Carlisle United's Omari Patrick deserves to be remembered fondly

Now of course, the natural instinct when a player says he’s offski is to round up all the reasons why we’ll be jolly well fine without him.

Wasn’t that good in the first place. Too injury-prone, too inconsistent, take your pick.

And Carlisle United may indeed get by without Patrick. If they cannot find another attacker capable of scoring five goals in a season, such was his return in 2022/23, then there will certainly be a few clogs in the recruitment system.

Eighteen league starts, 14 outings from the bench, six more in the cups: these are not the statistics of a vintage season, and I doubt even Patrick himself would put last term down as a stormer from start to finish.

There were good days, not so good days, one or two moments of sensational impact. In terms of output, can the Blues find better for League One?

They have to. A player comes, a player goes, we are all reminded of the need not to get too attached, and then someone else signs and we throw ourselves at their feet and the cycle of love and pain begins again.

See also Morgan Feeney. Yet Patrick, to my mind, deserves to be held in fond regard even as he leaves (again). Scarpering after 18 months doesn’t qualify anyone for a statue but in the fullness of time there should be no doubt how well the 27-year-old must be remembered.

Not just for the 84th minute at Wembley, priceless and quite glorious though that was, but for a body of work that, even though it had its intermittent times, delivered things of substance to Carlisle United at times they needed them.

All transfers are designed to be mutually beneficial, but the facts are still plain: Patrick first joined Carlisle, in January 2020, when they were 19th in League Two and by no means out of the forest relegation-wise.

Patrick was the defining player in United's rise to safety under Paul Simpson in 2022 (Image: Richard Parkes)

A few flickers of that pace, that elusive skill, and they were in a happier place by the time Covid cut that season short; at no risk, in the end, from the points-per-game outcome that finished off teams below them.

The second time he came was January 2022. At the moment his pen hit the paper, United were worse: 22nd, limping badly, with a manager not long for the job, a director of football in the same boat and the wider feeling of a club staring at a miserable reckoning.

Before that February’s more seismic off-field changes, Patrick delivered. He delivered against Bradford City, for instance, and at Colchester United. Then, under Paul Simpson, he performed with – in the circumstances – terrific dash.

Nobody, individually, did more to save United that season (other than Simpson). Patrick scored crucially at Leyton Orient to start the revival. He scored against Rochdale to continue it. He scored at Oldham Athletic to further it. He scored at Tranmere Rovers to better it and he scored against Mansfield Town to seal it.

The sense was of a player who had come home and was feeling fine. Last season was, initially, an injury-impeded one, offering little of venom other than that merry two-goal entrance at Hartlepool United. Things came at a trickle from there and Simpson found goals from other avenues.

There were games when it seemed Patrick’s place in the side was one of discomfort, and other games when his attributes were clear again: that pace, the intention to carry the ball, take people on, even if it didn’t come off and even if the more robust side of leading the line was not especially for him.

And then, against Stockport on that sweltering Wembley day, came a cameo of pure Patrick: a running, substitute’s presence that helped push the opposition defence deeper, freshness that marked a flagging Stockport’s card, and when Fraser Horsfall jabbed out a foot and Joel Senior’s cross broke away, a split-second of stillness, when the weight of Carlisle’s ambition rested on him – before that dynamic, precision low finish. Then penalties, then wonderful promotion.

Patrick's goal at Wembley will live long in the memory (Image: Richard Parkes)

In other words: the man helped save them twice, then helped take them up. And yes, other players were part of each particular cause. But when time ticks by and we take the toll of who did what and when in United’s name, Patrick is going to have his place, and a good one it will be too.

The rest, right now, is down to judgement over steering an individual career. If Patrick’s way of taking ownership of his fate is to seek a club that will play him on the wing – a promise Simpson could not (and, given Carlisle’s success, should not) make – then only the outcome will justify the means.

A player’s first loyalty, much as we like to think it otherwise, is to himself and to a career that can be shorter even than it seems at the time.

Moving on must be a risk in these circumstances, bearing in mind that, an hour or so after the penalty shoot-out, Patrick was reflecting on his decision to come back to Carlisle and said: “I just wanted to go to the place that made me happy. Out of my whole career this is the place that’s made me happiest.”

Trading that for a fresh unknown is a gamble, and not one, as this summer progresses and Simmo does more deals, that should trouble or exercise us vastly. What Carlisle do next is what Carlisle have to worry about, not what a former player ventures off towards.

And of course it’s a shame that the respective stars appear no longer to be in line, and that Wembley turned out to be an ending for Patrick here, rather than a mutual step forward.

Yet this is not the first or last prompt that football is changeable in so many ways, even when you think it shouldn’t be. All you can do is assess someone by their actions, by what they affected and how they impacted while they were with you. In which case, however many regrets aside – thanks, Omari.