Inside Brunton Park with Jon Colman

It’s time for an assault on the elbow-led challenge!

Published 29 November 2008

Carlisle action photo If it had occurred in the Premier League, we would now be on our fifth day of screaming headlines, televised debates and Something-Must-Be-Done national newspaper columns.

What’s the rush to name Carlisle boss?

Published 29 November 2008

THE idea that United's directors must speed into a managerial appointment in the coming days is a dubious one.

Carlisle United kid Aldred set for Scotland call-up

Published 27 November 2008

Tom Aldred has become the second Carlisle United youth player to win an international call-up.

Blues must look to future while Matt rolls back the years

Published 15 November 2008

Any day now a reporter will trot down to Blackburn Rovers’ training ground and elicit a bundle of confused quotes from a coach or director.

Carlisle United land Sunderland kid on loan

Published 15 November 2008

Teenage loan signing Michael Liddle is ready for the heat of League One battle, according to United caretaker boss Greg Abbott.

No wonder Leeds are so up for the cup

Published 15 November 2008

TELEVISION coverage of the FA Cup’s early rounds exists purely to funnel more money into the bank account of the lower divisions’ richest club. Discuss.

Bottom line for Lumsdon and Abbott

Published 8 November 2008

Greg Abbott’s breezy appeal to Lady Luck on Wednesday rolled the mind back to an interview which remains my favourite from three years of covering the Blues.

Carlisle United boss Abbott should bring back Kevin Gray

Published 8 November 2008

There is one way that Greg Abbott can instantly retrieve some of Carlisle United’s lost credibility, and it has nothing to do with applying the heavy roller to the 23rd-best team in the Blue Square Premier, such is his task this afternoon.

A quicker fix could have stopped rot setting in

Published 1 November 2008

JOHN Ward almost had it this week when he put forward “if” as the biggest word in sport. Had the troubled Carlisle United manager tacked just three more letters on, he would have got right to the bone of his team’s descent from promotion hopefuls to relegation worriers.

Kinder kids are setting example

Published 1 November 2008

WITH eight straight wins before today’s trip to Blackpool, United’s youth team are the antidote to the senior side’s woes and a bubbly rebuke to claims that the rot has set in at all levels of the club.

Zigor Aranalde: I want to come back to Carlisle United as manager

Published 30 October 2008

English football as moral beacon is a tricky concept to wrestle with, but that’s precisely how Zigor Aranalde sees it now he has taken his leave of the country after eight years.

Can Richard and Danny finally make a case for the defence?

Published 11 October 2008

THE comparison comes to me at last: Danny Livesey and Richard Keogh are Carlisle’s Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard a few yards further back, and now it drops to John Ward to challenge the widespread view that United’s two centre-halves are talented but incompatible.

Can inconsistent Blues learn Ivor’s oldest lesson?

Published 6 October 2008

A couple of years ago, I journeyed to Bath to interview the former United manager Ivor Powell and the old man quickly set out the five principles which have held strong through a coaching career which he maintains today at the age of 92.

Turn up and support your team

Published 4 October 2008

THE word is out that some fans are planning to swerve United’s maiden trip to Milton Keynes Dons next Saturday because they can’t bear to spend a single farthing at the home of the unloved franchise club who stole Wimbledon’s clothes.

Loyal Greg won’t be a backroom boy forever

Published 27 September 2008

Greg Abbott is adamant his mind won’t be assailed by flashbacks when he pokes his head out of the tunnel at the Banks’s Stadium at some point this late-summer afternoon.

'We play better wearing Carlisle united kit'

Published 27 September 2008

Carlisle United’s colours are now flying in the Rainbow Nation thanks to a kit donation from the Blues to a team of South African youngsters.

The bald truth about Danny Carlton's new look

Published 20 September 2008

THE scarcely recognisable skinhead in Carlisle United’s team at Scunthorpe last weekend turned out to be Danny Carlton.

Why Carlisle can't afford great occasion to end up in the gutter

Published 20 September 2008

Rereading the account of trouble on Carlisle’s streets after last November’s victory over Leeds brings a potentially startling interpretation of events.

How misfortune has helped Michael Bridges see the bigger picture

Published 13 September 2008

This column comes to you regardless of the latest arrow fate has fired into the besieged body of Michael Bridges. Naturally, it carries the ardent hope that the hamstring injury suffered by the striker at Morecambe in Wednesday’s reserve game is healed in time for next Saturday’s rumble with Leeds.