Published at 05:17, Friday, 21 November 2008

ORDER is restored. Normality is resumed. We’re back to the status quo. Seeing Carlisle United take Brighton to the cleaners was just the sort of stuff we had become used to during that barnstorming record run of home victories last season and again at the start of this campaign.

Ab fab: A delighted Greg Abbott after the win against Brighton

The mystery is what became of the slick passing, the fierce tackling, the great defending and the clinical finishing that was so evident here yet was nowhere to be seen during that horrendous run of 12 matches without a victory between September 13 and November 8.

Few United diehards could understand it, but perhaps there was a clue in Greg Abbott’s post-match observations about the tempo at which games are played and how United have responded to his urgings by upping theirs. Maybe, under John Ward, things had become a bit stale. Greg is certainly talking a good game and against Brighton it looked like the players wanted to perform for him.

A week previously, in that shabby FA Cup first round draw against lowly Grays, the United effort was so sterile that you would have been hard pushed to have nominated a man of the match.

Such an award would have been an insult to the title. In the Brighton game, though, you couldn’t come up with a man of the match for another reason – they were all equally superb. It was a wonderful team performance, reminiscent of the best of last season, and if there has to be a special mention it must go to the wing pairing of Simon Hackney and Cleveland Taylor.

The quality of their crosses into the box was impeccable, constantly giving those rushing into the area the chance of converting them. In all honesty Carlisle could have won by six or seven and we live in hope now that the corner has been well and truly turned.

I mentioned last week that Gary Madine’s lucky equaliser against Grays had been just what Carlisle were looking forward in terms of being an omen and perhaps that’s what it was.

The victory against Brighton duly came along on the back of it and then when United made the long trip to Essex for the cup replay against Grays what should happen when they go 1-0 down in the 20th minute but the lights went out on the game and it had to be abandoned!

United, of course, could have gone on to win the game comfortably and you’ve got to believe that would have been the case. But things weren’t going too well on the pitch and this may have been a lucky intervention.

I’m dumbfounded that such a thing can happen in this day and age.

Grays had had a warning sign in their previous league game when they suffered a floodlight failure. Now once you could put down to an accident but twice is just careless and I firmly believe they should suffer some sanctions because of it.

Let’s look at the repercussions. Those poor United fans who made a 600 and something miles round trip, getting back at five in the morning, must have been outraged. Indeed a couple of my friends had thoroughly prepared for the marathon journey by booking two days off work and that’s their precious leave in pieces.

The rescheduling of the game is tomorrow week, meaning that United must travel all the way to Millwall on Tuesday night and all the way to Grays again four days later.

This is the FA’s competition and I reckon they should step in and make Grays play this tie on a neutral ground somewhere in the Midlands, easing the travel burden on a weary United.

Ask any footballer and they will tell you that the worst part of being a professional footballer is the travelling.

It’s just plain boring and for active people like footballers it’s very frustrating.

Thank goodness, then, for a home game in the league against Cheltenham tomorrow. Just don’t let the Brighton standards drop, boys!

INTERVIEW: PHIL ROSTRON

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk