Tin Pot Oblivion

The Jamie Devitt affair has got me thinking that we seem to be heading towards 'Tin Pot Oblivion', why are we washing our dirty linen in public? surely we are far better than that? Everything that comes out of the club nowadays is 'small club mentality', one year contracts, cuts here there and everywhere.
Where is the positivity?
Where is the buzz?
When is somebody in power going to grasp the nettle and say 'hey were a lot bigger and have far more potential than the likes of Crawley, Stevenage, Morcambe, Rochdale, Fleetwood and so on and so on, lets get this slumbering giant moving'?
When again can our fans say to their grand kids, 'you know the Blues once sat proudly on top of what is now the Premier League, we've been to six cup finals, we took over 25,000 fans to Wembley on at least 3 occasions, we once beat the mighty Roma in the Olympic Stadium in Rome'.
These are things I am fiercely proud of being a blue, I want to remember these events but I also want to tell my grand kids about these but also want to tell them about the present.........................but there is nothing, absolutely nothing to tell them!!!! No new or decent signings to get the excitement going, nothing coming from the club for fans to say "bloody hell looks whats happening down at Brunt, I definitely want some of that" absolutely sod all.
I get fed up to the back teeth of people talking about bloody Man City, Liverpool and the like, these are Carlisle people who've been allowed to drift away because the club are so bloody short sighted to do anything about it.
I'm not going to blame old Jenkins for this because over the years hes bailed us out time and time again, and hes getting on a bit, but he does need to be a lot more careful on who he chooses to work within the club.
But I am going to blame Holdsworth and Clibbens.
To those two, 'get yourselves acquainted with our history', get yourselves a good knowledge of the area (Cumbria and South West Scotland) feed into that, grasp the potential, shout from the rooftops that 'we are not bloody Crawley or Morcambe', but we are Carlisle, Carlisle United, the only professional league club in this area for miles around!!!
We are not and never will be giants but surely to god were are a lot better than we are pretending to be at the moment.

Bluedevil wrote: The Jamie Devitt affair has got me thinking that we seem to be heading towards 'Tin Pot Oblivion', why are we washing our dirty linen in public? surely we are far better than that? Everything that comes out of the club nowadays is 'small club mentality', one year contracts, cuts here there and everywhere.
Where is the positivity?
Where is the buzz?
When is somebody in power going to grasp the nettle and say 'hey were a lot bigger and have far more potential than the likes of Crawley, Stevenage, Morcambe, Rochdale, Fleetwood and so on and so on, lets get this slumbering giant moving'?
When again can our fans say to their grand kids, 'you know the Blues once sat proudly on top of what is now the Premier League, we've been to six cup finals, we took over 25,000 fans to Wembley on at least 3 occasions, we once beat the mighty Roma in the Olympic Stadium in Rome'.
These are things I am fiercely proud of being a blue, I want to remember these events but I also want to tell my grand kids about these but also want to tell them about the present.........................but there is nothing, absolutely nothing to tell them!!!! No new or decent signings to get the excitement going, nothing coming from the club for fans to say "bloody hell looks whats happening down at Brunt, I definitely want some of that" absolutely sod all.
I get fed up to the back teeth of people talking about bloody Man City, Liverpool and the like, these are Carlisle people who've been allowed to drift away because the club are so bloody short sighted to do anything about it.
I'm not going to blame old Jenkins for this because over the years hes bailed us out time and time again, and hes getting on a bit, but he does need to be a lot more careful on who he chooses to work within the club.
But I am going to blame Holdsworth and Clibbens.
To those two, 'get yourselves acquainted with our history', get yourselves a good knowledge of the area (Cumbria and South West Scotland) feed into that, grasp the potential, shout from the rooftops that 'we are not bloody Crawley or Morcambe', but we are Carlisle, Carlisle United, the only professional league club in this area for miles around!!!
We are not and never will be giants but surely to god were are a lot better than we are pretending to be at the moment.

Well said, I and lots of others I'm sure feel your pain.

I think their problem is that the Board of Directors are managerial rather than visionaries. They manage the finances, the expectations of fans and public relations, (the latter, not very well).

The Board employs people to carry out these managerial functions on their behalf. Their philosophy seems to be 'damage limitation' .

The problem is that there is no imagination or vision in their approach. It's like 'We've always done things this way'.

As I've said before, if the Board performed like this in a PLC the shareholders would have voted them out for failing to progress the company, deliver shareholder and customer (i.e. the fans) expectations.

Good post but I don’t think we took 25,000 to Wembley 3 times.

Yes, when you listen to Holdsworth , a lot of what he says sounds reasonable enough, but I struggle to think of ourselves as plucky minnows who are doing well just to survive in League 2.
There is this sentiment that the likes of Holdsworth are having to work miracles for us to be able to rub two beans together and put together a passable squad of players.
No doubt some of what they are saying about not spunking money away, has merit, but Jesus , it is [censored] bleak stuff.

It's plain to see that the club has been in a slow terminal decline since the three 'custodians' took over. They should have been ran out of town years ago for the damage they have done. The problem now is EWM are propping things up, great, but where is the vision, the optimism? There's nothing whatsoever for the supporters to get excited about.

Blue devil totally agree with you, having been a fan since the sixties had the pleasure of seeing the likes of Bowles, Hughie Mac, Beardsley play for us, the present undermining of the club beggars belief. We should be aiming much higher. I still believe with the right owners we could hold our own in the championship and get the crowds back as shown last season with the price cut match. As you’ve said it is dreadful that all the talk is about Man Utd, Liverpool etc.
I lived in Manchester for a few years and suppose I could follow either of the Manchester clubs but I’m Carlisle through and through and very proud of my city and club, I knew the min that Story gave the club to the present owners that we would get into a downward spiral as happened in the past pre Knighton when Jenkins almost killed the club off.
The club are losing the fans of the future at an alarming rate and I fear if we don’t get the change we need at the club we will be left with a nice little non league club as Jenkins once said.

Once a team is dismantled and regular faces leave it always feels like a void has been reached. Usually Close season is full of expectation for everybody but because, after signing the 3 lads early on, nothing has happened since this void has become bigger.....Holdsworth's voice is not the one I want to hear especially....he is no doubt under orders to watch the purse strings but now, today the day the fixtures are out, I want to hear more from Pressley. A new player is to be announced today possibly/ probably but theres a long way to go to fill the squad.
Not getting Devitt to sign has been a downer for me, and the statement by DH on why seems a bit thin on truth...another reason for feeling the club is going nowhere again this year and fans are being duped.
Behind the scenes seems to be in turmoil, even after success with the 8kforMK initiative the girl behind it has left after being at the club for years.
Time will tell but my enthusiasm is pretty low at this point

melbourneblues wrote: Good post but I don’t think we took 25,000 to Wembley 3 times.

Don't think hes that far away though Melbourne to be honest.
We had 27,000 against Birmingham (Sold Out)
We had supposedly 29,000 against Colchester (according to Paul Newton on Radio Cumbria) although I did find that hard to believe at the time.
And we had 22,000 against Southampton, (just falling short of the 25,000 figure.

If memory serves me we had only about 16,000 against Brentford.

Twice only took 21000 to Southampton final 27000 to first 2

BlueAl wrote: It's plain to see that the club has been in a slow terminal decline since the three 'custodians' took over. They should have been ran out of town years ago for the damage they have done. The problem now is EWM are propping things up, great, but where is the vision, the optimism? There's nothing whatsoever for the supporters to get excited about.

Exactly 2008 is when the slide started and it's been getting worse year by year.

If they actually had the best interests of the club at heart they would sell the club for the 1GBP each they paid for it and f off

As soon as I seen The Four Horseman paraded as 'Temporary Custodians' following the Story ownership deep down inside I knew then that was as far as we'd get to ever reaching even Second Tier football unless they relinquished control and it would be a slow and steady decline from there on in.

Crowds dissipated year on year to where we find ourselves that even the thought of handing out a two-year contract is seen as luxurious. We've been dragged down that much we can't compete with the likes of Crawley&Morecambe on that subject.

Just go now before you kill the club for good and take your EWM jobsworth's with you. You will not be missed and good riddance.

Agree with everything the original poster said, apart from the bit where he doesn't blame Jenkins.

He's had to put money in to prop the club up because he's been the chairman of it when it has been run so poorly.

'we seem to be heading towards 'Tin Pot Oblivion'

We are already there!

I dont know about oblivion but I've been watching Carlisle regularly for over 40 years and on paper this looks the worst squad I've ever seen. I hope Adam Collins back holds up.

Behave. Remember players like Bennett, Knight, McNeil, Griff at the end of the 80s. They were shocking.
You can see the strategy, young quick players, lets see how it holds up. My biggest fear is that Elvis doesn't get the best out of them, he certainly didn't last season. Hope i'm wrong.
And please can we sign a striker