2.59.59....the sweetest time in football is upon us

Saturday morning: the curtains open, the fixture ahead, the canvas blank, the imagination at work. The slowly passing hours, the rituals and habits, all leading up to the sweetest time of all.

2.59.59. And its magic is heightened on the opening day of the season. It's the very last moment when anything, absolutely anything, feels possible before, inconveniently, the football starts.

And sometimes, it is a damned inconvenience. Frequently over the years at Carlisle that anticipation has been blasted into smithereens in no time at all.

Between the end of the 2002/3 season and 2003/4, there were three months and six days. Imagine another business where you get that much time to prepare, that much time to put things in place for your actual job, without doing that job.

Well, it took two minutes of the opening day for Carlisle to concede a goal. Another 11 for them to concede again. Another 23 for their big summer striker signing to be sent off. A month and four days for them to take the lead in a league game (through a chap called Paul Simpson).

Sometimes the anticipation wears off quickly...like on 2003/4's opening day (Image: Phil Rigby)

And no, praise be, not all seasons are like 2003/4. We’d probably have long taken up dominoes if they were. But let’s not pretend even the good starts are anything but stressful. Once that whistle blows, we’re buckled in for the long, hard, messy old journey.

So this is the stage to enjoy the most: before any of that occurs. Right now we can think about what 2023/24 might become without the intrusion of actual events. It is what we want it to be.

And we are still what we were in May. In the mind’s eye Carlisle are still dancing around Wembley, their most recent competitive game one of the most jubilant in their recent history. Simmo is necking a bottle of champagne, Tomas Holy is cradling the play-off trophy like his favourite child, Omari Patrick is almost literally glowing, Taylor Charters is saying, ‘Not bad, eh?’ and Wembley’s Box Park is preparing for a few cubic metres of peeve to go down.

And all that will always be happening, in the memory, whatever unfolds now. Let’s pause, though, one last time, and allow Wembley to give us that very real rush of happiness before the dirty old business of another season fills the immediate senses.

Wembley will always be an indelible memory for Blues fans (Image: Richard Parkes)

What will this one really be like? Well, the possibilities may not be endless, but I fancy they are greater and broader than we might fear as well.

There are three enemies that can stalk a side promoted before its time, before it expected. These are complacency, defeatism and crisis.

Carlisle do not carry any of those into League One.

They have not made the mistakes of the past, such as the summer of 1995, when one of the most vibrant seasons in United’s history was followed by scant recruitment and a risky faith that what took Carlisle up would be enough.

It was not, and a dream slowly seeped away. This time the Blues are on nine summer signings so far, want another two and, if recruitment for the higher level has not always been easy, it has been attempted with the reality of League One in mind.

Defeatism won’t find a home at Paul Simpson’s United either. If it did, they wouldn’t be here now; in all likelihood they’d be in the National League, or at best in the middle to lower rump of League Two.

Carlisle did not hold with any of the wise owls who predicted struggle last season. They did not look at the odds or the magazine forecasts or the general inclination towards pessimism that’s often around.

They reckoned they could have a go at promotion. Over 46 exhausting games, followed by three more, they did it. This is how they will and must attack 2023/24: without accepting boundaries.

Of course it won’t be easy. Of course, it could be mighty hard. But if Simpson 2.0 has taught us anything it’s to think of ceilings at Brunton Park that can be burst through, not collided with.

We are better off, in these last ticking hours before kick-off, considering how wide Carlisle’s horizons could be, rather than how difficult it will be to survive. What if they’re capable of more than that? Have they not, these past 18 months, realigned the way we should be thinking?

As for crisis…well, thankfully it isn’t there, or at least not in a pressing, daily sense. The Purepay debt, ever-increasing (hello, Bank of England, with your latest interest rate rise), is a bill that’s going to have to be paid eventually, one way or another.

That’s a shadow that continually falls over these brighter scenes. Let’s not pretend otherwise. In an operational sense, though, there is at least stability.

Paul Simpson did not lead Carlisle to their surprise 2022/23 promotion by accepting pessimistic boundaries. Carlisle must retain the same optimism this season (Image: Barbara Abbott)

This summer, the jury is not out on their manager. The jury has long given its verdict and retired to the pub. Carlisle’s ownership is not one that will launch it headlong into transformative prosperity, but it is a known quantity.

It is one that, after years of failure and turmoil, recognised a good thing in Simpson and supported him. It is one where you don’t have to worry when bills are going to be paid, when HMRC are going to be satisfied, when wages are going to come through.

Carlisle do not fear the reaper as they step into 2023/24. Not all at their level can say that with a clear conscience.

And so, with this the picture on August 5, let there be no hang-ups. United have a hell of a job in front of them but they have many of the ground-level tools to set about it. A brightness is still there. We should back its chances of remaining.

All that, though, will come to pass in good order. Until then, this countdown – this pure, exciting, limitless annual countdown – is the time to relish. After all, in three days time the Blues will be playing Harrogate Town again.