"I kind of got addicted to doing it,” says Aaron Hayden when he is asked not about defending, but gritting paths and clearing ice. When wintry weather reached Carlisle last month, residents looked from their windows to see the United vice-captain armed with his shovel.
Supporters praised Hayden when word spread about his attempts to keep his corner of the city safe. He plays down the idea he did anything special – but admits he enjoyed his chilly work. “It started off because I’ve got a little baby, and at the entrance to my house there are some concrete steps,” he says. “It was very icy at the time. So I said. ‘There’s a little yellow grit box over there...'
“I went over with my little shovel and bucket, got some, and as I finished my staircase, I looked down the road and was like, ‘You know what, I can’t just do my own and go inside'. It didn’t sit right with me.”
Hayden returned for more grit and worked his way up his street, which also included the home of team-mate Omari Patrick. “I think I refilled [with grit] about seven times. By the end of half-an-hour I’d done the whole block. A few people came out of their houses, but I didn’t think anyone had noticed enough to say anything about it afterwards. It just felt nice to know that, if there was an old lady walking down the street, there was more chance of her staying on her feet and not slipping. It was no sweat off my back.”
Hayden smiles bashfully when it is mentioned that people appreciated the sight of one of the city’s most recognisable sportsmen mucking in. “I just see myself as a normal person,” the 24-year-old says. “When I’m on the pitch I’m a Carlisle player, but when I’m off the pitch…I’m just a normal person.”
It is, though, the latest little story which fits the perception of a likeable and grounded United squad. Players have made other individual and collective efforts to help people, whether it be Rhys Bennett’s stream for the mental health charity Mind, or a weekly food collection scheme which sees the entire squad donate items for vulnerable families and the homeless.
Hayden appreciates that the significance of United, the club and the badge, goes beyond the pitch. “It’s amazing and it’s crucial,” he says of the community aspect. “The supporters – I don’t like to say fans, because we’re all one family here – are so important.
“Without that family, there is no club. Putting back into that community is the most important thing. It’s such a sense of satisfaction when you connect with people and they appreciate what you’re doing. It makes you want to work even harder for them.”
Hayden also says he “takes great pleasure” from United’s traditional duty to the people at this time. So far in 2020/21 their football has entertained many who are confined to their homes amid successive lockdowns. Carlisle’s season has been interrupted lately, but their results have engaged a fanbase who cannot attend matches because of Covid-19.
“I know things are tough for a lot of people right now,” the centre-half says. “A lot of people will be sitting indoors, bored, which can be very tough on the mind. If we can put a smile on their faces a couple of times a week, and they can sit down and enjoy watching us play with a couple of beers...it just feels really nice.
“Hopefully soon the vaccine will be given to everyone so we can get them back in Brunton Park with us. I was re-watching a game from last season the other day, and it felt like an age ago to see them in the stadium. I can’t wait to have them back.”
Hayden speaks with the responsibility of his senior position in United’s dressing room, the defender having been appointed vice-captain to Nick Anderton last summer. Given the way the weather and Covid has stalled their exciting progress since the turn of the year, Hayden says they must now rely on a collective resilience.
“It’s just a challenge that we’ll overcome,” he says of an increasingly busy fixture list as the Blues play catch-up. “We will have to use our squad more, but that’s why we have a squad. I wouldn’t say it’s daunting. It won’t be easy physically, but we know if we can build some momentum it will be really good, because we’ll have games coming thick and fast."
Hayden says the build-up of frustration caused by postponements such as Tuesday’s – when a frozen pitch put paid to Leyton Orient’s visit – is motivational “fuel in the tank” which Carlisle will carry into their remaining games. United’s inactivity has seen them slip down the table, though they are still just six points behind the leaders. Not that Hayden professes to know.
“I actually deleted the scores app I had on my phone,” he says. “I’ve stopped looking at the league table because right now it doesn’t matter. We’ve still got 23 games left to play, and the table will change so much in the next few months. I’ll probably put the app back on my phone when there’s five games or so left, because that’s when it really matters.
“Of course we talk about it in our group chat. A few lads will ask if we’ve seen a certain result, but overall I think we understand that the only thing that really matters is what we do on Saturdays and Tuesdays. You can’t change the league table by looking at it. You can only change it by winning games."
Chris Beech, the head coach, is likely to rotate his squad to cope with the rigours of regular Saturday-Tuesday play. Training time will also be at a premium. Is there not part of any footballer, though, that secretly relishes the thought of playing so relentlessly often?
“Yeah…” Hayden smiles. “Secretly, honestly…games are the best thing for a footballer. You can score the best goal in training and put it on Instagram, but it doesn’t really matter…you need to do it in a match and then it means something. In any case, I think we’ll struggle to put training sessions in with the schedule that’s coming up.”
Hayden and his team-mates had to spend time away from the club recently, after several tested positive for Covid-19. “It’s been tough,” he says of that spell, “knowing other teams are playing while we’re sat at home. But it’s Covid and it's out of our reach [to affect]. There’s a lot of people suffering with it. We’re fortunate that we haven’t had anyone suffering too badly with it or pass away from it. We’ve got to consider ourselves lucky to be in the position we’re in."
Because of the weather and its effect on Carlisle’s training facilities, United have grown reliant on indoor sessions. The club’s Neil Sports Centre has been regularly used. “It’s difficult to train in such a small space with a roof on,” Hayden admits. “You can’t practice dealing with certain balls out of the sky as defenders, so it’s hard to sharpen your sword, so to speak.
“It does present different challenges, but we aren’t blaming anyone. It’s the weather and it’s just the way it is, so we’ve got to deal with it and find ways to adapt.”
The various hurdles made United’s 1-0 win over Exeter on January 30 – their first game for 28 days –particularly satisfying. They subsequently lost 2-1 to Forest Green, but Hayden respects what he and his team-mates produced against the Grecians. “I’ve never really played a game before under those circumstances,” he says. “We didn’t play for a month, then came back into an intense game against a good team. I think that victory showed us what we’re capable of, mentally, when we put our minds to it.”
Hayden repeats a “no-excuses” mantra when talking to the media: an attitude hardened by a determined personal journey. He was 15 when released by Chelsea – “you start to question yourself, whether you are going to make it” – but a realistic approach to his later time at upwardly-mobile Wolves equipped Hayden to build a career.
He went on loan to Stourbridge and committed to the challenge. “That’s make-or-break time," he says. "A lot of players drop down, and not everyone comes back up. When I dropped down into non-league, I wasn’t being monitored as much by Wolverhampton. No-one was checking if I was training.
"I trained twice a week with Stourbridge, and it was down to me for the other three days to make sure I was fit and had the edge on everyone else at that level, otherwise I’d just become another player at that level.
"At any club, whether you’re in the Championship, Premiership or non-league, it comes down to the individual, how much you want to do well for yourself. I wanted to come [back] up and improve my situation.”
In 2019, after being released by Wolves, a friend put him in contact with an agent who led him to Carlisle’s director of football David Holdsworth. A trial was arranged and a contract followed, but Steven Pressley, the manager at the time, seldom played Hayden before his autumn sacking. “For whatever reason he didn’t want to give me that opportunity, which is fine,” the defender says. “I think you have managers that want to have their preferences, I would say.
“I may have not fit into that, and that was his decision. It was just down to me, whenever I was ever going to get on the pitch, to prove him wrong. I’d like to think I’ve done that now.”
Hayden believes he has become “almost a different person” as a result of his development under Beech, who picked the defender for his first game in charge and has done ever since, during United's transformation from strugglers into contenders.
“There’s never a dull moment playing for the manager,” Hayden smiles. “He’s very energetic and gives us a lot of motivation. I think every single player in the club wants to play for Chris Beech. He has a really good knack of getting the best out of people.”
Hayden also says United’s squad is the tightest-knit he has known – while recent months have seen him playing alongside the outstanding Bennett. “He [Bennett] has been phenomenal, honestly. He’s a pleasure to play with. I click so well with him, we get on well on and off the pitch, and it’s more like a telepathic relationship – we don’t have to talk too much, we have a good understanding.
“I’m learning quite a lot from him at the moment. He’s very calm and composed, which is something I want to bring into my game a lot more. He sees the game in slow-motion compared to everyone else. He’s also a great lad to have around the place; he's always positive and has a very calm head. When something goes wrong or we lose a game, he just tells us that nothing changes, we’ve just got to keep doing the right things.”
Given this week’s dip in temperatures, Hayden’s gritting duties may not yet be over, while the metaphorical substance will certainly be needed given everything United face between now and May. “I wouldn’t say I’m excited yet,” he says of their promotion chances. “But I will be excited if you ask me the same question in three months’ time. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us so we’ve got to knuckle down and focus on that.
“There’s no time to be excited. We’ve got to win a lot of games and that’s what I’m planning on doing. That’s what we’re planning on doing.”
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