Sorry I couldn't join in the chat session on Sunday, but I had to leave my laptop at work as we were migrating to NT over the weekend. Ian Jardine and I handed out 200 leaflets at the Orient game, mainly to non London Branch people who didn't know about SOS 2000. I reckon there was still another 100 to 200 that we didn't get to. I was on the Radio Cumbria phone-in again on Saturday (just before Matthew Richards' e-mail was read out) and plugged SOS 2000. Someone told me there was also an article in the freebee Gazette on Friday. Carlisle deserved the victory. It was noticeable how much more we wanted the points than they did. Brightwell's run in the second half typified the spirit in the team. What was good was that Clark, Prokas, Pitts and Anthony all had shots at goal. It's a long time since our midfield has given this much support to the forwards. Weaver played an absolute blinder. How he kept that header out in the last five minutes I will never know. The cross had goal written all over it and when the guy met it totally unimpeded I thought it was all over, but somehow Weaver managed to get in the way of it and push it over the bar. For the last five minutes Weaver dominated the six yard box in the way that Ingham wouldn't and punched or caught anything that came near. Pitts had another good game. He had the beating of the Orient fullback for speed and got many usefull crosses over. Brightwell and Whitehead were as dependable as ever and didn't get booked. Clark had an average sort of game. He came forward well but didn't get his shots on target. Prokas was inspirational in midfield and nearly scraped a goal in the first half. Soley was disappointing again. He was rarely in the game and when he was he was too slow and his passes wayward. Billy Barr made a couple of errors and was lucky not to be punished for them. He did one of his wonderful sliced clearances with his back to goal which went for a corner but could just of easily found the top corner. Dobie looked good up front. Should have scored in the first half, but caused the Orient defence problems all match. Durnin was ok. Unlucky with his shot which hit the post. Tired in the second half. Graham Anthony should keep his place in the team on this performance. He is the only midfield player to be looking for a player to pass to rather than just belting the ball upfield. A goal would have done his confidence a lot of good. Let's not get carried away on the back of this one performance. There is no doubt that United have improved probably since the Peterborough game, but Orient were a VERY poor side. They were not a patch on the team that played us on the opening day of the season. I didn't think that Orient could go down, but now I'm not so sure. This was a really dreadful performance from the O's. I didn't see any sign of a protest from the Orient fans and the Carlisle fans outsang them from start to finish. I did hear some chanting as I left the ground but I couldn't tell if it was from the Carlisle or Orient fans. It seems that the spirit of SOS 2000 is already upon us. The Carlisle fans were 100% behind the team throughout the game. No booing, no barracking and lots of chanting. The team responded appropriately. The linesman on our side of the field managed to miss five handballs. Two of which the ref saw even though he was on the other side of the pitch. One of them when Durnin was being hauled to the ground was one of the clearest penalties I have seen for many a day. Thorpe managed to give the Lino a good earful as he was doing his warm-up routine. All in all a good day... Malcolm Fawcett Editor, Hit the Bar!, Carlisle United Supporters'Club London Branch
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