Carlisle City are hopeful of getting back to winning ways when they visit Sunderland West End tomorrow ahead of the keenly-anticipated visit of league leaders West Allotment Celtic to Gillford Park next Tuesday (7.45pm ko).

This could have a major effect on either club’s remaining fixture lists – and potential promotion ambitions, with a bumper crowd anticipated.

The Sky Blues will hope to put in a better showing than they did last weekend, when they didn’t get started against a slicker Heaton Stannington side which demonstrated a greater appetite for the battle.

It came as little surprise when the visitors opened the scoring and indeed had it not been for three previous excellent saves by goalkeeper Kyle Townsley the scoreline would have looked much worse than it eventually did.

Admittedly City tried hard enough after the visitors’ initial breakthrough but two self-destructive City acts just seconds before the end of the first half saw Atkinson sent off then Allison sin-binned for 10 minutes for his reaction to the red card.

City were therefore compelled initially to play with nine men for the opening 10 minutes of the second half, plus a further 35 minutes with only 10 men.

Understandably City were eventually well beaten, with few complaints about the ultimate outcome.