Last updated at 10:35, Saturday, 03 May 2008

A SIMPLE test needs to be taken by all Carlisle United’s supporters before they turn off Warwick Road this afternoon.

Miracle man: On-loan keeper Jimmy Glass celebrates after hitting Carlisle United's dramatic winner against Plymouth to save the Cumbrians from the Conference

Here’s the scenario. The remote control zaps you back to 1999 and Carlisle are drawing 1-1 with Plymouth. As injury-time ticks away, as the non-league hinterland curls its finger, do you: A) Accept United’s fate with a shrug and slope resignedly to the door; or B) Tell that bloke in the red jersey to get himself down the other end, pronto, because there’s still a scintilla of a chance?

Only supporters who tick the second option on their papers should be allowed to proceed to Brunton Park today. Sorry if that sounds harsh.

And sorry to the United board if that kind of policy would chomp away at today’s gate receipts. But absolutely no apologies for making the general point.

You would presume Carlisle’s supporters needed no remedial education on football and the need to hold onto hope until the final seconds of a half, a match, a season. Most of them don’t, of course. They appreciate that United have levered themselves out of infinitely more perilous positions than the one from which they start today’s work.

Perilous is the wrong word, anyway, since the worst-case scenario is that the Blues miss out on automatic promotion but come to rest in third or fourth place, with home advantage in the second leg of a play-off semi-final. That’s no bed of nails.

But today there feels a need to brandish the most obvious piece of the club’s history in the direction of the letter-writers who have besieged this paper in recent days with clumping calls for the head of John Ward, among other crazy demands.

Please: this isn’t an attempt to jump into the bushes until the memory of last weekend’s surrender at Millwall has passed. What happened in London eight days ago was a hideous ordeal even for those of us who were paid to be there.

The 3-0 defeat at The Den wins the vote for the season’s most painful memory, ahead of earlier collapses at Bristol Rovers and Oldham, simply because it will always act as the reference point for United’s failure to see through a belting chance of automatic promotion in April.

But stop there for a moment. This is a day when the door ought to be locked on pessimism as you leave the house. The lesson Jimmy Glass’ right foot battered home nine years ago (can it be that long?) is that no cause is lost as long as it remains alive.

Can Cheltenham prevent second-placed Doncaster from winning at Whaddon Road today? Only five defeats from 22 home games suggest the Robins can. Could Yeovil force a result out of Nottingham Forest’s stronghold? At the City Ground, Colin Calderwood’s men have failed to win 10 out of 22 matches this season, while the Glovers have either won or drawn half of their away engagements. Conclusion: it’s possible.

The argument that Carlisle are too depleted, and too weary to overcome a vibrant Bournemouth side also bashes against the recent past. The scarcely-remembered second hero of that Plymouth epic, David Brightwell, did not make a career out of whacking 30-yard missiles past goalkeepers.

But the centre-half managed it that day, which concludes our seminar on unlikely heroes emerging from improbable situations.

The other point which needs to be made is that hoping for a Carlisle victory today need not be accompanied by the sound of whistling in the breeze. United have sustained a top-six challenge for good reason this season and they possess more than enough tools to pick off the Cherries this afternoon, provided Ward encourages them to attack with the level of daring which was showing itself against Southend a fortnight ago, until David Raven’s sending-off.

If you can’t picture one final performance of quality and nerve from men such as Keiren Westwood, Peter Murphy, Chris Lumsdon, Simon Hackney and Danny Graham today, many of the season’s events have passed you by.

Sorry if all this sounds deliriously optimistic. It certainly doesn’t absolve United of the system failure they suffered at The Den and other places last month. But one great performance could purge those memories from the brain. If that doesn’t strike you as an attractive thought, keep staring at the picture of the bloke in the red jersey until it does.

First published at 09:13, Saturday, 03 May 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk