Thanks to Alan Millington of the London Branch for submitting his thoughts following the away trip to Southend.
The London Branch has members all over the country - to see what joining could mean for you, click HERE.
Saturday 27 October, London Branch are meeting in the Hamilton Hall Pub at Liverpool Street station at 11am.
I'm late and arrive expecting a pub packed full of southern based blues eagerly anticipating a top of the table clash at Southend. Except that the pub is quiet and while I might be 20 minutes late the rest of the Branch are further behind. Only Ken and Alun are there before me, 'got a good feeling about this one' says I, 'I'll settle for the point' responds Ken.
Soon the beers are in and the pub filling with Carlisle fans. The quiz machine throws up the question - 'which Carlisle United player was recent capped by his country' - 'Peter Murphy' we respond in unison, clearly a good omen for the day ahead.
After some confusion at the ticket office (with at least one branch member approaching random members of the public enquiring if they would like to be the fourth person on a group save ticket to Southend) we made the train with about 30 seconds to spare.
Then potential disaster struck, we discover the designated pub has changed its policy since we last visited and its now home fans only!! Happily it soon emerged that the 'away fan' pub was only next door so did not require any great knowledge of Southend for folk to find it.
Annoyingly it also emerged that the real ales were all to be found in the Spread Eagle with the home fans. We got to make do with fizzy lager out of plastic pint pots. We could however watch Charlton V QPR on the telly to whet our appetites for the real game ahead. Although the seven foot bloke (sorry Fred) standing in the way didn't benefit my view much.
Whilst not being the most salubrious of grounds Roots Hall has a certain ramshackle charm. The near capacity crowd certainly generated a decent atmosphere. We opted for a central view and made do with the cross bar obscuring half the pitch.
First half started off as a tense affair with little goal mouth action. Both sides aware top spot was at stake were reluctant to throw men forward. There were few clear cut chances for either side, Garner had a header easily saved and Clarke failed to capitalise on a good opportunity for Southend. Keiren was tested shortly afterwards however, when the home side were awarded a dodgy free kick on the edge of the box. Steve Hammell sent an excellent shot over the wall curling into the top corner only for it to be matched by an excellent save from Westwood, tipping it round the post at full stretch. 'England, England's number one' sang the relieved blue army!
0-0 half time and the travelling fans were fairly happy. Not a classic 45 minutes of football, certainly not helped by a string of strange decisions by the ref and his assistants.
Second half started much the same with tentative stuff all round. Hackney looked lively, none of the team playing badly but no one really impressing too much either.
Southend went close again from a set piece with the wall doing its job this time. However the move of the match was to produce the only goal on the hour. A vintage Lummy through ball into the box, great cushion header by Graham, into the path of Joe Garner and a composed strike left the keeper no chance.
The tempo was upped by the home side for the last 30 minutes as they searched for an equaliser. On the whole I felt we held our own pretty well with a solid, plucky performance rather than an inspired one. With 10 minutes to go it would have been all over but for Danny Graham's shocking miss from 3 yards. To be fair to Danny he's our top scorer and set up Garner earlier in the game for the goal. All strikers miss the occasional sitter, though it really would have been easier to score in this case.
Ten nervy minutes followed, upped to 15 following the mysterious addition of 5 extra minutes by the increasingly inept officials. The more pessimistic amongst us predicted capitulation and defeat, I was quietly confident we would hold on, Ken was still happy to settle for the point.
Graham had another decent chance that he put wide while Southend attempted to create pressure at the other end, but it was to no avail. 1-0 Carlisle - we are top of the table!!
Southend probably have a right to feel a little hard done by as there wasn't a lot between the two sides. However I've lost count of the number of teams to have come to Brunton Park over the years and gone home with all 3 points playing much worse than we did today. The fact that we weren't at our best leaves even more room for optimism. There's plenty more to come from this Carlisle side.
Having gone top without playing our best football in many games hopefully we now can kick on and show some more of the flowing skills we are capable of. Graham's miss was comical but who cares we won anyway and Danny will be keen to make amends at Leeds.
A top day out, with some excellent company and a great result. We retired back to the away fans pub to enjoy some more fizzy lager and 3 well earned points!
Al Millington
