Thanks to Al Millington, a London Branch member, for this report from his trip to Bristol.

To find out more about the London Branch, click HERE.

It's the first game of the season and after two and a half months away from football I'm ready to go. I've successfully ignored the entire European Football Championships and the last football action I watched was that sickening second Leeds goal in the play off's. New season and a new start, its time to banish those horrible memories for good and get behind the Blues.

Excuses

At 9.45 I arrive at Paddington station, meet up with Mike for breakfast in the pub and a quick cuppa. Many of the regular London Branch train travellers are absent for a variety of reasons.T he excuses range from: the understandable - 'family holiday', to the impressive - 'working at the Olympics in China' to the feeble - 'its raining' and then the downright rubbish - 'I'm doing me ironing!' There are a fair few footie fans on the station. The Swansea guys have arrived in London already for a 3pm kick off at Charlton and an impressive number of vociferous AFC Wimbledon supporters are off to Newport.

Where's the tickets?

Train journey goes smoothly and 90 minutes later we arrive in Bristol and catch the bus to our meeting venue, the Annex Pub.Friendly place, 7 real ales and plenty of Carlisle fans in attendance. Soon we are joined by several other London Branch members who report that the traffic is awful. Worse Croxy is running late, stuck somewhere on the motorway and he has the tickets!! Thankfully it's not yet 2 o'clock, and the beer is flowing nicely. We discuss our prospects for the game ahead and all agree we would settle for a point!

Who scored? It must be Danny

I was slightly surprised to see Carlisle start with Graham and Carlton up front while Bridges and Taylor warmed the bench.Other than that it was pretty much the starting eleven I had expected. The first half was a lively affair with periods of good football from Carlisle. Our defending for their first goal was disappointing but the way in which we responded was first class. Short corner to Bridge-W from Hackney, lovely cross and a Black Shirt is on the end of it 1-1! Who scored? The tannoy wasn't audible and with the poor view from the damp terrace we weren't sure. It looked like Danny Graham we all agreed so I texted our man in China the news. The game continued to be fast paced with action at both ends. Thirwell and Bridge-W looked particularly impressive in the midfield and Hackney as dangerous as ever. The second Carlisle goal on the stroke of half time was another Hackney to Bridge-W combination. Simon's corner wasn't cleared by the Rovers defence and fell to Bridgy who took a touch before lashing a left footer into the top corner. 2-1 half time and the Cornish pasty tasted good!

News from China

The weather eased up slightly for the second half and the game settled to a more controlled pace. Rovers had much of the possession but never looked overly threatening. Any threat was fully nullified in the 80th minute when Carlton broke free to score with a cracking volley from 20 yards! 3-1 up and I text Simon in Beijing to tell him the news that Danny Carlton has finally scored for Carlisle. Except that it isn't his first goal for Carlisle as Simon in China already knows, unlike us, that Carlton scored the first one as well. Whoops! Good to see the Chairman correcting us from 5000 miles away! As we cruise for an easy win United keep us on our toes by conceding a poor goal in injury time. Thankfully we don't have long to survive and the points are ours!

The Blues banish the play off blues

We wander elated from the ground and catch a bus into town. A quick pint at Temple Meads station and we're on the train back to London. A top day out, great crack and a well earned 3 points for the Blues. The awful memories of the play offs are banished and the new campaign kicked off with a fine win. More of the same please boys, I could get used to this!

Al Millington