Carlisle United deserve big show of support v Salford City

Any one of us from the media side of things minded to play that tune too hard when it comes to watching football should also remember: we’re lucky to get in for nowt.

For everyone else, there are decisions to make, each day, every week. A cost-of-living crisis makes those calls harder than ever.

So this cannot be a drumbeat that passes for a guilt trip. To many of us, Carlisle United v Salford City feels like the biggest thing on earth this weekend.

Yet to some – to many, probably – it will be a case of sweating over the bills and the bank balance and either doing it anyway, or saying no.

That bottom line needs to stay in the mind either when reflecting on the support United have had, or considering what they could do with on Saturday.

Carlisle players show their appreciation for their travelling support at Barrow (Image: Richard Parkes)

It makes the backing they’ve received throughout 2022/23 all the more superb. It makes what they’ll get this weekend all the more impressive.

Context, then, needs to be kept in mind even as we make one more appeal on the eve of the game, which feels the right time to clear throats again.

The message is apparent. It is for those who can – those who might still be wavering, those who’d consider watching United and have the means to do so, but aren’t sure – to be there.

Is this game not, after all, the sort of occasion we’d have bargained hard for during those fallow days of…well, too many years to mention?

The chance of nailing a play-off place with a game to go? The opportunity, given a fair string of results, to stay in the automatic hunt heading into the last 90 minutes?

Good lord. Imagine that, in the bowels of last season, in the anti-climax of the previous one, in the hard struggle of the one before, in the anti-climax of the one before, in the middling journey of the one before…

You know the story. Since 2017, Carlisle haven’t had this sort of prospect. And even then, by this point they were scrambling from a more distant position. The current side, from two games fewer, have four more points than Keith Curle’s aspirants got all season, and they were put together with a few more quid than this one, it’s safe to say.

Carlisle already have more points than they managed in their last promotion push of 2016/17, which ended in play-off defeat, pictured (Image: PA)

This, then, is the best fourth-tier campaign the Blues have had since Paul Simpson last took them up in 2006.

These are the standards we’ve spent much of the intervening period – certainly since they came back down in 2014 – wishing they’d one day hit again.

Now they are smacking them at last, thanks to a turnaround which started from somewhere near ground zero last February. And it’s led to a day of spice and intrigue like tomorrow: a springtime Saturday at Brunton Park when something good can be secured, something tantalising set up.

Why wouldn’t anyone, with the opportunity, want to throw themselves at it, be part of it, add their voice to it?

Simpson said it clearly enough this week. “If you’re ever going to come and back us, now is the chance,” Carlisle’s manager said.

Those who have done so this season have added greatly to the spectacle. The young fans in the Warwick Road End have made that old terrace feel much more vibrant alone.

Carlisle have had superb support home and away this season (Image: Ben Holmes)

Recent games, and a few others along the way, have seen the other places in the ground more bustling than for a good while.

The Paddock, packed and in full cry, is always a distinctive and in some ways fearsome beast. The Pioneer Stand has not, this season, been short of volume and character.

The Waterworks End – the dear old Waterworks, normally a haven for flags and not much more – has also joined in the fun amid this finale. And so much better the place looks and feels for it.

There has been a greater vitality around United than we’ve had grounds to experience for several years. Simpson and a dynamic team have seen to that.

The resonance of a promotion, at the end of it all, cannot be underestimated in terms of both the club’s and city’s sense of confidence and optimism.

Carlisle, on the up again? Yes, we’ll have some of that. You just have to remember how colourful it was the last times they did it: in 1995, when the city was on a green, red and white deckchair pageant to end them all; 1997, when a refined side went up and it just felt…right. 2005, when the Blues, after some bleak times, were back. 2006, when they were reassuringly good and had, for goodness sake, Michael Bridges up front.

Paul Simpson's side can seal a play-off place tomorrow - and possibly remain in the automatic race (Image: Richard Parkes)

Nobody who put themselves into any of those mixes regrets it. Nobody there has lost grip on how good and bright it felt.

The opportunity for similar has returned – not without certainty, not without the risk it might be someone else’s party in the end – but it’s still there and it’s still real, all right.

So when the sun comes up on Saturday, it’s Carlisle v Salford and the menu is 90 minutes of fun and anguish and stress and maybe, just maybe…

…why would anyone around here, with half a sentiment for United and the ability to go through the turnstiles, not want a piece of it?

Back The Blues, then. It comes, as ever, with no guarantees. But it might be special.