Carlisle United Manager Can’t Count
There is certainly plenty of interest from the North in tonight’s play-off encounter between Carlisle United and Leeds United, but not much material to work with. The YEP, The York Evening Press, The Northern Echo and the Halifax Courier have all published, this morning, the same long quotes from Carlisle United’s manager John Ward.
It serves no purposes to reprint it all here when all he is really saying is it would be madness to try and defend at Elland Road for 90 minutes and that his players will go forward and look for a goal tonight.
It’s a sensible view and a laudable approach to an away leg of what is, essentially, a cup-tie and it promises a treat for the fans at Elland Road and those watching on Sky.
But there was one quote from the upbeat, bullish interview with John that caught my eye and made me do a little research. In the slightly longer, York Evening Press version of the interview Ward addresses the prospect of his players playing in front of a full Elland Road, with just 2,000 Cumbrians in a capacity crowd of over 38,000:
“We’ve very much got the picture of Elland Road, so everything will be reasonably familiar to us. It was practically full when we went there last month and scored two goals against them, so we know we’re capable of doing that.”
For the record and the enlightenment of John Ward and his Carlisle players, Elland Road was NOT “practically full” in April for the last visit of Carlisle United, in fact, it wasn’t even three-quarters full. With the Upper East Stand now open and full - the largest single cantilever stand in Europe when built ten years ago - Ward and his merry men face and extra 10,000 Leeds fans, compared to the fixture to which he refers. Put another way, he faces a greater number of “extra” Leeds United fans tonight than the whole crowd that attended the Carlisle United v Southend decider the week following the Leeds Utd v Carlisle Utd clash in April!
Of course, crowds and their level of support don’t win matches, otherwise Leeds United would still be in the Premier League and Europe, but it would be foolish to assume that because your players have played in front of 28,530 fans in a league game the atmosphere will not be quite different when 38000+ fans are screaming Leeds on in a semi-final. There will be no “prawn sandwich brigade” in the Leeds ranks tonight.
After playing FOR Leeds against Gillingham in front of 38,000 fans last week Andy Hughes said,
“It takes your breath away when it is like that. I was honoured to be on the pitch in front of those fans, but that is Leeds United football club. There’s no experience like that.”
Now imagine what it will feel like to be playing for Carlisle in front of a crowd five times the size of your average home gate! John Ward may want to have another quick word with his boys before they step out at Elland Road tonight.
Still I applaud his approach to the match and I’m looking forward to some goals tonight - mainly from Leeds - but the record shows that both sides are likely to score in both ties!
My only hope is that the referee appreciates this is a cup tie and keeps his cards in his pocket. Leeds United fans will remember that we got two red cards in our brilliant, 2-0 away victory at Deepdale in May 2006 and lost Crainey and Cresswell for the 2005-06 play-off debacle at Cardiff. Let’s hope Macca has a word with the likes of Beckford and Kandol to keep their mouths firmly shut tonight.
Once described as the “worst referee in the Premiership” by an unnamed Premership manager (per Paul Jewell), Dowd, nonetheless, spends most of his time refereeing top flight matches. You will have seen him on TV this season; he reffed the Liverpool 5 v 2 Havant match in the FA Cup, the Chelsea 4 v 4 Aston Villa game and Everton’s memorable 7 v 1 Sunderland win.
