Written by Craig Lucock
Banks’s Stadium
So, today i witnessed my first Carlisle away game of the season, and my first in the league since two seasons ago when i visited Oldham, Rochdale, Hartlepool, Preston, Sheffield United and today’s opponents Walsall. Me, my mother and maybe 30 other Carlisle fans departed from Brunton Park on the bus at roughly 9:30 AM. Now i know what you’re thinking, you’re either thinking ‘Wow, he has a mother who actually likes football?’ Or ‘Wow, he must have no mates’. Funnily enough however, two of my mates were actually on the same bus that i was on, so i spent most of the trip sitting with them. The rain pelted down on the bus as we passed Penrith, making it barely possible to see two feet in front of the bus.
We arrived at Banks’s stadium at around ten past one in the afternoon, and we made immediately for McDonald’s, where i enjoyed a delicious Big Mac meal, which to be honest, was probably the highlight of the day. We wandered back to the ground and we waited from about ten to two. The time got to 2:20 PM and we began wondering exactly why they hadn’t opened the doors to the away supporters yet. It was only when my mother decided to ask the steward did we discover that we were on the wrong side of the ground. Whoops!
We proceeded inside the ground, and following a quick toilet break, we made our way to a pair of seats completely different to the ones indicated on our tickets. We were filled with optimism after Carlisle’s fantastic showing against Tranmere just a week previous to today. Just thirty seconds into the game, we still had plenty of reasons to be optimistic, as the bounce from a long ball over the top completely wrong footed Andy Butler, leaving Lee Miller plenty of space to fire off a shot, which unfortunately was straight at Walsall ‘keeper Richard O’Donnell. A quarter of an hour in though, a through ball from Paul Downing completely split open our defence, leaving Romaine Sawyers with plenty of time to slot it past Ben Amos.
We still had belief, as Carlisle had played reasonably well up to this point in the match. In fact, a mere ten minutes later, Carlisle were handed a golden opportunity to tie the game, as Andy Taylor went sliding in on David Amoo, which eventually led to the ball striking the grounded Taylor’s hand, which was enough for referee Darren Bond to award a penalty to the visitors. Lee Miller stepped up, with the perfect chance to give back the belief that Carlisle fans had going in to the game.
Unfortunately, his spot kick was poor, and was decently saved by O’Donnell. That was not the surprising thing, though. The surprising thing was that the ball rebounded straight back to Miller, who somehow blazed the ball about half a mile over the bar, despite having a completely empty goal to aim at. This is a good point to mention that this performance from Miller was probably up there with the worst performances from any Carlisle player this season. I don’t cuss very often in these posts, but quite frankly, he was absolutely shite, and that’s being nice to him.
Things got from bad to worse for Carlisle in the second half, as the whole team began performing poorly, and Miller had managed to pluck some trick out of his arse. This trick was finding a way to play even worse than he did in the first half. He had another very good chance to put him, and Carlisle, on the scoresheet, but he fired wide of the left hand post.
66 minutes in, and Walsall had doubled their lead as Milan Lalkovic, who i must say looks like a cracking little player, swiveled and shot from inside the area and found the top right of Amos’ net. With very little to talk about past this moment, i wouldn’t be surprised if some Carlisle fans are still at Banks’s stadium right now, fast asleep. Unfortunately, Courtney Meppen-Walter, who to be fair put in a half decent shift in the centre of defence for Carlisle, received his marching orders as he tugged back Troy Hewitt when the Walsall substitute attempted to break towards goal.
The final whistle was a relief to Carlisle fans, especially after the 5 minutes of added time prolonged the suffering. The journey back was nothing to write home about, the only interesting occurrences during the journey back were
1. My mates constantly phoning each other to interrupt their sleep.
2. A 16 year old person who was acting roughly a third of his age, continuously asking his dad ‘How long until we get back?’ ‘Will the traffic be bad on the way back?’ ‘Will it be raining in Carlisle’ ‘What are we having for tea (After his dad asked what he wanted, he simply replied ‘I dunno’. Pizza was suggested, but it was immediately rebuffed by the ‘teenager’ as it ‘takes too long’) Perhaps the best was ‘I hate these long journeys’ Which begs the question why he decided to go to fucking Walsall in the first place.
3. Rain
4. A few lads in front of us discussing their Football Chairman Lite games
I should point out, that in all of the away games i mentioned at the beginning of this post, we didn’t win. We didn’t win today either, obviously, so i’m wondering right now whether i’m a bad omen. Oh well, onwards and upwards.
P.S It’s still raining.
Under The Floodlights 