Ten (belated) New Year's resolutions for Carlisle United

1 Survival

Often, New Year resolutions are obvious – shift some clem, give up smoking, look at your phone less, drink more absinthe – and Carlisle staying in League One isn’t exactly a left-field wish.

But nothing is more immediately important. Retain third-tier status, and the Blues would go into the summer with the momentum of another defiant Simmo-spell under their belts and ready to grow in all respects under the Piataks.

It could prove a sturdy platform indeed. Relegation wouldn’t need to be disastrous, given the wider project, but it could slow the pace of United fulfilling all our long-held hopes.

Can United hold on to League One status and build a platform for further growth? (Image: Barbara Abbott)

2 Grow the ground

Fortunately, wishes like this are no longer pipe-dreams thanks to United’s new owners, who have already set out forward-thinking plans for the East Stand among other areas.

Revitalising Carlisle’s most modern but criminally under-exploited stand was instantly obvious to the Piataks, who are behaving as good new owners should: by targeting infrastructure for growth, rather than just hurling money at the team for a PR hit.

United maximising Brunton Park, reinforcing and refreshing it for the good of its people and prospects: yes, we’ll have some of that in 2024.

Plans for new facilities in the East Stand are set to gather pace this year (Image: News & Star)

3 Training facilities

Yes, another obvious one. But is anything more fundamental to a vision of a better, broader and more ambitiously-equipped Carlisle United?

Paul Simpson, since returning in 2022, has made little secret of his view that United’s limited training space has been keeping the Blues in the past, holding them back.

That ought to change fundamentally this year. A modern, new project taking shape, with the council’s backing too, would tell us a lot about the kind of club Carlisle can eventually be, and how the community can also go with it.

Paul Simpson has long spoken of the need for better training facilities (Image: Richard Parkes)

4 Hands on

There’s no point in buying a club if you’re not going to seek to control and affect most aspects of it straight away. The Piataks have certainly not been slow in this regard.

There has not, though, been an assumption that they know best on everything immediately. Tom Piatak II, in a Boxing Day interview on BBC Radio Cumbria, was sensible in saying that the January transfer window, for instance, was best left largely to those with an experienced handle on things, while the family watched and learned.

Hopefully they will absorb those such matters as quickly as they have taken in many other things at Brunton Park – and any positive changes and activities there can be carried out with similar proactivity as 2024 unrolls.

Tom Piatak II, pictured with United's media assistant Amy Nixon (Image: Richard Parkes)

5 Dispose of the debt

That’s how Tom Piatak snr described the intention to take the £2.6m, formerly owed to Purepay, out of the atmosphere above United.

The Florida family, thank goodness, had the wherewithal and stamina to take ownership of that debt in the first place, in order to push the takeover through.

It ought not to saddle United, any more, with the kind of concerns that hung over them for so long. A good and landmark day in 2024 will simply be when we know its total removal, whether by equity conversion or other good means, has officially happened.

Tom Piatak snr's Castle Sports Group bought the £2.6m debt from Purepay and says it will be disposed of in a tax-efficient way (Image: Barbara Abbott)

6 Behave yourselves

Most people don’t need this message, but a stubborn few do – and 2024 needs to be a year when unwanted incidents in the Warwick Road End make fewer headlines, irritate us and harm the club less.

Some folk on that terrace, seemingly sharing a single brain cell between them, think it’s fine to abuse players, let off fireworks, damage things fellow supporters have paid for.

They cannot be trusted, clearly, to heed United’s messaging, so it’s also on Carlisle to become better at intercepting such things. Improved CCTV is in the workings, while stewarding must also be sharpened up at the home terrace.

United have terrific support, but more needs to be done to tackle the poor behaviour of some (Image: Barbara Abbott)

7 Share the load

United now have the resources to improve what they’ve got in various departments and 2024 should see an expansion in several areas behind the scenes.

On the football side, Paul Simpson - having already bolstered the fitness side of operations - will seek to further professionalise how Carlisle’s staff shapes up, with additions in analysis, physiotherapy and potentially coaching – while the Piataks are on record as wishing to help United’s Ladies team too.

Fascinating, too, will be how the Blues expand other departments, such as media, to bring the club up to measure with others who’ve been able, in numbers, to do more. Appreciating their good existing staff must, naturally, remain part of any widening measures.

Adam Kwiecien recently joined as strength and conditioning coach, with more additions likely in Simmo's backroom staff (Image: Barbara Abbott)

8 Keep the fruit salad

This might be a long shot, given clubs’ constant desire to change kits every year for admittedly obvious commercial reasons.

But United’s away colours this year have become iconic in a way many strips do not. What a shame it would be if they’re no longer part of the present after April.

Record-breaking sales should point to what, in 2024, would be a rare decision to stick rather than twist. Let’s have another year of the pink, yellow and black kaleidoscope: Carlisle's most eye-grabbing and enduring change kit since the 1994/95 deckchair.

United's away kit has been an extraordinary kit - so why change it? (Image: Richard Parkes)

9 Honour the past

This is a year of big milestones, and hopefully the 50th anniversary of promotion to the First Division (1974) will be marked in a major way – likewise 25 years since Jimmy Glass did his thing (1999).

It will also be 60 years since Carlisle’s greatest goalscoring season (1963/64) ended with promotion, and 120 since Shaddongate United became Carlisle United. But we’ll gladly have no emulating of the tenth anniversary of relegation to League Two (2014), or the 20th of the fall into non-league (2004), thanks very much.

Individually speaking, United have got much better at saluting their heroes, given the bars and facilities named after former stars, not to mention their former chairman. In 2024, it would be appropriate to name something significant after David Wilkes, the pioneering youth coach who died last summer. It would not be overdoing it to name the club’s academy after him. In the fullness of time, a lasting tribute to Paul Simpson himself should be considered too.

Carlisle's promotion to the First Division reaches its 50th anniversary in 2024 (Image: News & Star)

10 Maximise fan power

A challenge for supporters’ trust CUOSC this year is to maintain and enhance its relevance in the wake of diluting its stake in the club.

The trust have made good and bright progress lately, both in board make-up and proactive behaviour, and they must keep thinking big to avoid slipping into the margins again.

CUOSC, whilst close to the Piataks, must also be the club’s conscience: an objecting and dispassionate voice if needs be. Continuing to grow its membership will add further decibels to that voice, and gain the trust further and wider respect.

CUOSC and its members played an important role in the takeover, and must now keep growing despite a reduced shareholding (Image: Barbara Abbott)