Carlisle United 3 Brighton and Hove Albion 1

It must be nearly 10 years since I last went down with my Dad to see Carlisle play at Brunton Park. I have to admit I’m a bit of a glory supporter, yes one of those annoying people who only go to watch their team when they’re doing well. At one point in recent years Carlisle even dropped out of the league altogether, now in just two seasons they’ve made it up into League One (which was called Division Two when I was younger and Division Three back in my Dad’s day. Why do they keep changing the names?).

I’d asked my Dad if he’d take me along next time he went to a match. The last sporting events that I attended being the sumo and the High School baseball both being, to me at least, very Japanese events. I wanted to go along to the football for the cultural experience, to stand and take note of what everyone around me did and to see if I’d actually enjoy it.

It wasn’t quite a normal match however for us. My Dad is a Brighton supporter, it’s his home team but he said he didn’t mind going in the Carlisle supporters end. I was pleased - the fear of being spotted in the away supporters stand by someone would have been too much for me! I felt bad after a while though because I couldn’t really care less which team I supported that afternoon and my poor father had to stand surrounded by Carlisle fans and had me sternly reminding him that if he cheered for Brighton at all we would actually be battered!

We had tickets for the Warwick Road Stand so we entered the turnstile and I visited the toilet enclosed in a wooden shed with no electric light before finding somewhere to stand. As a lower division club we don’t have an all seated stadium - in fact there’s only one stand with seats. I flicked through the programme, one of my best friends has a regular spot ‘Tea with Tino’ I have to admit I don’t really understand much of what he writes about but it’s amusing never the less.

I was completely intrigued by all the action in the stand, all the different types of people supporting their local team, almost so captivated that I missed half the action. At this point I’ll inform you that Europe’s most notorious football hooligan is from Carlisle, he’s a Carlisle supporter all be it that he’s banned from any football match in the world. So there’s a real mix of people, from those swearing at every second move to young families, to couples in their matching strips to groups of elderly men. I’d say 75% of those there have probably been drinking ale for several hours before as the air is literally filled with the stale smell of beer and of course cigarette smoke, as you can still smoke in stands at Carlisle.

Before the match and during half time, a group of young girls came onto the pitch and danced around a bit, which I found amusing for several reasons. 1) The girls were probably between 7 and 12 years old and their name was ‘Nixon’s Vixens’. Highly inappropriate but justified by the fact the club sponsor is a fox. 2) I’m used to the intensely practiced and co-ordinated dance routines the kids put on in Japan, in comparison these girls were terrible, I’ve seen more co-ordination in guys who have had a skinfull on a Friday night in town. 3) There’s a new pitch been put down at Carlisle and half way through these sprinklers come up and water the pitch. Whilst Nixon’s Vixens are clumsily jumping around the sprinklers came on, all credit to them they carried on dancing and of course got drenched. It was hilarious - definitely the highlight of the match.

I won’t bother critiquing the match or the individual football skills as I wouldn’t really have a clue what I was talking about but Carlisle won and suffice to say from what I could tell they really deserved it. So will I go again? Most definitely. It was fun and exciting and despite the fact the people stood in the stand were all so completely different, it didn’t matter because they all supported Carlisle United (well, apart from my Dad). I haven’t seen such unity in a very long time and the atmosphere was electric but then again Carlisle did win.

Apologies for this post - because I pasted it in from word it's all underlined. It always does this and I know how to remedy it but it's not complying today. Plus I had more photos but they all kept uploading in different sizes, so I've just left it with this one of Nixon's Vixens getting soaked by the sprinklers.