Carlisle United: why takeover excitement must be measured

Things we don’t yet know: their actual plans. Their proposed level of investment. Their short and long-term intentions for the Blues. Their ideas for infrastructure, development, management, the team, supporters.

What we also don’t know: what they think about the ground, what they think about the staff, what they think about everything else that pertains to the business of and culture around United. What they think is achievable, what they feel is realistic, what they believe must be safeguarded, what is up for change and which hurdles can be attacked and how.

And until those unknowns become knowns, we really have to bite our tongues when it comes to expressing maximum excitement about a shimmering new dawn at Brunton Park.

The fact is, we still don’t know the first thing about what might be on the horizon. This is not, then, the time for celebration, but for icy logic to cut some of the anticipation. Sober heads first, party later.

Now, it is entirely understandable that some have gone in early on the latter. The yearning for big change, investment and vision at Carlisle is a thing of many painstaking years and many eye-rolling failures.

Small wonder supporters, given hints that something might be happening at last, would lose themselves in a little hope. No surprise a few of them would bring the stars and stripes to games, even, and no wonder someone at United would, at half-time against Exeter City, with the Florida-based Piataks known to be in the Andrew Jenkins Stand, also elect to play Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born In The U.S.A.’ as the first half-time track.

All of this touches what makes us human, makes us fans. What is the point if you can’t feel eager at the thought of new possibilities?

A good rule of thumb at Brunton Park is that if Paul Simpson says something, to trust him (Image: Ben Holmes)

Also, a credible rule for life at Carlisle these past couple of years is that if Simpson says something, it’s worth believing in. He feels things are progressing positively, and reckons there are grounds to think well of what’s happening. To a substantial degree we can put our trust in that.

But we cannot allow our wish for change to blind us completely to the need for detail. We should always dilute our Simpson with a few drops of Clibbens; the bottom line as well as the headline. Carlisle’s chief executive last week stressed that takeovers are complex things, with many barriers to overcome and any host of motivations to prise out first.

That ought to be true of any attempt on United’s future and it simply has to apply now. Much, in terms of the public domain, hinges on the Piataks’ expected appearance at CUOSC members’ meetings next month.

Those open encounters will allow us to take the temperature of this thing for the first time. That’s where the checks and balances come in over and above those applied behind the scenes in negotiations that are understood to be well advanced by now.

That’s where reassurance, as well as excitement, must be placed on the table. This is not just about the furthering of Carlisle United but the stewarding of it. It is about having the club’s back as well as thrusting it forward.

It is about knowing why it matters in hard times as well as good. It is about accepting what is precious on a historic, community basis, along with imagining what the Blues could one day be: something which, in itself, needs to receive an emphatic and outstanding blueprint.

It is in these domains that the Piataks will hopefully impress, hopefully knock down each question with a flourish. That flourish has to be factual, realistic, believable and costed as well as big-thinking.

Nigel Clibbens, United's chief executive, last week stressed that takeovers are complex things and can take time to progress (Image: Barbara Abbott)

They have to be grey details men as well as sellers of a dream. Those hearing their plans will have to be primed for this, to assess their acumen as well as the sort of picture they might want to paint about Carlisle this time next year, the next five or ten years; the ceiling that can be smashed, the glory that's in reach.

It is clear enough that the Piataks would not be making their presence known in the current manner were things not a fair way forward. They may have said nothing publicly yet but would-be owners sitting with the fans, on whoever’s decision/invitation, is a cast-iron route towards a certain profile of events.

Popping into the Warwick Road End, and offering up an Instagram reel about it (as Tom Piatak junior did), the same. A demonstration of getting in touch with a matchday, a commitment to being there…yes, that’s important too. Wearing the shirt…less so. It is the collar-and-tie version of Tom Piatak snr, who has built a large and thriving business in Jacksonville, that we need.

Owners in replica kit, not particularly. We can easily think of occasions, here and elsewhere, when that sort of thing hasn’t lasted the popularity course. It is the nature of Mr Piatak's more hard-headed qualities that will hold up a good new regime, nothing more or less.

Enthusiasm, sure, is among the first things you want through the door. But in front of it must be the black-and-white reality of what is being proposed: facts not fantasies, salt not sugar, cold and clear reasons why these guys are the right guys. Until we know all that, the welcome can be warm, but not unconditional.