As well as the daily fitness challenges completed by our younger players, much of which now includes work with the ball, director of football David Holdsworth has set a new test for our first-year professionals with the focus very much on the kitchen.
Holdsworth, a keen chef himself, wanted to introduce a series of tasks to keep the lads mentally alert, alongside the physical exercises that take up much of the day, so Friday’s are now a themed cooking day, with the rest of the week taken up with research on key tips and ingredients for the chosen dish.
“This is something a little bit different but I think the lads are enjoying it,” David said. “We’ve done it for the last two Friday nights, and we’ve had themed Italian and Chinese dish evenings so far.
“It’s completely up to each individual as to what they produce and the results so far have been amazing. I’ve had parents telling me that it’s the first time some of their boys have done anything like this, and the good thing is that with there being a bit of competition in there is that it’s a method of learning new life-skills when perhaps they don’t realise they’re teaching themselves and doing that along the way.”
“As you can see from the pictures, some of the food being cooked is really top quality,” he continued. “We think we’ve found a great way to address some of the personal wellbeing issues that can come with a lockdown and, again, the feedback from the parents is that it has very much lifted spirits, which was exactly what we wanted to achieve.
“If I’m being put on the spot I’d have to say that Charlie Barnes is getting the nod at this very early stage with the dishes he's produced, but it’s very close between all of them.
“This Friday it’s an English dish, Fish and Chips, so it’ll be interesting to see who comes up with something a little bit different once it makes it to the plate.”
Can you step up to the cooking challenge?
We’ve had Chinese and Italian evenings so far, and this Friday night is Fish and Chip night.
Put your dish together from any of those three themes, send us the pic, and we’ll put it into our Friday night challenge gallery.
Come on, show our young chefs how it should be done!
Either tweet us your pic, leave it on Facebook or email it to media@carlisleunited.co.uk and we’ll pop it into the gallery.
