Panic on the streets of Carlisle

Carlisle United 0 Leeds United 2

It was a hard fought win for Leeds today, but we came out on top with goals from Becchio and Beckford.

 

The police pronounced themselves satisfied with their ‘major operation’ today, as there was no repeat of last year’s trouble and only one arrest. They certainly had enough men on duty, and I was stopped outside the station and told I would be searched under a section 60. After making to give my name and address to a copper with a camera, they let me through without searching me at all! If I’d known that was going to happen I’d have hidden some nuclear weapons down my trousers.

 

Still, it was a nice day for standing on an open terrace, and I didn’t think they had sunshine that far north. Macca selected Aidan White to fill the vacancy at left-back, with Ben Parker not even making the squad, with the starting line-up otherwise unchanged. And young White did very well, even though I feared couple of times he was going to get muscled out of it by the large chap playing down the right for Carlisle.

 

Leeds had a fair amount of possession right from the start, but again suffered from a lack of width, as we passed it around well enough, but failed to penetrate a stubborn Carlisle midfield. And we had to survive a scare early on when Rui gave the ball away with a poor pass, and then let Hackney skip past him down their left, but luckily Hackney’s cross/shot clipped the bar before going out of play. Hackney continued to look lively for the rest of the half and at times he left Richardson looking a bit flat-footed.

 

Up to the half hour mark the game had seen few outstanding chances, but then Leeds took the lead from a Kilkenny corner. It seemed to have gone right past the players in the six yard box, but Telfer stretched to knock it back across goal, where Becchio reacted first to smash the ball into the roof of the net. We preserved the lead until half-time despite a long-range effort from Bridge-Wilkinson, but I thought Carlisle upped the tempo a bit after the interval.

 

A couple of times Carlisle were able to deliver decent crosses from the left to players unmarked in the centre, and we can be thankful that Dobie and Carlton weren’t able to head the ball on target when given the time and space to do better. As the hosts tried to chase the game Bridges came on for the last half hour, to a chorus of boos from the Leeds end, but he wasn’t allowed to have much of an impact on the game.

 

At the other end it was frustrating to see Beckford playing wide down the left, which seemed a waste, even though he didn’t do badly in that position. On one occasion he delivered a beautiful cross which Delph climbed to reach, but could only head over the bar. A taller man in the centre could have jumped high enough to guide the ball downwards and on target. It wasn’t until Snodgrass came on for the final 15 that he was able to play down the middle.

 

It was starting to get a bit tense as the hosts put us under pressure, with a shot from Hackney deflected just wide, especially as we hadn’t yet kept a clean sheet in the league. But then Leeds broke away to seal the game with the second goal in the 82^nd. minute. The goal showed the value of having players in their proper positions, as Snodgrass raced down the left and sent a perfectly weighted ball for the onrushing Beckford, who was on hand to knock the ball in at the far post.

 

Three minutes of injury time were announced, but with hundreds of Carlisle fans already streaming out of the ground we survived the extra period with no further alarms. An excellent result from a game we never managed to dominate, but won through our greater incisiveness in front of goal. We now stand in third place, which isn’t bad when we’ve already had to play three of the top six.

 

It was twenty minutes before we got out of the ground, with the police telling us that we had to wait for Carlisle’s ‘firm’ to be moved away from the exit. And we had the pleasure of being marched around the main square to reach the station, while the whole city centre was brought to a standstill and hundreds of Carlisle chavs gathered outside the Griffin pub to shout abuse at us. We’re most definitely not famous any more!

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