Last updated at 11:51, Saturday, 18 August 2012

Greg Abbott has called on his players to put on a performance at Stevenage today that will encourage fans to flock to Brunton Park for Carlisle United’s home triple-header.

Greg Abbott

Today’s League One curtain-raiser in Hertfordshire is followed by three home matches in eight days against Tranmere, Portsmouth and Ipswich.

United started the campaign last season in front of a small Brunton Park crowd of 2,924 for the cup win against Accrington Stanley. The Blues manager hopes that figure will increase dramatically if his side get off on the right foot in the league.

“It would be nice to get a good start, and get 6-7,000 into Brunton Park,” said Abbott, whose side trained at Nottingham Forest yesterday.

“It’s down to early performances and results.

“We don’t take anybody lightly and although Stevenage are just coming off the back of disappointment in the play-offs, it was a fantastic achievement to get there in the first place.

“They are one of the sides that kept us out of things last season.

“It’s going to be a hard start but we’re ready.”

Stevenage, meanwhile, have held onto defensive duo Mark Roberts and John Ashton despite summer-long interest from Doncaster.

The Lamex Stadium club released a statement to confirm the centre-halves had committed to the club for the 2012/13 season.

Chairman Phil Wallace said: “Mark and Jon have been inspirational for us. At the end of the season we’ll look at it again but I’m so pleased we’ve found the middle ground that allows us to focus totally on the job in hand.”

Manager Gary Smith could hand league debuts to new signings Filipe Morais, Lucas Akins, Bondz N’Gala, James Dunne, Greg Tansey, Marcus Haber and David Gray.

First published at 10:56, Saturday, 18 August 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk