Chairman Tom Piatak gave us an update on the progress made on the proposed new training ground when we spoke to him on Tuesday morning.
“The training ground is progressing but I wish it was progressing faster,” he admitted. “I’m not going to shy away from that. We’re pushing, and we believe the training facility can be a beacon of light for the community.
“If people see the vision of what we’re looking at building which is a dome so we can train whatever the weather, a floodlit 4G pitch, two pitches for the first team and then some 60x40 pitches as well. It’s going to be a phenomenal facility and we think it will make a significant impact on the community.
“That was one of the big reasons I didn’t want to move this training facility outside of Carlisle, I didn’t want us to be 20 miles away from Carlisle where nobody could come and see it. It should be a shared use space and we’re excited about making that happen.
“When you look at it and think about building Carlisle for the future, if we can increase our crowds from around 7,500 and bring that up to 12,000 or 13,000, think about the economic impact that could bring to the city in terms of hotels, restaurants and everything.
“It can put Carlisle on the map, it’s already on the map and it’s a beautiful city, but it can make it bigger and better for the overall community. We’re excited about that, I’m not going to lie, I wish it was going faster, but that’s just our nature. It is progressing, but anything we can do to make that go a little bit quicker would be greatly appreciated.”
“I think fans know where the site is,” he told us. “I’m not going to say it, but every fan I talk to asks me if it’s going to be in a certain place, and I just say no comment. I can’t confirm or deny, but I think the majority know where it is, and I think it’s the right spot. We wanted it to be in the city, I’m not going to say it will be a tourist attraction but it’s another thing people can walk to in the city and see what it’s like.
“I think where we’re at in terms of anything being ready is hopefully having a pitch that the first team can use for pre-season. We want to try and secure the land area so we can have a grass pitch ready for the start of pre-season.
“I don’t want the distraction next season. The first team have been great, but it is a distraction when you have to pack everything up and go to Gretna. It doesn’t work. The pitch at the back of the stadium is here but it isn’t ideal for training, the staff have done a fantastic job with it, but to have a first-class pitch like the Brunton Park pitch available for training needs to happen. It needs to be available this summer, and we’re doing everything we can to push that. We need everybody to come together and make that a reality.”
With members of the Piatak family in Cumbria until early May, we asked what other plans they have during their stay: “We’re going to enjoy the last two matches of the season, and we’re also going to go to the Cumberland Cup final which we’re looking forward to.
“We have a lot to do here at the club in terms of helping to push things along. We have a great staff, but we have so much going on and it is stretching everybody. We are adding resources to the administration side which is necessary if we want to grow the club as we want to. We’re focused on adding resources, and anything Patty and I can do to help the club move along, we will do that.
“We’re also going to try and have a Fans’ Forum before we leave at the start of May, I don’t know if we can make that happen yet, but if we can we would like to do that while there are four of us present.
“We know we will probably answer some tough questions after a tough season, but I think we’re moving in the right direction and we want to engage with fans. We want to talk to them about the difficult time we’ve had, but also talk about where we’re headed.
“We have received a lot of input from a lot of fans which we have taken to note and added to the leadership group meetings. Hopefully we can get that in before we leave, but other than that we’re just going to enjoy Carlisle and enjoy our time here.”
