By Ross Parkinson - Carlisle United Supporters' Trust
Saturday was bad. A low point in a poor season. Personally I left Brunton Park early having seen enough to know we weren’t going to get back into the game. The subsequent collapse in the latter minutes really just emphasised the task ahead.
I could go into detail on individual mistakes or chances missed but people who are far better at writing this type of thing have already done this.
In short an unacceptable performance and result, following on from four defeats in the previous five games has led to Carlisle United looking to recruit its third manager/head coach of the season. This does not happen if mistakes are not made. There is no hiding this and the club have already taken steps to ensure that these mistakes are not repeated.
The restructure of the football department, with our sporting director Rob Clarkson at its head, is the biggest step. Rob is now leading the search for our new manager which may be concluded by the time this column is released.
Mike Williamson’s time at Carlisle United did not go as anyone had hoped. That doesn’t mean that his time did not include some positive things; this window has seen some players come in that are already establishing themselves as fan favourites.
Callum Whelan has looked excellent in difficult times. Cedwyn Scott, who has returned to the club a much more rounded player than the raw talent we saw under Chris Beech, grabbed his first EFL goal at Fleetwood with a poacher's effort, a quality we have missed since Kristian Dennis left the club.
The club also managed to extend Kadeem Harris’ stay at Brunton Park until at least the end of the current campaign despite interest from several other clubs. Joe Hugill grabbing his first goal for the club.
Carlisle United now has a squad of players that most clubs at this level would take. The key now is that these players, along with the incoming head coach, show that ability consistently and pull us clear of danger.
It’s easy in hindsight to look back and say this was wrong and that shouldn’t have happened. Every decision made by people involved in running the club is done so in the belief it is the best decision for Carlisle United at that time. Sometimes those decisions don’t work out.
From the Trust point of view we will continue to work on our engagement plan to ensure we are available to members and can better represent their views. As part of this several of us spent the majority of Sunday discussing the issues over social media. I think in the past the Trust has often taken the view that sometimes it’s better to stay out of it. However this vacuum can lead to speculation so we have made a commitment to try our best to engage as much as possible.
There are some ground rules however; we are volunteers who have a myriad of commitments outside of these roles, we are not at the beck and call of people. We will endeavour to answer what we can but as we’ve said repeatedly in recent times not everything can be said publicly.
Another thing to note, and something we have perhaps been too lenient on in the past, is we will not tolerate abuse. Criticism is welcome, it’s part of becoming better but I have seen far too many posting disparaging comments about who are giving up their time to try and make the club better, these posts often display a misinformed understanding of the role.
We will call this out where it happens. Some of the responses to the club statement announcing Mike Williamson’s departure were extremely disappointing. We are better than that as a fan base.
To finish I want to look at one criticism that has been aimed at me in the last week. I often in this column talk about the bright future at this club. This has led to a few posts to my personal accounts asking where this bright future is.
In response to this I just want to say that I still see a bright future for this club. Just because the results on the field have not gone how we had hoped does not mean that we cannot be positive about the future. Results will improve, we will be better and that bright future will come.
Until then. Up the Blues.
