Last updated 09:58, Saturday, 24 May 2008

ON nights like Thursday we look everywhere for a defining image. Chris Lumsdon sat forlornly on the turf, staring into the nothingness of Carlisle United’s summer? Simon Hackney shuffling resignedly away from Brunton Park, before spying the Blues’ owner and quietly saying, “Sorry, Fred”?

No, and no again. Two days on and it’s time to seek out a pinprick of light amid the gloom of United’s collapsed promotion campaign.

For me, the spirit jumped just a little when Joe Garner appeared from the torture chamber that was the Carlisle dressing room, threw a breezy wave to the cluster of stewards and reporters in the corridor, and said, “See you next season.”

Garner is currently recovering from cruciate knee ligament surgery, a winding road which requires several months’ more patience from both the 20-year-old and thousands of flattened fans.

But as long as the young man is there at Brunton Park, jerking at the leash to resume a career which we have to presume is still destined for the stars, there is hope.

Staring at what remains of United at the onset of summer need not be an act which has to be carried out through trembling fingers.

It might still feel a shade early to be making the point, but it is far from delusional to presume that Carlisle can, after a summer of careful regeneration, make an even more convincing thrust for promotion in 2008/9.

Critically, there is little to suggest that the termination of this season’s quest will be marked by the door swinging off its hinges at Brunton Park, as players start a lemming-rush to escape a club which has reached the ceiling of its potential.

Granted, this column will perform cartwheels if Keiren Westwood is between United’s posts when the next League One season launches on August 9. Another campaign at the third tier is unlikely to contain the young goalkeeper’s soaring potential and natural ambition.

But it is not impossible for John Ward to seek out another able goalkeeper with the kind of funds Carlisle are obliged to draw should a Championship club beckon Westwood away from Brunton Park this summer.

Look elsewhere and there are no signs of an imminent exodus. Danny Livesey, when I interviewed him late on Thursday night, appeared a quite broken man but the influential defender was still able to speak with a drop of excitement at the coming challenges.

Other reasons to be hopeful, cheerful: Hackney, David Raven, Evan Horwood, Scott Dobie, Peter Murphy, Paul Thirlwell, Danny Graham. That is a nucleus of able, ambitious and loyal players which can be expected again to drive Carlisle to the heights of League One next term.

Chris Lumsdon can join that list if he carries his inspiring late-season form into the new campaign. Marc Bridge-Wilkinson and Grant Smith have qualities that can still serve United well. Cleveland Taylor , a disappointment since his January arrival, deserves a fair hearing until he has completed an intense pre-season and is flying into the new campaign. Gary Madine and Darren Campion are splendid young candidates who may also make persuasive claims in the months ahead.

I also contend that in John Ward and Greg Abbott – whatever the strategic failings of the season’s final month – United have a managerial team who appear equipped with the tools to quickly repair the psychological damage Thursday delivered. That’s provided the bright and ambitious Abbott can be retained as a number two for long enough for his effervescence to take its natural effect on the training ground when the squad returns in July.

It also drops to Ward to make substantial moves in the transfer market ahead of a campaign on which his United reign will ultimately be judged.

The worst possible outcome from Thursday is that the momentum generated by the Blues these last four years disappeared with one stroke of Jonny Howson’s left boot. If Carlisle need an example today they need not look beyond Swansea, who suffered two damaging promotion failures in successive seasons before soaring into the Championship at the third attempt.

There was more money to toss around the Valleys, of course, and next season Carlisle must contend with lumbering giants like Leicester and nouveaux riches like MK Dons and Peterborough as they bid to rise again. But promotion to the Championship need not only be for the wealthy, as Scunthorpe proved last season when they assembled a team of cohesion and conviction on modest resources.

What happened two days ago was nothing less than the annihilation of a dream, but today the clocks start ticking again. My final point at the end of this undulating season is that no club which offers a home to burgeoning talents like Joe Garner can ever be dismissed as a busted flush.