There was no avoiding the subject of Carlisle’s Brunton Park goal drought heading into Saturday’s game. Even the players were talking about it regularly, Jamie Devitt going as far as to say that, if he was a fan, he wouldn’t pay to watch them after the previous weekend’s defeat to Yeovil.

So they were under no illusions about what this run meant to supporters, and the effect it has had on attendances.

Credit, then, to the players. They knew a performance was needed against a strong Newport side going well and, where it mattered, they produced one.

They got off to a great start, the early goal from Devitt lifted a big weight off their backs, and they followed it up quickly with another. They could even have gone 3-0 up and been out of sight were it not for Newport’s keeper, Joe Day, making some good saves, before the visitors had the kind of spell you always knew they would.

After they got one back, you had two teams going at it, back and forth, in a really entertaining game before Newport’s late equaliser and then that wonder strike from Danny Grainger to win it for Carlisle.

Both Danny and Paul Murray were very honest after the game. They admitted they felt Newport should have had a stonewall penalty before that third goal, but there are times you need to get away with these things. You need the breaks.

We’ve said for weeks that it doesn’t matter how it comes - how ugly, or how lucky – that next home win was always going to be massive, and it can set you back on the right path.

Let’s hope it has that effect. Grainger’s goal generated some of the enthusiasm that we haven’t had for a while. People will have left the ground excited in how they spoke about it. As a player, too, it can completely change your mindset.

Everyone goes through a run where you feel you simply can’t buy a win. Any time the opposition scores it is a sense of ‘here we go again’. When Newport got it back to 2-2 some might have felt that.

Carlisle, thankfully, have enough players who thought differently. It was the sort of game that you knew would throw up another chance or two, even after that 86th-minute Newport goal, and Carlisle managed to take theirs in some style.

It was Day’s first wrong decision of the match, to palm that cross out, but Newport’s players probably still felt Danny had a lot to do to get the shot on target. They perhaps underestimated the captain’s technique in that sort of situation. They won’t do so again.

It was, of course, typical Carlisle that they made it so dramatic, and there will be many hoping that sort of outcome can bring fans back. But it would be naïve to think one good victory can get numbers seriously increasing again, just like that.

Saturday’s crowd was 3,541, a good thousand down from the club’s break-even mark which some felt was short of ambition in itself.

This is the recurring theme today and how can you blame the stay-aways, when it had been five games without a goal, such a long wait before that moment of magic?

Once you get out of the habit of going to the ground, and start doing other things with your family, you realise the money you’re saving and the mood you are no longer in on a Saturday night.

You find that your weekend and your state of mind isn’t dictated by Carlisle United’s fortunes in the same way as before. You might find that you are enjoying not being wound up or annoyed by how they are doing.

It is very hard to get people back once they have found those other options, and I feel it has got to the point now where even winning games isn’t going to get a great many back for a long time.

I remember the times when 6,000 or so at Brunton Park was a given, and anything less was a slight disappointment. Anything around 4,500 was a real disappointment, so the current situation does not bode well on this front.

No matter what the players do, it isn’t their fault or John Sheridan’s fault. I also felt that, last year, it wasn’t the football, or Keith Curle, that was keeping people away either.

It was more that people had had enough of the overall product, the experience, and they are simply not coming back. One good victory and a brilliant winning goal can’t deflect from that issue.

The time I joined Carlisle, back in 2004, I felt the club had come away from those days of getting 3,500 or fewer on a Saturday. They were heading in the right direction and the club seemed a bigger deal.

To be back at that lower point is going to affect the club financially and it may also make it harder to attract players who have a few options on the table in January or next summer.

Let’s say you have Carlisle and, for example, Tranmere going for the same player, neither club with a massive budget.

With the momentum Tranmere currently have, the crowds they are getting and their position in the league, compared to United’s situation in mid-table and with attendances as they are, which place might be more attractive come the next window?

These are the consequences when things slide as they have, and as welcome as Saturday was, it’s going to take a lot more to get United back on the front foot in every last respect.

Chris Lumsdon's column is sponsored by Safe & Sound Security Solutions (UK) Limited. Enquiries@safeandsoundsecurityltd.co.uk, Tel 01228 543800, www.safeandsoundsecurityltd.co.uk