The first player to be recognised in song was Rod McDonald, as the Carlisle United defender sat on the turf, his evening – and a chunk of his season – about to go down the Swanee.
“Super, super Rod, super Rod McDonald,” was the tune from a proportion of the 958-strong travelling fans at Salford. A while later they were serenading Joel Senior, as the right-back took his sad, stretchered departure from the Peninsula Stadium pitch.
Yet it wasn’t just support for the injured that we heard. Further players who were still active in the game got their own tunes, Morgan Feeney and Jon Mellish being two – and then there was Joe Riley, who at one stage must have felt like he could have picked his nose and still been greeted with an uproarious cheer.
It made you sit and think: do they realise how lucky they are, this Carlisle United team? To have their names belted out with gusto by fans during one of the worst Blues seasons in recent memory?
To get a few individualised tributes at a time they are contributing to the limpest goalscoring record in the bottom division? To be saluted in a campaign which has brought six wins in 28 games, nine goals in 14 home matches and a feeling of abject relief that, just now, there are two sides in League Two that bit worse off?
Seriously: that was above and beyond from the away end on Tuesday night. That was support further than the norm. Yes, it had dissipated by the end, and the melodies had been replaced with criticism so pointed that Keith Millen declared himself “embarrassed” to have faced it.
But still: those 958. Those songs. That volume. That 47 per cent of the entire attendance (by contrast, Salford brought 172 to Brunton Park in September, a mere four per cent of the gate).
Impressive, wasn’t it? Something also to heed and to think about. Something which made Carlisle United appear a bigger deal than their current path, on and off the park, shows they are.
It sometimes feels like a cliché to observe that a group of fans deserve better when their team’s in the thick of a decline. Yet that doesn’t make it less true. Carlisle are third bottom of the Football League, back on the sort of winless run we hoped had been intercepted earlier in the winter, still by no means out of the woods as regards relegation, still delivering a lot less than they should be.
And still they got that emphatic backing. Now, it is not the case that only successful sides get or merit full-throated faith. The badge, the shirt, loyalty: often that’s enough.
There is often a sort of gallows support available to the struggling, too, as there has been in campaigns past. United happen to be bound for Rochdale today, where in April 2001 they received a 6-0 thrashing.
Talk to many who were in the away section that night and they’ll describe it as one of the most memorable trips of the time. There was unity in numbers, strength in spirit, humour despite Carlisle’s travails. Support that was no less resounding, in its own way, than what you get in the good times.
Fans may also be straining to see those players they think they can rely on in difficulty. Just as past bad teams were propped up by, for example, goalscorers like Ian Stevens or underrated centre-halves like Stuart Whitehead, this XI needs a few ports in a storm too.
Feeney, who went wholeheartedly about his defensive work after being summoned back on by Millen on Tuesday, looks like one competitor to be depended on. Others are going to have to reveal themselves in these remaining 18 games.
Should they do so, they can clearly bank on positive encouragement where it most counts, whatever else gets said online or in other debating forums. It goes without saying that it needs to be given back with actions first, and not just from those on the park.
It is clear that these are uncertain times not just in terms of the team’s fate but regarding the long-term ownership of United. Nigel Clibbens, the chief executive, does plenty in his power to fill the information void.
Yet there is a reason United’s official website also has a section headed “DOF updates”, and therefore it cannot be right that the last public words uttered by the man carrying that title, David Holdsworth, are dated October 15, 2021.
It cannot be right that Carlisle’s official line is, by and large, presented by two men (Clibbens and Millen, plus players) when they also have owners in charge of overall direction. It cannot be right that so many words can be expended to describe the general state of play, yet some questions – like those posed by the News & Star about John Nixon’s investment “Plan B and C” this week – are not, in any meaningful way, addressed.
It can’t be right that those at the very top choose no channels other than occasional programme notes to exercise the “fan engagement” about which the club is openly proud.
And it can’t be the case that all is absolutely fine and stable when United remain in considerable debt, with interest ticking up all the time, and without an openly stated plan of action to make Brunton Park better, brighter, with a future less beset with worry lines.
So yes, those people do deserve more; a fair sight more. In the meantime, this bad, low-goals, low-points, cancel-your-awards-dinner-if-you’ve-any-sense campaign proceeds to Spotland. And still they’ll sing.
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