After landmark vote, what next for Carlisle United supporters' trust?

That feels like it’s been an eternal question in the post-Knighton years but in the week members voted to reduce their stake in the club, at the same time membership numbers ticked past 1,000, it came very much back into the raw.

Praise where it’s unquestionably due, first. The trust, and its influx of people from 2022’s Unita Fortior movement, has quite clearly raised its game. The intention of UF to modernise the organisation and increase its membership has worked. 

Last Sunday’s members’ meeting was as professionally-executed an event as some in the room could remember from CUOSC gatherings. The hand their board has played in the courting of the Piataks has been delicate, deliberate and with "enabling" the future in mind, as chair Matt Spooner put it, rather than as a blocking tool.

On top of subtler changes, to aspects such as social media promotion, general communication, membership systems and the like, these have been more positive steps for CUOSC than for some time. 

It is no use bashing the drum for long-overdue improvements and then turning snootily away when those improvements happen. Ingrained beliefs die hard, and there will always be disagreements, always be issues, always people who won't see any good in the trust, but let us credit the organisation for promoting its relevance in a better way. 

Now comes the next challenge, the bit which looks unavoidably difficult but not insurmountable, provided the intentions of all concerned – that’s inside and outside of the trust, inside and outside of the club's prospective new ownership – remain coherent. 

Dropping from 25.4 per cent to ten per cent represents an immediate stripping of power when things get down to brass tacks. That initial number was another sore debating spot for a long time: to some an unarguable article of faith, not to be traded in for any reason, to others something that allowed a weak trust to overplay its hand in United’s general and large-scale affairs. 

CUOSC members backed the Piatak takeover by a huge majority (Image: Barbara Abbott)

It was, though, an aspect of strength. Even if its blocking potential was seldom used, as the former director Norman Steel pointed out last Sunday, its presence was still clear and known. 

Its reduction under a new United era duly takes that presence away. As such, if the trust stand still now, obscurity is the clear risk. 

The only way, given that increased membership and very recent events, is to push the accelerator harder. If CUOSC, once the Piatak deal is signed, no longer have the legal capacity to obstruct in the same way, they must double down on efforts to be the conscience of the club under their new American owners.

They must become even more vocal, more proactive, more engaging, more social-savvy. Efforts to reach this point have been good and bright. Now they have to go even better and even brighter. 

They have to grow numbers to a point where, even if the shareholding percentage is weaker, CUOSC are, en masse, stronger. They have to become the voice any owner respects, acknowledges, worries about even, should fingers ever find themselves twitching on triggers for activity that might not go down well. 

Tom Piatak, speaking to members last Sunday, was well prepared for every question and that included one on this subject: what the reduction in shareholding would mean for the fan group’s ability to put checks and balances on anything reckless a regime might theoretically do. 

The Florida businessman said the trust’s board positions would remain and that CUOSC would continue to be embraced. He acknowledged it was important that aspects such as United’s identity – its colours, its badge – were not cast to the wind. He said he was au fait with the recent White Paper on football governance and was accepting of its aims.

CUOSC must grow even stronger as the body that supports and challenges the Piataks (Image: Barbara Abbott)

These things need to be locked into how Carlisle act and progress from here. CUOSC, whilst seeking to be the positive partner to the Piataks they have been to date, must remain ready to call out instances when actions don’t match words. They have to be on their toes to challenge and even upset the owners as well as assist them.

They must be poised to do this publicly, privately and with as much heft behind their message as they can muster. Every new member strengthens those vocal cords for good times and bad.

The Piataks, this far in, do not appear a family ignorant of how public message and image matter. Last Sunday their community work was avidly promoted, their business principles worn on sleeves, whilst on Tuesday their fruit salad bucket hats were very much noticeable.

These should, on the surface, all be encouraging factors. There are many owners from overseas who start off remotely and grow even more remote. Reaching out to them is an immediate struggle. Criticising them must increasingly feel like shouting down a well.

The Piataks’ pledge about accessibility suggests they’ll be of the other type: owners that are here, who engage. Again, that’s a bright start, one that must be maintained when the newness of all this has worn off.

Because the truth is, however committed owners seem – and the Piataks do seem committed – nobody has more buy-in on all of this than a supporter. Nobody’s loyalties and affections are twanged more than a fan’s by United’s successes, failures, joys and crises. 

This has to be kept in mind whatever happens now and down the line, however long this new dawn lasts, however good it proves. It’s on Carlisle’s trust, in some ways now more than ever, to make sure that principle remains firmly and loudly aloft.