Through the controversial times, the dodgy ones and the downright rotten ones, they have, by and large, kept coming. There is a level at which Carlisle United's support holds however bad things get.

Occasions when the most loyal have given Brunton Park a swerve are rare, and easy to recall. In April 2002, for instance, when there was a large protest against the dying Michael Knighton regime, many fans circling the ground with banners instead of stepping inside for the game against Plymouth.

There were lots of heavy hearts in that organised throng; die-hards who would normally travel to the Moon and back if it was announced the Blues were playing there (and don't put that past football's authorities right now).

Imagine what it took for those people to spend their Saturday not watching the match? Imagine the level of affront that made the weekly ritual feel less important than normal?

It is the attitude of these folk towards the EFL Trophy, which begins next week, that will resound the most. There will no doubt be those who still travel to Oldham on Tuesday night, and also attend the group games against Blackburn's Under-23s and Fleetwood later on.

But some familiar faces won't be there. There are certain season-ticket holders, some home-and-away perennials, who are choosing to boycott in protest at the involvement of 'Category One academies' in the lower-league cup competition.

Most of these folk persisted with the majority of the Knighton-era decline and other abysmal periods in recent United history. They showed up and paid up when perhaps there were powerful grounds not to.

So when they identify a reason to stay at home, that is a sure sign that something is gravely wrong.

Certainly, these people do not need advice on how and when to support. They have credit in the bank. Blues chairman Andrew Jenkins' warning last week about the impact of a boycott on club finances seemed to ignore this depth of history.

To imply that those who reject the new, warped Trophy will be responsible for leaving the club out of pocket is extremely dubious and rather short-sighted, especially as so many made their feelings perfectly clear about this "pilot scheme" long before its engines were started.

Their objection to the Premier League's perceived infiltration of every aspect of football is profound and principled. Their desire to fight Carlisle's small corner of the game, where things other than big-boy glamour and cash matter, is necessarily strong.

Although surprised by the opportunistic call for votes at the League's summer AGM, United are not passive participants. They had their reasons for supporting the plan, as did many others (though not all - see AFC Wimbledon's idea of giving profits from unwanted 'academy' ties to charity).

Indeed, the Blues' motivations were set out by directors at a recent fans' forum. They were significantly tied up with top-flight power and the Premier League's financial support for many things at the Blues' level.

It may, faced with this climate and certain assumed threats, be difficult for an owner or chief executive to tick the box that rebels against that. But some managed to do it regardless.

It is those clubs who now have the moral right to urge fans into the stadium, even if they are holding their noses. Those clubs, you suspect, who will also understand if some say thanks but no thanks.

The rest must take what comes and acknowledge their part in it - clubs, and also the administrators who have forced through one more thing based on a shameless conceit: that we all crave even more Premier League in our lives; that, in the latest era of televised Friday night football, we are still not exposed enough to it.

The thought that the EFL Trophy can be "rejuvenated" by filling it with unheard-of young players from these mammoth clubs (those who haven't turned down invitations, that is) is a giant leap of wishful thinking. If crowds do not rise - for how else will "rejuvenation" be measured? - death ought to be instant.

The stay-aways are said by some to be less open-minded than they could be. Maybe. Or maybe some ideas are just rancid from the start.

Take Manchester United's withdrawal from the FA Cup in 1999/2000, in order to compete in the inaugural Club World Championship - a bowing to political pressure linked to England's misguided 2006 World Cup bid. Did anyone seriously think history would soften its regard of that, as time passed?

It was controversial then, objected to by many - and the many were proved correct. Ever since it was allowed to be dispensable, the Cup's identity crisis has worsened, not improved.

One act may not have devalued it alone. But it caused irreversible damage, and is a permanent blotch on the record. All because of a pig of an idea whose authors would not listen to reason.

Assurances that the new-look Trophy is not a gateway for B Teams to join the League pyramid are to be regarded with suspicion. Fans will have to be forgiven for doubting that the Premier League's evangelists, and their convenient friends in the EFL, see any area as permanently off-limits.

The narrower case for somehow reforming the former Johnstone's Paint Trophy, whose early rounds often run at a loss, has often seemed irresistible. Yet its golden principle - the annual promise of a Wembley appearance for two lesser-heeled teams whose chances are otherwise limited - should not have been for sale.

Nor is it simply nostalgic to note that, if low gates had been an earlier trigger for artificial "rejuvenation", there may have been no Wembley 1995, one of the greatest community days out in Carlisle's history, or no Wembley 1997, when Steve Hayward scored and Nick Barnes, in BBC Radio Cumbria commentary, hit a fevered pitch of excitement.

There was irony in that moment being played on Brunton Park's PA system on the same night that Jenkins advised fans to support the new wheeze: United's glorious, maiden triumph under the Twin Towers, and the defence of the same competition becoming a testing ground for tycoon clubs who collect teenage players like Pokemon.

It might be stretching things to imagine the 'Checkatrade Trophy' as football's Poll Tax, with riots in the streets. But if it is spurned in numbers, let nobody blame those who never wanted it in the first place. Especially at a club where rebellion has always come at a premium.