United are back at Brunton Park on Saturday and they'll be looking to build on an impressive away victory at Bury last weekend.
Stevenage are our visitors, and they sit just outside the early season play-off places following what has been a solid start to their season.
Last weekend saw them battle their way to a 1-0 home victory over Grimsby Town, but they left it late with a close-range strike from Steve Seddon proving to be enough with just seven minutes of normal time left to play.
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Stevenage fans, click HERE for a handy guide to all things Brunton Park - particularly if you're a first time visitor.
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Boro fans receive letter asking for their support ...
Boro boss Dino Maamria took the unusual step of sending his players out into the local community with letters asking people to go along to the Lamex Stadium to boost the average attendance, which was just over 2,600 last season.
A total of 44,000 of the letters will be sent to selected homes during September. The letter, which was delivered by the players on Tuesday, aims to attract new supporters as Stevenage look to mount a push for promotion to League One.
A three game unbeaten run suggests that the stop-start opening month has been put behind Boro but, having said that, just the two league defeats so far is an indication that they're going to be a force to be reckoned with this time round.
The goals have been spread around the team, with Alex Revell leading the way with three goals (and three assists to go with it). As a team, three of their four league victories have been by 1-0 margins with four of their nine outings seeing clean sheets kept.
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Manager’s thoughts
Speaking ahead of the game, United boss John Sheridan said: “Stevenage come to us off the back of a three-game unbeaten run and, like ourselves, are in good form. It’ll be a tough match but, and as I’ve said a number of times, they are all difficult in this division.
"Any team can beat any team at this level, and that’s why we concentrate on ourselves as much as possible.
"We know that Stevenage have some very good players who can cause real problems, and we’ll always respect that. We’ll work on what we want our players to do to counter those threats, but we’ll also concentrate on the areas where we feel we can cause them problems as well."
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Did You Know?
+ In May 2015, 56-year-old goalkeeper Dave Beasant was named on the bench for Stevenage’s play-off semi-final against Southend, making him the oldest individual to be selected in a squad in Football League history.
+ The club dropped ‘Borough’ from their name in June 2010 after gaining promotion to the Football League.
+ Stevenage became the first team to win a competitive final at the new Wembley Stadium in 2007, beating Kidderminster Harriers 3–2 to lift the FA Trophy in front of a competition record crowd of 53,262.
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Head to Head
These teams have met on a total of 17 occasions since coming together for the first time during our season in the Conference back in 2004/05.
Borough had the better of the meetings during the season, winning 2-1 both home and away, but it was the Blues who ended up with the biggest smiles on their faces when they returned to the Football League at the first time of asking with a 1-0 win in the play-off final in Stoke. Peter Murphy scored the goal on the day when he nodded a Tom Cowan cross into the back of the net.
United currently hold the overall bragging rights with eight wins compared to five for the visitors.
| Carlisle wins | Draws | Stevenage wins | |
| League | 8 | 4 | 5 |
| Total | 8 | 4 | 5 |
Last season's home game was a tough one for the Blues as early second half goals from Ben Kennedy and Tom Pett put Borough in cruise control as they saw their way through to a comfortable three points.
Watch the highlights from that game here:
January's visit to the Lamex was a much tighter affair but it was United who created the better of the chances, with Danny Grainger and Jamie Devitt both going close from first half free kicks. Sam Cosgrove could have wrapped things up when he was played clean through but, in the end, neither side could find a way to break the deadlock.
Watch the highlights from that game here:
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Man in the middle:
Our match referee this weekend is Scott Oldham. Records show this to be the first game that Mr Oldham has refereed this season.
He was at Brunton Park on three occasions last season - the first in September 2017 when we drew 1-1 with Barnet. Shaun Miller scored our late equaliser, with just five minutes left to play, and it was a game where the notebook stayed firmly in the pocket.
We saw him again at the end of December when Coventry were the visitors to Carlisle. Danny Grainger and Jamie Devitt went in the book as Marc McNulty bagged a second half winner.
His last trip to see us was for our 2-0 victory over Grimsby. Hallam Hope and Mark Ellis scored the goals and Clint Hill was the only yellow card shown on the day.
Referee – Scott Oldham
Assistant Referee 1 – Chris Isherwood
Assistant Referee 2 – Mark Cunliffe
Fourth Official – Matthew Dicicco
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Ticket information:
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Click HERE for full home match ticket information.
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