Tonight sees the return of 2,000 fans to Brunton Park as United host Salford, kick off 7pm, and manager Chris Beech spoke this week about how good it will be to see the stands and terraces splashed with blue once again.
“It’s superb and something I’m looking forward to,” he said. “It’s always good to play at Brunton Park and even better because we can share it with a couple of thousand Carlisle fans.
“Having fans there on Sunday would have put that referee under a bit of pressure and I need some support with that. I’ve got a bad throat with moaning at the fourth official, I’ll be getting a reputation.
“I know the officials don’t do it on purpose, but the fans can do the moaning for me when they get back.
“There’s been a lot of debuts over the last 12 months, since the restart of our campaign, a lot of goals and great things and patterns and the fans haven’t been able to see it.
“Again, against Doncaster, it would have been a great occasion to have them. They might have sucked the ball into the net in the last 10 minutes. We’re all really looking forward to seeing them here.”
On the test Salford will pose, he commented: “The game itself, I know people try and build something up to something it is or isn’t, at the end of the day it’s an opponent we can try and gain three points off.
“We’ve played 14 games, so there’s 32 of those opponents, irrelevant of where they are currently in the league, including ourselves. Teams like Bolton, Oldham, are winning games.
“Tranmere are on a constant run. These teams are on great runs so we have to make sure we stick to our traits and beliefs and give the best we can.
“It’ll be a big test, a really big one. They’ve got great players and it’s a game to look forward to. I’m very proud of the players, how they represent their club, and with a little bit of dusting down we’ll get ready to represent them again tonight and we’ll try our best to get our three points.”