A message from the chairman
I would like to offer sincere apologies to all of our supporters, on behalf of myself and the board, for the disastrous season we have all witnessed.
I can assure you that the board of directors have felt the same level of frustration as yourselves as we are, first and foremost, supporters and we all want the best for the club.
In an attempt to explain what has gone wrong, the difficulties started last summer when we had to submit our budget figures to the Football League. We had just experienced two seasons of heavy losses and we had to attempt, if at all possible, to break even this time round.
Having confirmed our budgets we went into the season and, from the first match, suffered red cards and injuries to key players at key times. There are those who will say that we would use injuries as an excuse but I would argue that they are a genuine reason, and they do disrupt the team and the performances when they happen in this manner.
With the exception of a period just before Christmas this problem continued for us, with senior and experienced players missing out, and this led to a need for the club to go into the loan market.
The loan system is often criticised but, for clubs like ours, it is usually the only option we have to counteract the problem of losing players to medium or long term injuries. Some of the loan players we have seen this season have been successful, others less so, and some have returned to their parent clubs, leaving us with no option but to chop and change the team.
As directors we acknowledge that we have, at times, been guilty of poor decision making, but every decision is made honestly and with the best intentions of the club in mind. We will now sit down and analyse the season, from our point of view, to assess where we have gone wrong. The directors at this club all give their time and services free of charge and occasionally provide funds to help the club move along. We are determined to see the club prosper and we will continue to work hard to make sure that will be the case.
We will now sit down with the manager, sooner rather than later, to finalise plans to get this club back to winning games and enjoying the success we all want to see next season.
Once again I offer our sincere apologies and appeal to all supporters to stick with us and help us to get this club going again.
Andrew Jenkins
Chairman
Carlisle United Football Club
