It's Saturday, so there must be more records within Carlisle United's reach. And not just the 14-in-a-row which would represent the club's longest ever unbeaten start to a league campaign.

That would be today's headline, should they avoid setback at Stevenage. But a cluster of other achievements are peering from the shadows.

For instance, if Keith Curle's team prevail at the Lamex Stadium, it would be four league wins in a row for the first time since March 2008, when John Ward's promotion-chasers strung six together.

There's more. Including victory at Notts County on last season's final day, Carlisle's current unbeaten run stands at 14 League Two games. If they make it 15 this afternoon it will equal the second best sequence in the club's history - and just four short of the 19-match run inspired by Mick Wadsworth in 1994/5.

Today's mission in Hertfordshire also invites us to examine how Curle has transformed United as an away team. Their last defeat on the road was at Portsmouth on April 2.

Nine unbeaten league trips have been negotiated since then - the third best run the club have had. Today they might equal the 10-game spell of 1983/4 - and put them in sight of the 12-game away-day best set by Bill Shankly's team in 1950/1.

These are formidable figures, available only to a side in peak form. Curle's United are certainly that and however the rest of 2016/17 unfolds they are already assured of a place in the annals.

So many obstacles have been cleared with gusto so far - all except the one they have yet to face. It is incredible to think that this is the biggest challenge facing a Blues team, but just about the only thing we don't know about Curle's squad is how they will respond when the great run is ended.

Carlisle's players, not just their fans, feel unbeatable right now. There is a positive "arrogance" about their dressing room, Luke Joyce said this week. This is a quality supporters have long yearned to see.

The likelihood is, of course, that they are not unbeatable, and defeat will come at some stage. Then it shall boil down to how they cope when rejoining the mortals.

Only under the examination of a loss can it be known how mentally strong this new collective truly is. There are many reasons to think they will deal with it admirably - the experience in their ranks points this way - but nonetheless it seems the next test for Curle and company will be psychological rather than physical.

These thoughts came to mind when discussing Carlisle's formidable start to the Conference season of 2004/5 with Paul Simpson. It was painful to recall how that 13-game run ended, with a rather abrupt home defeat to Barnet which seemed to upset United's sense of certainty.

"To be fair, they stuffed us that day," Simpson said. "We got a bit of a lesson from that. The players went into it full of confidence but didn't deal with the game very well."

The Bees' 3-1 win at Brunton Park was a bitter old occasion. Carlisle did not exactly nosedive as a result - but from that day they knew they were fallible. What had threatened to be a swagger towards honours instead became a more complicated pursuit, requiring a springtime revival to restore their promotion bid.

"The big thing we used to say was, 'Ok, we've lost this, it's done - but we don't lose two on the bounce'," Simpson added. "Because no matter how easy it is to get into a winning run, it's just as easy to get into a losing run, and players lose that belief and confidence.

"Also, you don't panic into changing everything because of one defeat. It's not the end of the world, and I'm quite sure Keith and his staff will be ready for when that slip-up comes."

The good news here is that Curle's United have not lost back-to-back league fixtures since February 2015 - a reassuring gap of 72 games. The resilience shown against Hartlepool last Saturday has become a familiar part of the DNA.

It is hard, also, to imagine hardened professionals like Danny Grainger, Luke Joyce, Michael Raynes, Nicky Adams, Mike Jones and the others losing their marbles when the first number pops up in the L column.

Men like this were recruited to make United strong over the duration, not in early-season purple spells. Adams, speaking recently, observed how Plymouth had dipped last season despite dominating the first few months.

In other words - we've achieved nothing yet, lads. Other voices of good sense are easy to find in Curle's ranks.

That real-world common sense leads you to think Carlisle will, in fact, be fine when the day comes, and will respond with much more grace than the best unbeaten team in recent history when their own bubble was burst.

It was a wild day indeed when Arsenal's "Invincibles" were cut down at Old Trafford in October 2004. The champions of England were so unsettled by their first loss in 50 games that things got extremely messy in the aftermath.

Infamously, pizza and soup was hurled in a post-match melee, the cultured Cesc Fabregas central. "Even when it came to the pizza he had great technique," Martin Keown said years later. "He threw it like a frisbee."

Messrs Wenger and Ferguson also faced off outside the dressing rooms. "It seemed to me that losing the game scrambled Arsene's brain," Fergie wrote in his autobiography. The Gunners' two-point lead drifted into a 12-point deficit to Chelsea by the end of that campaign.

Their world was shaken, beyond doubt. For a better example of coping, see Preston's 'Invincibles' of 1888/9, who negotiated four defeats the following season to retain the title.

Mind you, they only played 22 games back then, so maybe Curle's boys can trump them, too.