For such a young club, Carlisle Futsal Club has already been on quite a journey.

Originally founded in 2007, the club was re-launched in 2012 - and three years later, they had a team competing in the FA Super League. But just two games into their debut season, Carlisle resigned from the Super League and disbanded their first-team.

That decision brought a change of approach from the club, with the development of the academy and young players becoming their primary focus.

It’s an approach which is slowly paying dividends with their Under-10s team having won the silver cup at the Futsal World Cup in Spain in January this year.

In June, Carlisle also launched an academy centre in Workington while there are plans to start up a women’s team next year, as chairman Al Tindall targets steady progress.

He explains: "We have just focused on the academy over the last three years and we have been growing things really slowly.

"But we have a good coaching team in place and a curriculum that everyone is working to throughout the club.

"We have a centre that we have opened in Workington in the last six months, so we have launched Futsal out there, as well. Plus, we have coaches in Ulverston as part of our team, so we are starting to spread out across Cumbria and push the Carlisle Futsal brand out a bit."

At the weekend, Carlisle enjoyed success in the Academy Futsal League, winning the latest round of fixtures.

"Last year, we didn’t do as well as Manchester and Bolton. But it’s a big mark of our progress over the past year that we won the last round at the weekend," Tindall enthuses.

"There’s no age-group result table, so we play as Under-8s, Under-10s, Under-12s and Under-14s. Then, all the points get added up into an Olympics medal table.

"So, we finished top last weekend. We lost a couple of games in the younger age-groups, but we were really strong in the older ones, and it’s the first time we have done that.

"So, it’s a sign we are doing things right and competing against the best clubs in the North."

Tindall, who founded the club, believes much of Carlisle’s success this season has come from lessons learnt at the Futsal World Cup when they beat Spanish side Artos 4-3 in a close silver cup final.

He admits: "We learnt so much on that trip which we have been able to bring back to teach the kids and the teams. In the past year, there’s been a big change in the way we are doing things."

Carlisle have more competitions to look forward to through the coming months, too.

"We are in Sunderland between Christmas and New Year in a tournament there. Then, we are off to Glasgow at the end of January," Tindall says. "Plus, we have the final round of the AFL [Academy Futsal League] in Sunderland, as well. So, we will be looking to win as many games as we can over there.

"That will be a good season for us."

Despite originally planning to hold trials for the club’s new women’s team, that Tindall is hoping will go on to represent Carlisle in the Women’s FA Futsal Super League, this month, those plans have been put on hold until the New Year.

"We have a lot of players signed-up. We were going to launch some trials before Christmas, but we have decided to postpone them until January, just to get the venue right and get the coaching team in place before we launch it,” Tindall explains.

"It’s definitely going to go ahead, so we want to make sure the right infrastructure is in place before we go down the route of finding the players we need to represent us."

And Tindall believes having a women’s side will help improve the Carlisle Futsal Club brand.

He adds: "We used to have a men’s team, obviously. The kids we have coming through now will form a men’s team again in the next 3-5 years, hopefully.

"We are going to launch the women’s team and then launch a girls’ academy off the back of that. There’s a lot of growth planned for us over the next few years, but we definitely have a model that works.

"It gives the club a whole variety, rather than just a boys’ academy. It’s good for the women’s game and helps us spread out geographically, as well."

Off the court, Carlisle have agreed a deal with GW Auto Repairs that will see them be club sponsors until the end of the 2019/20 season.

"The owner [Mike Wood] has a kid who has just joined our academy. They’ve seen the great work we are doing and asked ‘Is there anything I can do’, so I said: ‘Yes, we are always looking for sponsors,’" Tindall says.

"But we are all volunteers at the club and it’s a not-for-profit organisation or anything like that, so I think that strikes a chord with people."