And there it is. The sequence of events seen at Carlisle United this week: that is how you make people do as Andrew Jenkins once implored the media to go forth and do, and “get behind the club”.
Give them something to get behind. Who knew it was so straightforward?
That telling phrase is heard often but was uttered most notoriously at Stevenage in 2015 after a 1-0 Carlisle win. It was accompanied by some salty language by the Blues chairman in the direction of the press box, although perhaps not by the four-letter word many maintain Jenkins unleashed.
The line is often a reflex response to criticism or challenge. Seven years ago, United’s longest-serving director was unsettled by the public posing of questions by this title over the “billionaire” investment saga and other high Brunton Park matters.
To query was not to get behind. To challenge was not to get behind. To try to peer through the curtains at what was or wasn’t really going on, was not to get behind.
It is also a mantra others trot out in hard times. One can only imagine how Oldham Athletic supporters reacted when owner Abdallah Lemsagam pushed the GBTC button in a statement earlier this season.
Announcing his intention to sell the Latics, amid a long period of unrest, controversy, criticism and shambles, he concluded by saying: “I would ask that every section of the fan base gets behind the team. Whatever you think about me it is in everyone’s interests that our great club wins this battle.”
Oldham, at the time, were bereft on the field as well as off it. The Boundary Park club were limping along under the winless caretaker management of Selim Benachour. Serious questions were being posed about the involvement of certain individuals on the football side, as well as Lemsagam’s recent ejecting of another boss (Keith Curle) among many.
It’s likely, in the circumstances, that Lemsagam was the last person their supporters needed to hear from when the matter of loyalty to the cause was being urged.
Yet now something even at that place has changed. Many of the concerns about the running of Oldham no doubt remain, but suddenly, their supporters do have reason to get behind the operation. Instead of simply asking fans for their blind loyalty, they gave them something.
They gave them John Sheridan and an instant hit of improved results. Check out, on social media, the way he is currently being hailed. Witness the momentum suddenly at play.
It is unlikely to mean for a moment that the higher business is being ignored. On this occasion, Lemsagam may have lucked out. But the basic truth remains: people will react negatively to negative work, and positively to better actions.
Sheridan’s return has, so far, proved a masterstroke. Carlisle have now opted to tap into similar feelings with the enormously popular restoration of Paul Simpson to the manager’s chair. Straight away, before a ball has been booted, the mood is changed.
Again, not to the point that people will think this regime is the bees’ knees, or that major overhaul is no longer going to be needed sometime soon at Brunton Park, or that survival is simply assumed.
But to a place where, after putting up with curious decisions, debatable influences and increasingly dismal football for some time, they now have the sort of thing they have long called for, a person they can recognise, unite around and pull with?
Simpson absolutely covers this ground. He has a gargantuan task in front of him, but so, upon appointment last month, did Sheridan. The first sign of improvement, the first result, was the pebble thrown into the water, as Curle used to say.
The waves since then have been mighty. Similarly, a victory or noticeable uplift in something for United at Leyton Orient today, and the Simpson bandwagon will be away.
If will, if that is what happens, gather pace and popularity in a way few other managers could achieve in Carlisle’s predicament right now.
United’s paymasters, deep down, must have known this for a while. There is good reason they turned to Simpson the moment it was concluded that Keith Millen’s short race was run.
It was not just for his footballing expertise and respectability. It was not just because he is Paul Simpson. It’s because he’s Simmo, too.
And no, there are zero guarantees. For every Sheridan there is a Stuart McCall at Bradford last time. Other clubs, such as Southend United with Kevin Maher at present, have shown the benefits of a club favourite stepping in, yet the work, as well as the aura, must be good.
Simpson conceded there was an emotional pull when Carlisle dialled his number but, when speaking on Thursday morning, was also totally measured about the reality of things.
“If I’m not very good, I’ll get the sack,” he said. That is as true for a Carlisle-born Mr Popular managing Carlisle United as it is anywhere else. Football is a savage game, management in the lower leagues sometimes bewildering chaos. Simpson’s eyes will be open throughout.
And here’s the thing. There will be the best part of 600 Blues fans at Leyton Orient today, a majority of those tickets having been sold even before the ousting of Millen and David Holdsworth.
The getting behind the club, then, was already happening in spite of events. Now it has tangible reason to grow. Not before time.
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