Our new head of physiotherapy Chris Brunskill will be with the first-team for the first time for the Bradford City home game on Boxing Day, and United boss Paul Simpson spoke more about the appointment at his Friday afternoon press conference.
“I think it’s a good one for us, particularly with the fact that he already knows the club,” he said. “I’ve got to be honest, I was absolutely gutted when Ross [Goodwin] told me he wanted to go because of the deal he’s been offered up in Scotland.
“I tried to keep him, but we couldn’t afford to, it was as simple as that. I think after we posted the job advert, within 30 minutes we had a call from Chris to say he was interested.
“There were a couple of other people who I wanted to interview, I couldn’t get in touch with one of them so I’m not sure what happened there, but Chris made it really clear that he wanted to come back.
“He said he only left the club because he thought Ross would be here for 15 years. He knows Carlisle and he knows the club, he’s got some experience of working with the first team at Blackburn, and I’m delighted he’s agreed to join us. I’m looking forward to getting started with him.”
“He was the strongest candidate that applied,” he continued. “We had some other good applicants, but Chris was the stand-out one, so I’m delighted he’s agreed.
“He knows Carlisle, because he’s been here before, he knows the football club, knows the expectations, he now has a bit more experience working at first team level at Blackburn in the Championship, so I think he’ll be a good addition to the group.
“He has all of the qualifications and everything required to do the physio role, and it’s not simple to get that. Recently we were trying to get an academy physio in, but we couldn’t get people who had the qualifications to do it.
“We had four really strong applicants who applied for the job, and there was probably one other who had a strong CV but, when it came to it, we couldn’t get any reply from her, so no idea what happened there.
“From what I’m told he’s really grown and developed as a person in the time he left, so he ticks all the boxes.”
On hitting the ground running, he commented: “He’s already been in for a couple of days to get a bit of a handover from Ross, so he knows what he’s coming into.
“I’m sure he’ll have his own ideas of how he wants the medical department to run. I spoke to him last week briefly about changes he wants to make, there’s only little bits of tinkering he wants to do.
“He’s looking forward to getting started, and now the decision’s been confirmed, and Ross is definitely going, it’s full steam ahead. He’ll certainly be busy but hopefully it will get easier as the months go by.”
As already alluded to, a big plus with the appointment are his local links, with settling in for him and his family not something to be concerned about.
“It is a big thing,” the boss said. “We’ve talked about the location of us regarding players, you need to have someone who’s prepared to move to the area.
“In a physio role, the hours they put in, they need to understand first what the job entails and how many hours they do have to work.
“I didn’t want someone who’d be doing a long commute each day, it’s not good for their working day, but also not good for their family lives, and probably leads to them being here for a short time.
“I wanted someone who wanted to come back and live in Carlisle, wanted to work at the football club, and Chris certainly fits that bill.”