At the start of the season I’d have been happy to finish where we did - 11th in League Two - bearing in mind the situation we were in back then. Now, it’s all about next season. 

In terms of the players who have been released, I feel for Jason Kennedy. He got goals. He was consistent. But when someone’s had a long-term injury, can you afford to wait until they get back to their best? It’s a bit cruel, really. But that’s the nature of the game.

I was a bit surprised to see Gary Liddle released. I thought he was a good lad to have in the squad. But it’s the manager’s job to make those decisions. 

Talk about bare bones: the only players under contract are Adam Collin, Macaulay Gillesphey, Kelvin Etuhu, Hallam Hope and a few young lads. One of them, Liam McCarron, has played a bit and I like the look of him. 

The manager will have players in mind, and has already brought in left-back Jack Iredale, but it comes down to budget.

With Jamie Devitt, I would love to think we could match what he’s going to be offered elsewhere. But I have my doubts. It would be lovely to build a team around him. 

I’d say the main two things Steven Pressley and David Holdsworth will be looking for are experience and pace. We were lacking pace last season. Signing Iredale looks like a way of addressing that.

For now, the players who aren’t looking for a new club will be relaxing until pre-season training starts. 

I worked during two close seasons, in my second stint at Carlisle in the late 1970s. Quite a few players got jobs in the summer then. I worked at Esk Brickworks, at Brisco. They made bricks for Laing’s.

Bricks came off the conveyor belt and we were putting them in piles for the forklift. I quite enjoyed it. There were some good lads that I worked with. Bobby Parker worked there with me the second time. 

We had half an hour for dinner. The lads would wolf their food down in five minutes because they just wanted to play football! We’d put coats down and have a game until the foreman came out to get us back to work. It never got nasty or anything, but it was competitive. 

About a fortnight before we went back for training, I’d start going for runs around where I lived at Belle Vue. Nothing too strenuous, just to get a bit of strength back in my legs. Some lads trained right through the summer. I used to think you had to switch off for a month or so, even if you love what you do. 

When I was first at Carlisle in the 60s, a few lads came back half a stone or more overweight. You’d see them training with a sweat suit on for the first two or three weeks. The first day back, Dick Young, would send us for a walk to Linstock, along Brampton Road, into Rickerby Park and back to the ground.

He said: “You can get all your talking about where you’ve been on holiday out of the way.” 

We didn’t get the balls out for probably three or four days. It was just running before that. We trained morning and afternoon. You would come home in the afternoon, sit down to read the paper and be nodding off. 

After a fortnight, I’ve seen us going for a game of bowls, just to break it up. And we used to play cricket against Carlisle Cricket Club. 

Finally for this season, I’d like to wish chairman Andrew Jenkins a speedy recovery from his operation. People give him stick but he has put a lifetime into the club.