By Dave Noble - CUOSC

A disappointing return to Brunton Park on Saturday all but extinguished the tiny spark of hope generated by the win and clean sheet at Burton Albion the previous Tuesday.

Albeit against a strong Reading side, the Blues' performance was as demoralising as any in recent weeks.

On the back of that, United are now as short as 1/1000 with bookmakers for an immediate return to fourth tier football, similar odds to that of bears doing certain things in wooded areas.

That being said, the fact that things are not going at all well on the pitch does not mean that absolutely anything of a positive nature has to be mothballed, and the rest of the season played out under a funereal shadow.

Trying to at least enjoy something about the remainder of the season is not encouraging a party celebrating its failure - neither is our latest event tantamount to Del Boy and Rodney storming Harry’s wake dressed as the caped crusaders.

Following the announcement of the #onecarlisleonecommunity discounted ticket match against Stevenage on March 23, CUOSC have joined with the club to arrange the inaugural Retro Shirt Day for the Lincoln City game on April 1.

It will be fantastic to see a range of old shirts on the terraces from days gone by, whether they were old classics or just personal favourites. (If your favoured shirt happens to be from between 2017-2021 then maybe it can be ‘edited’ accordingly)

We are also planning a few other things around the retro kit day, details to be announced in due course. If, as we hope, the day is a success, we intend to make it an annual event to celebrate the threads of Carlisle United down the years.

Members will soon be receiving a short questionnaire via email, relating to the future of CUOSC. We will also be releasing the questionnaire to non members via our social media channels and you will be able to find QR codes located around Brunton Park to access the questionnaire online.

This is to gather information from those who have already joined and those who for whatever reason haven’t in order to find out what they want from CUOSC.

What do we do well? What needs improvement? And what kind of things would you like CUOSC to be doing on your behalf to move the organisation forward as our numbers swell?

It would be massively appreciated if you could spend literally a few minutes (We promise it isn’t War & Peace this time) completing the survey to give us the best opportunity to create the optimum CUOSC for all fans.

Head over to our website www.cuosc.org.uk to join and be a part of that future. It currently costs £10 for an adult and £5 for seniors and under-18s