Facilities gap that any new Carlisle United owner must sort

Secluded but accessible, unobtrusive but vast: yep, Wigan Athletic appear to have got it made as far as top-end League One facilities go. Through a few residential roads, a sharp turn onto a gravel car park, and there you have it: several pitches in elite condition, all the space you need, all excuses in terms of preparation immediately removed.

And so, broadly speaking, the Latics should have such a place to call on. They have been operating in England’s top two divisions for most of the last two decades.

The days of watching fourth-tier games from the old grass bank at one end of Springfield Park, and the kind of image that lends to a club, now exist only in the memories of those who followed Carlisle and other such teams there in the 1990s.

Through David Whelan’s wealth, Wigan were, from that era, a club transformed and, though financial turmoil has been a more recent friend of theirs, recent takeover appears to have them equipped to rise again.

Certainly, pitching up at Christopher Park on Tuesday for United’s Central League Cup game was a trip into what, just now, is an unreachable future for Carlisle.

It highlighted the levels within levels which currently exist in their version of League One. United lost narrowly, 2-1, but the disparity was on display in the environment, the surroundings. Charlie Wyke, the striker Carlisle once sold for £250,000, popped along for a chat with a few of the Blues contingent.

Wonderful to see him so healthy and playing so well, by the way. But also – something else out of United’s grasp just now, a player of his third-tier calibre.

But back to facilities. Later this month, it is expected that Tom Piatak, United’s American would-be owner, will meet supporters for the first time at meetings arranged by fans’ trust CUOSC.

Will potential new owner Tom Piatak, centre left, have a plan to improve United's infrastructure? (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Such get-togethers will be among the most intriguing and important in Carlisle’s recent history. They will be the occasions when, at last, the Florida businessman emerges from crowd photos and his son’s Instagram activity and into the real, up-front flesh.

We can anticipate ambitions, plans, details. Hopefully some vision blended with realism, a crucial insight into motivations and, ideally, enough reasons all-in-all to go forward with hope about a new United era.

Paul Simpson, Carlisle's manager, has said his understanding is that talks are progressing positively between the Piataks and the Blues’ hierarchy. One imagines Simpson will be hanging on the detail like the rest of us when the Jacksonville folks share their thoughts with the wider public.

A small wager can be confidently placed as to what Simmo would like to hear first. Training facilities. A training ground. Somewhere United can call their own – a place they could have, and look after, and use, in the knowledge that they are finally operating like a proper, forward-aiming club, not one that has to make do and manage with varying degrees of resourcefulness.

Simpson has been clear about this throughout his second reign as United’s manager. His yearning for a modern training base has, so far, clashed with the financial difficulty of making such a thing come to pass.

In March it was said that the club were looking at “a number of options” in terms of future training facilities. In April it duly emerged that the old Newman School site had been investigated with this in mind.

United’s exploration of Newman led them to conclude that six-figure investment would need to be made in order to make the site suitable: more than £60,000 in rent for changing rooms and offices, and £250,000 to sort out the pitches.

Paul Simpson has long advocated better training facilities for the Blues (Image: Richard Parkes)

“As we sit here now, sadly we haven’t got the cash to be able to do that,” said chief executive Nigel Clibbens.

He did, in the same fans’ forum, concede that Newman had “potential” if only the Blues had the cash. Which is, presumably, where potential new owners come in?

We do not yet know the Piataks’ thoughts on this sort of capital expenditure but one hopes they are by now amply briefed on the needs and wants of the club they are seemingly so keen on.

And frankly, if you have designs on a League One football club, the means to sort out – or at least make inroads towards sorting out – their most apparent shortages has to be a non-negotiable.

In other words: new owners through the door without a sketch on what is possible, training-wise, would be underwhelming. Expecting every last detail to be instantly addressed may be unlikely on day one, but a strategy can at least be there.

Deal with this decisively, and Carlisle can begin to consider themselves ready for what their next chapter offers in terms of real possibilities, real potential. United are undeniably and rightly grateful for the help they sometimes receive from clubs such as Gretna 2008, but ad-hoc training arrangements at certain times of year are not the way they will, long-term, convince a better standard of signing to become their norm.

Simpson’s focus on this matter is one of the many reasons he is such a gift to Carlisle, however challenging early results have been this season. You trust him to sort that out but you also know he is trying to raise United’s sights generally.

He has operated at enough high levels to know what a good and aspiring club needs to look like. Carlisle, through certain off-field operations, have begun to resemble that club but on infrastructure, they lag behind.

The notion of takeover needs to give them the chance of lifting the ceiling that, right now, appears close to the top of their heads. Build the Blues, and better times can come.