BladeFisher
Well-Known Member
- Banned
- #1
This is not a post about the detailed minutiae of the performance, I'll leave that to others, more the whole experience.
Going to yesterday's match was a slightly last minute decision. It is the nearest United play to me, but my economic situation makes the costs of a day out stretching it. However with Christmas coming up I thought sod it let's have a treat.
At the station I met some blokes with carry outs and thought are they going to Carlisle and whilst waiting on the platform saw a couple more. I said "You can't all be going to watch Carlisle" to which in a Scottish brogue came the respone "Yes we are", "Ah but which team?" "Same as you Shedffield". S o that was a relief then. "Is that because of the Jocky Bryson connection?" I asked. "Yes, plus Killie are home to Celtic today". I thought that strange. I mean if United were home to Man U, I can't think of many Bades would high tail it out of Sheffield to watch Benfica just because Deono played for them.
The train journey yielded a further bonus in that they had a spare ticket so that saved me £3 on the turnstiles and funded the programme.
On arrival at Carlisle Citadel station I was amazed to be let out of a side entrance and into a phalanx of police. I eyed one of the coppers and jokingly said "We're not that bad surely?". Clearly this was the day the SRA/BBC had decided to come out of exile as he replied tersely "There has already been trouble with the Sheffield lads". As we moved up to the Griffen it too was surrounded by the Fuzz, but I assumed this was more to protect Unitedites from the quite notorious Cumbrian Crew, who many may know give Carlisle United a somehight higher and somewhat unwanted profile than this pleasant and friendly city merits.
Inside Killie v The Bhoys was on the box and my new found acquaintances went upstairs to view it in some comfort, although the scoreline was not to their liking.
Just after two, I walked down Warwick Road to meet an old mate from Poly days in Newcastle outside the Hugh McIlmoyle statue. Remember him? Good player for Carlisle he was. Nearly as prolific as Keith Edwards. We had a yarn and then went our separate ways. I couldn't remember seeing United win at Carlisle. I recall the 4-1 or was it 4-0 tonking when we just didn't turn up, but I'll have to look back through my records. John gave a prediction of 1-3. He should have gone to Betsavers!
The programme was a bit out of date with info on the Blades. Got the impression it was relying on pre-season stuff now overtaken by events. The trek around to the stand was a bit of a faff and interestingly the ticket made reference to a stand that had been renamed so that was a tad odd. I made my way in after the bag check and ended up in row Y, amongst the singers, which was good. I get a bit carried away at Blades games turning from the moderately conservative into a passionate neandethal, but today the emotion was tempered a tad by the weather and I feared another defeat.
As we started off kicking to the Warwick Road end it looked like Bassett was back. All bloody aerial stuff. Christ guys, play the sodding thing on the ground. For the first ten minutes it looked like 0-0 all over it and then we got the breakthrough. Flynn's tap in at the far post saw United go up a gear and when Blackman beat Collin at the near post I thought my fears were assuaged.
We chugged along to half time and what was disappointing was a sudden flurry of nasty and unnecessary challenges from both teams to be fair but started off by Carlisle on McDonald. It was all a bit silly. I got rather irratated at Maguire's constant pushes in the back of any approaching Carlisle attacker and equally Carlisle's petty hacking down of any Blades player who managed to go past them resulting in both players falling to the ground. At one point I thought we were going to end up with a sending off or two. Completely uncalled for. At least Long showed sporting behaviour when one of the Carlisle players got injured and this was reciprocated.
Carlisle looked more dangerous in potential attack with clever flicks but had no quality to get through the Blades defence, which for the most part was well marshalled by Collins, Maguuire et al. Long was good did some exellent stops and then the Cumbrians stepped it up a gear and scored.
'ello I thought here we go again - no! But after a further ten minutes the Blades regained composure and a rather strange goal from Collins? following a corner during which the Carlisle players just stopped, momentarily giving us fans the impressionthere there had been an infringement sealed it. A fourth would have been nice and the best chant of the day "You should have gone Christmas shopping" was well received by this Blade. The icing on the cake Wednesday's defeat YES!!
For me the United performance was a B-. I thought Flynn was excellent. The guy was everywhere 9/10. Hill to me was the worst. Ok at defending, bloody awful at crosses following the overlap. His continual efforts to get it into the Scrathing Pen suggests he could be a good 'bagatel' player.
So a happy Blade. Feel sorry for Carlisle. A club I hope stays up, but fear it may not. A rather run down ground and I'll declare an interest my late stepfather used to play for them before WWII.
The journey back was uneventful and nice to see us win for a change. UTB
Going to yesterday's match was a slightly last minute decision. It is the nearest United play to me, but my economic situation makes the costs of a day out stretching it. However with Christmas coming up I thought sod it let's have a treat.
At the station I met some blokes with carry outs and thought are they going to Carlisle and whilst waiting on the platform saw a couple more. I said "You can't all be going to watch Carlisle" to which in a Scottish brogue came the respone "Yes we are", "Ah but which team?" "Same as you Shedffield". S o that was a relief then. "Is that because of the Jocky Bryson connection?" I asked. "Yes, plus Killie are home to Celtic today". I thought that strange. I mean if United were home to Man U, I can't think of many Bades would high tail it out of Sheffield to watch Benfica just because Deono played for them.
The train journey yielded a further bonus in that they had a spare ticket so that saved me £3 on the turnstiles and funded the programme.
On arrival at Carlisle Citadel station I was amazed to be let out of a side entrance and into a phalanx of police. I eyed one of the coppers and jokingly said "We're not that bad surely?". Clearly this was the day the SRA/BBC had decided to come out of exile as he replied tersely "There has already been trouble with the Sheffield lads". As we moved up to the Griffen it too was surrounded by the Fuzz, but I assumed this was more to protect Unitedites from the quite notorious Cumbrian Crew, who many may know give Carlisle United a somehight higher and somewhat unwanted profile than this pleasant and friendly city merits.
Inside Killie v The Bhoys was on the box and my new found acquaintances went upstairs to view it in some comfort, although the scoreline was not to their liking.
Just after two, I walked down Warwick Road to meet an old mate from Poly days in Newcastle outside the Hugh McIlmoyle statue. Remember him? Good player for Carlisle he was. Nearly as prolific as Keith Edwards. We had a yarn and then went our separate ways. I couldn't remember seeing United win at Carlisle. I recall the 4-1 or was it 4-0 tonking when we just didn't turn up, but I'll have to look back through my records. John gave a prediction of 1-3. He should have gone to Betsavers!
The programme was a bit out of date with info on the Blades. Got the impression it was relying on pre-season stuff now overtaken by events. The trek around to the stand was a bit of a faff and interestingly the ticket made reference to a stand that had been renamed so that was a tad odd. I made my way in after the bag check and ended up in row Y, amongst the singers, which was good. I get a bit carried away at Blades games turning from the moderately conservative into a passionate neandethal, but today the emotion was tempered a tad by the weather and I feared another defeat.
As we started off kicking to the Warwick Road end it looked like Bassett was back. All bloody aerial stuff. Christ guys, play the sodding thing on the ground. For the first ten minutes it looked like 0-0 all over it and then we got the breakthrough. Flynn's tap in at the far post saw United go up a gear and when Blackman beat Collin at the near post I thought my fears were assuaged.
We chugged along to half time and what was disappointing was a sudden flurry of nasty and unnecessary challenges from both teams to be fair but started off by Carlisle on McDonald. It was all a bit silly. I got rather irratated at Maguire's constant pushes in the back of any approaching Carlisle attacker and equally Carlisle's petty hacking down of any Blades player who managed to go past them resulting in both players falling to the ground. At one point I thought we were going to end up with a sending off or two. Completely uncalled for. At least Long showed sporting behaviour when one of the Carlisle players got injured and this was reciprocated.
Carlisle looked more dangerous in potential attack with clever flicks but had no quality to get through the Blades defence, which for the most part was well marshalled by Collins, Maguuire et al. Long was good did some exellent stops and then the Cumbrians stepped it up a gear and scored.
'ello I thought here we go again - no! But after a further ten minutes the Blades regained composure and a rather strange goal from Collins? following a corner during which the Carlisle players just stopped, momentarily giving us fans the impressionthere there had been an infringement sealed it. A fourth would have been nice and the best chant of the day "You should have gone Christmas shopping" was well received by this Blade. The icing on the cake Wednesday's defeat YES!!
For me the United performance was a B-. I thought Flynn was excellent. The guy was everywhere 9/10. Hill to me was the worst. Ok at defending, bloody awful at crosses following the overlap. His continual efforts to get it into the Scrathing Pen suggests he could be a good 'bagatel' player.
So a happy Blade. Feel sorry for Carlisle. A club I hope stays up, but fear it may not. A rather run down ground and I'll declare an interest my late stepfather used to play for them before WWII.
The journey back was uneventful and nice to see us win for a change. UTB
