Moxon's Carlisle United commitment clear despite speculation

Did Owen Moxon hear it? Of course he did. He was walking from the East Stand, having been substituted with cramp, right the way around the pitch at that end.

“He’s one of our own,” was sung so loudly it must have rattled his eardrums. Those singing it no doubt hoped the words would reach his heart as well.

Well, you can’t fault supporters for trying. In moments like that they are giving everything they’ve got, all they have in their gift, to persuade Moxon of how adored he is.

You can’t be a Carlisle lad and not, on some level, be moved by that. It’s probably fanciful to think that alone will make a pen levitate towards his hand and then drag it towards a contract on a table, but it can still be thought of as a reinforcement of something – a reminder of what could be lost, even if something else is gained.

A football career, of course, is not fuelled on expressions of love. Not when there is a better deal to be done, a different future to be weighed, a status to be furthered. The extended terms Carlisle have offered to Moxon remain unsigned. “There have been discussions, but nothing has changed on it,” Paul Simpson said the other day. “I’m badgering the life out of him because we want him to stay.”

Paul Simpson said he is badgering the life out of Moxon over a new contract (Image: Ben Holmes)

It is not an ideal situation, an ongoing impasse involving a player who already has special status at Brunton Park. Simpson, we can be sure, will have experienced all this before and we can be as confident as ever in the steadiness of the hand on the tiller as things do or don’t unfold.

Yet ensuring a base line of good conduct and minimal disruption also comes down to the player. In this League One season so far, the verdict returned on Moxon’s character has been good.

He has played, worked, ran, scored, used this fledgling third-tier stage to show how good he is; how good, on this journey, Carlisle can aspire to be. A few days after gastroenteritis left him throwing up his dinner, Moxon was leading United’s comeback against Wigan Athletic, scoring their equaliser and competing so hard that he had to go off for the final few minutes.

If we can’t have his name on a piece of paper right now, then in the meantime this other signature, with actions, is what we can hope for and expect from the midfielder.

As it should be, you’d think, considering he is operating under contract. Yet it’s not always like this in a sport of shadows, shades, pulls and pushes.

Luke Armstrong of Harrogate Town, the kind of striker some Blues fans would like to see here, ruled himself out of his club’s opening fixtures of the season in League Two and the Carabao Cup. There had been transfer bids tabled – none that were successful, but that did not seem to matter.

Luke Armstrong of Harrogate Town, right, ruled himself out of their first two games because of transfer interest (Image: PA)

“Luke had said that he didn’t feel that he could be at his best for the team,” said Harrogate manager Simon Weaver. This must have been terrific news for the supporters that have paid to watch him and the team-mates that have helped lift him up (and yes, who have benefited from his efforts too). The player had no contractual grounds not to play yet declined to do so: injured, effectively, from the head being turned so much it caused a twisted neck.

Knowing you’re wanted by (presumably) bigger clubs, with more money and opportunity to put your way, can’t be something easily blocked out. The mind, filled with new prospects and ideas, can be a complex place.

Yet the differences in the two individuals mentioned have still been clear and, to a point, laced with karma. The two games Moxon has been able to play this season (he missed two with injury and illness) Carlisle have performed well and he’s scored in both. The two missed by Armstrong at Harrogate at his own behest, they won. Since he returned to the fold, they’ve lost twice without scoring.

At the EnviroVent Stadium they now know their star player’s commitment comes with caveats if certain circumstances present themselves. We cannot say that of Moxon, who has stayed true to the shirt even after that failed Blackpool bid, the calculated leaking of it by *someone* and everything said by people on all sides since.

It speaks well of his focus and application, his sticking to certain principles and his ability to see that there’s far more to gain by fronting up, in terms of performance and commitment, than there is by attaching conditions to what you do just because someone else out there likes the look of you.

The result is that League One has had an early measure of what a talented player he is. This might not make it easier for Carlisle to pin him down but it enables Moxon to look himself in the mirror, and denies anyone at Brunton Park the right to view him differently.

“I hope he doesn’t gan / Cos that would be pure shan,” that classic lyric from The Watterwucks, still holds. But if the love-bombs fail, at least we’ll know he was all in, all the time, while he was here.