But the seasons kept on changing.
I was pretty sure that in my short time watching and supporting football, I had witnessed its peak, and perhaps I had, but that didn’t mean that the rest of it wasn’t pretty lofty.
My first match back was a pre-season friendly at Brunton Park as Carlisle hosted Newcastle.
I remember almost nothing from the game apart from seeing Nobby Solano. And he’d left Newcastle three years prior, so I don’t know who I saw. I think I just associated the Peruvian with Newcastle and so place an individual of his height and build in a black and white shirt and my mind does the rest.
All I can find on the match is that it finished 0–3 to the visitors, and there were also some photographs that could be from the game that indicate the likes of Joey Barton and Alan Smith were playing.
It doesn’t ring a bell and I don’t remember.
Oh wait, I found a bit — Leon Best, Nile Ranger, and Haris Vučkić scored the goals.
So there’s that.
Nothing against pre-season friendlies, but when you’ve just come from the apex, they seem like the Little Chef next to base camp.
This was my first real look at the squad in the new season, and it had… Changed.
That’s obviously not a bad thing, and it’s the nature of the game, especially at a lower level. But I think I held the likes of David Raven, Simon Hackney, and Marc Bridge-Wilkinson a bit closer than I realised.
In their place stepped James Berrett and François Zoko, along with an individual who proves that it was about one specific era for me and not just anything that came before this, Tony Caig.
I remember this span as the time I wasn’t sure about supporting Carlisle United anymore.
I distinctly remember looking at new signing Frankie Simek as he charged up the pitch from wing-back, with his shirt tucked into his shorts and his chest puffed out, and admiring what he was doing. But it was with glazed eyes.
Even when I saw David Prutton’s luxurious locks on the Swindon bench, or Sean Morrison being impressive for The Robins, or even the Cumbrian return of Vincent Péricard, who had controversially moved to Swindon after turning down a new contract with Carlisle, despite previously stating he’d be happy to sign one.
It was all good, and I was there for it — but a spice was missing.
The game ended 0–0.
As is tradition, I took in my annual game of Carlisle vs. Brighton. And this is where that aforementioned lack of spice could be measured. One game between the same opponents each season — solve for hype.
In the previous two games, there are distinct moments I can recollect — Cleveland Taylor’s wide grin at the corner flag from the first, Kuipers saving well with his feet in the second, but from the third… Nada.
I even had the hype of seeing former Leeds ‘keeper Casper Ankergren between the sticks for Brighton, as well as Zigor Aranalde knock-off Iñigo Calderón, who was in his first season of being Brighton’s potentially best-ever player outside the top flight. Even Lubo Michalik had rocked up at Brunton Park, playing for my team!
But it didn’t feel like my team anymore.
The game ended 0–0.
This is the final Carlisle ticket I have from this season. I’m sure I went to more games, but the tickets are a good visual aid for bringing those memories out.
Much like I had done with Grays Athletic previously, I attended the FA Cup game against relative minnows in the hopes of seeing a thrashing.
And unlike against Grays, I got it.
Zoko struck twice, but Gary Madine, the man that had headed home a consolation at Wembley, struck four times to see Tipton off 6–0.
Madine looked a cut above and Sheffield Wednesday obviously thought so as well because he’d be gone from the Carlisle books a little over two months later, those four goals his first in what has been an impressive scoring record in the competition.
Carlisle put out a full-strength side that day, and they even had Tom Cruise playing in defence. He played three games for us and I’ll never forget him or his barnet because of that name.
I don’t know if I like it that one of my last memories of that time is Tom Cruise.
I went to other games. I know I did.
I can vaguely see Medy Elito scoring and wheeling off to the away end to celebrate when Dagenham & Redbridge did us 0–2. If I had the ticket, that’d be so clear, but without it, I tell myself that I might have just seen it during the highlights on The Football League Show.
The loans are what tip it off for me. I remember some coming in from Manchester United, who I despised at the time — James Chester, Corry Evans, and Oliver Norwood — all household names now. In some houses.
I’d start to hear rumours before things were announced, see backlash on social media. I started to branch out and do my own research, started to become the dreaded armchair pundit — something I’ve never really stopped.
Something very few football fans ever truly stop.
There were other players to see, and I wanted to see them.
To me, that didn’t mean going to games — it mainly meant looking at stats and judging players by how cool their name was, and then when Saturday came, watching all the live matches I could and soaking up all the highlights at least three times.
There were matches though.
A trip to Elland Road to watch Leeds take on Eddie Howe’s Burnley is the last ticket I have before a gap of over five years.
It was a 1–0 win right towards the end of the season, and much like any other game, I was glad of who I saw.
Brian Jensen, Kasper Schmeichel, André Bikey, Chris Eagles, Andy O’Brien — to name just five.
As Carlisle slipped off, Leeds took over. Sure, football took over as I became enamoured with most of the game, but Leeds took my affection.
There was the story of the fallen giant, not just down one flight of stairs, but two, and I’d witnessed the successful climb back up one of them — I felt personally invested! Then you add in all the roadblocks along the way — owners…
I mean, you could stop there. You could take off the ‘s’ as well.
But there was also the relationship with my dad.
We never had a tonne in common, and when I took up football, I like to think he did a little celebration in his head. I liked that he simultaneously had something I could bond with him over as well as somet he could pass on to me.
If that’s why I support Leeds United to this very day, then I’m happy with that.
To be continued.
C.L.R.
