Whatever happens now, Carlisle United must keep growing

But in future, Carlisle United’s goal has to be for these occasions, these packed five-figure crowds, to occur if not every week, then at least more regularly, and not always underpinned by a ticket discount.

Success, of course, is the only way to get there – or at least the realistic anticipation of it. When United were rumbling towards their previous promotion, in 2006, they got 10,735 on Easter Monday without anyone lopping a few quid off the entry price.

They’d got 10,909 the home game before, and 13,467 in the one after – the latter at a point their promotion had been confirmed. That 2005/6 season led to a continuation of momentum into two aspirational League One seasons before things levelled off at that level and needed to be rebuilt again.

The point is as old as the hills: that good things will attract more people, and this is why you give a manager like Paul Simpson a three-year-deal, and appropriate backing over a period, not just support him in the immediate term.

It is entirely understandable why Simpson, after last weekend’s defeat at Leyton Orient, would highlight the potentially fleeting nature of this season’s promotion chance. After four goalless games, the Blues’ campaign can now go one of two ways.

One way lies glory, and a spot in history. The other is an avenue of regret amid wider positivity. 

“In football these chances don’t come very often, so you have to take them when you get them,” said Simpson, to the echoes of Orient fans singing Richie Wellens at an emptying Breyer Group Stadium.

He is, of course, right. But the bigger idea, again, is to make him wrong. It is to make Carlisle United the sort of team and club that can compete as a matter of course, not one whose challenges feel precarious each time they materialise.

It is to be a little like, to pluck a current example from the promotion race, Northampton Town. Their most recent three campaigns in League Two have involved a promotion, the nearest miss of a promotion you could ever imagine, and a current promotion push that sees them second with seven games to go.

Northampton Town, consistent competitors at the top end of League Two, are a good example (Image: PA)

That is the bearing of a side that expects to figure at the business end. It is true that the other of their last four seasons brought relegation back down from League One, but that did not, at least, set them on a vertical path, the way it does several other clubs coming down.

Immediately after relegation, they were one Bristol Rovers 7-0 win away from going straight back up. Immediately after suffering that surreal anti-climax, they went back into the forefront of this season’s promotion race.

They will be there or thereabouts come May in a way that Carlisle, in their own recent past, have not managed to be. Contrary to Simpson’s motivational prod, chances have come relatively often for the Blues. It is just that they have not been able to make them last – certainly not as deep into a campaign as this one.

In 2016/17 they made the play-offs, since when there have been two further campaigns when Carlisle were, deceptively, very much in it. There was 2018/19, when a John Sheridan side taped together by loanees sat in the automatic places at the turn of the year, only to come apart. There was 2020/21, when Chris Beech’s Blues were top in January, only to wheeze over the line in tenth thanks to a Covid-disrupted run.

In neither case were United totally kitted out to make it last. We don’t know yet if this group are, though they’ve lasted better than either to this point. If they fall short, though, it must not be the end, the sad passing of a rare opportunity which won’t come by for another era.

It must be a foundation to go further next time, the forming of expectation that they can compete again in 2023/24, rather than this season’s hope (which, pleasantly, turned into an ahead-of-schedule challenge).

If they do get there this spring, it would be a promotion achievement up there with any from United’s fourth-tier history, given the starting point for Simpson last year and the blatantly obvious need for the Blues to grow in many areas, not just sign a few better players.

United's last promotion run-in saw 10,000 crowds (Image: News & Star)

The flourishing of Carlisle United, its expansion into more credible and modern areas, has to continue whatever happens from here. That is something from which Simpson has not deviated since day one. His press conference before the Leyton Orient trip, where he stated his wish to be here for the long term, underlined his idea that this must be an evolutionary thing, not just another managerial hire that gets some results and then what?

United have risen noticeably in confidence this season, in feel, in support. There is a little extra strut about them. That may not be quite there on the pitch right now – hopefully it returns today – but we have seen definite glimpses of what the club and its people thinks it could be.

Wider factors will either inhibit or propel certain things (the Purepay debt situation, not least) but nor do they all prevent a football club working well, thinking big, imagining its natural station to be higher than it has been.

Make this a journey, and the people will stick with it. Put credible ambition at the core of it, and 2022/23 doesn’t have to be a lone star. Do all you can to make this season’s chance come off, yes – but also make sure you’re set to make the next one happen, as a matter of course.