CARLISLE UNITED

LAST SEASON

LEAGUE TWO 11th FA CUP Second Round

LEAGUE CUP First Round TOP SCORER Hallam Hope (15)

FANFILE DAN MACLENNAN @Thecumbriansnet

The big talking point among the fans is the budget and impact of director of football David Holdsworth. A policy of giving only one-year contracts has seen last season’s best player, Jamie Devitt, leave and join Blackpool – cue an unhappy fanbase.

Our most underrated player is last term’s top scorer, Hallam Hope. Even though he scores and creates goals, the fans have never fully taken to him. He’s always either great or gash!

The pantomime villain will be David Holdsworth. His one-year deals policy means he’s currently in the firing line. The one change I’d make to the club would be a change of ownership, and a lot of fans would say the same. The current ‘temporary custodians’ have overseen an 11-year decline from the top half of League One to mid-table in League Two, with attendances falling along the way.

The best away fans are any poor sods who make the trek up here! The best away ground is Bradford’s or Plymouth’s.

The opposition player I secretly admire is ex-cumbrian Nicky Adams. Did you know that Carlisle were the first English team to win at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome: 3-2 vs Roma in the 1972 Anglo-italian Cup.

The signature local dish is the great Cumberland sausage. Obviously it’s not on sale at the club, despite the chairman being a meat wholesaler! Our best celebrity fan is Lee Brennan from ’90s boy band 911.

Our key player will be keeper Adam Collin – he was fantastic for us last season. There’ll be a completely new defence in front of him in 2019-20, so his experience will be vital.

The fans’ opinion of the gaffer is that Steven Pressley [below] splits the fanbase. He joined in January when we were flying, but instantly lost some key players. Some supporters think he failed by missing out on the play-offs; others, myself included, believe that he deserves a chance to build his own team this time around.

We’ll finish in the play-offs! Sod it, let’s go crazy – positivity and all that.