlisle, saw three minutes of him play in a friendly against Kilmarnock and decided they had seen enough.
There was no transfer fee of course but, as Pounewatchy's valuation between French clubs was around £500,000, there are serious wages involved. The big, amiable 28 year old has sad eyes but he seems happy with the money.
He is also enjoying his football and playing in a new atmosphere. "Bastia want me to sign and now they are second in the French league but I wanted a different experience and I wanted to play in England." he said in useful English.
Reggiana, promoted to Serie A, also voiced an interest when Pounewatchy's two year contract with Gueugnon expired at the end of last season. One point below Lille, Gueugnon were relegated along with St Etienne and Martigues, where Pounewatchy had previously been captain for four years. The Parisian had started at Racing Club of Paris as a schoolboy but at 19 gave up football at his father's behest to go back to college for two years to qualify as an economist.
It is not something he regrets but it may have hindered his chance of a France cap, a missing asset that has implications for him now. "I know it is difficult if you are not an international because you don't get picked up immediately. It was hard to me to accept the drop in standards but it's okay, it's different We are second in the table and the more I play the better I get and the more people know me."
Pounewatchy likes the stadium, his team-mates and the staff at Carlisle. The one thing, he said, that has been a culture shock was the bus trip to Torquay.
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