The upper tier is where Carlisle fans sat today.
Waking up early is not really my speciality in life, so when i woke up to catch the 10 AM bus to Sunderland, i had immediate mixed emotions. I came to my senses eventually however, and i couldn’t wait to get to the Stadium of Light, where Carlisle were set to take on the Mackems in the third round of the FA Cup. We had beaten Boreham Wood and Brentford to get here, and we set off knowing that we didn’t really have anything to lose going into the game. The bus journey was a reasonably enjoyable one, as we sat on a bus which was just part of a huge convoy of vehicles destined for Sunderland. We arrived at about 1:30 PM, and a wave of excitement swept over Carlisle’s followers. Could we possibly cause a cupset?
We proceeded to the food kiosks, and i purchased a ‘jumbo’ hot dog for the price of £3.60. A word of advice to anyone visiting, it fills a gap, but the hot dog is like rubber and it’s not really worth it. After washing it down with a bottle of Coca-Cola, we proceeded to our seats, a whole hour before kick off, don’t ask me why. Just before the game started, we heard over the tannoy that Nottingham Forest had beaten West Ham United 5-0 at the City Ground, this made me think that no matter what the score was in our game, that we wouldn’t be the ones getting laughed at. The match got underway and it was clear Sunderland were not taking it lightly, their team filled with names such as Jozy Altidore, Ki Sung Yueng, Seb Larsson and Adam Johnson. The first half was an especially enjoyable one, especially given that we matched the Premier League side all the way through it.
Sunderland had the first real chance of the match, but Altidore, evidently suffering from a lack of confidence, had a tame shot stopped by Greg Fleming. Prince Buaben could have given us the lead with a shot that trickled towards the corner, but Vito Mannone got across quickly enough to tip it wide. Sunderland found a break through just over half an hour into the game however, as Johnson showed his class, the former Manchester City winger curled a free kick past the despairing Fleming to give the hosts the lead.
Ten minutes later however and Carlisle had found a response, David Amoo charged past Andrea Dossena down Sunderland’s left flank, and whipped a cross to the back post. Lewis Guy challenged, and the ball broke for Matty Robson, who lashed a shot off the underside of the bar and into the net, sending the Carlisle fans into raptures.
The second half, unfortunately for us, was a completely different story, we started off okay, but after Adam Johnson’s first time cross led to Sean O’Hanlon slicing into his own net, the stuffing was well and truly knocked out of us. We threatened Sunderland very little throughout the rest of the game, although we did limit their scoring chances at the same time, only allowing a couple of long shots which were comfortably saved by Fleming.
Sunderland killed off the game just before injury time, as debutant El Hadji Ba slotted past Fleming after some neat play between him and Altidore. Carlisle’s players were given a well deserved applause following the full time whistle, although there was a feeling that we could have gotten more had we replicated our play in the first half. After a quick toilet break, we found our transportation among a massive crowd of buses, taking care not to knock ourselves out on any branches on the way.
Following another uneventful bus journey, i sit here wondering what could have been, could we have beaten Sunderland had we kept up our performance? I guess we’ll never know, but hey ho, focus on the league, right?!
Under The Floodlights 