Chairman, Tom Piatak, delivered a message at the beginning of Tuesday’s Fans’ Forum.
“Thank you for being here tonight and taking time. The passion and support is fantastic.
“Where we're at right now is completely unacceptable.
“Frustrated, speaking personally from the family, from the ownership, frustrated, angry, disappointed. If you had asked at the beginning of the season, would I expect to be sitting here on January 7th with us 24th in the table? Absolutely not. Not with the squad we have, not with the staff we have.
“I’m very, very disappointed. And much like you, angry and it hurts. I mean, it absolutely hurts. We feel the pain.
“There’s a couple of things I wanted to hit as we start here…
“I want everybody to understand, we hear the voices of the fans. We hear the voices of the supporters. And we feel it. We are very, very competitive. We hate losing.
"And this hurts and weighs on our shoulders. I want everybody to truly understand that.
“I woke up last night at 3am, and what I was thinking about was, this can't happen.
"We can't let this happen. It's not going to happen. We're going to fight.
"We're going to get out of it. It's our personality. Normally, I sleep soundly through the night.
“Normally, I wake up at 6am, but at 3am , I'm sitting here thinking about that. So I know it weighs on you. I know the fears.
“I know the frustrations. I know the anxiety that you must be feeling. And I want to ensure that you know that the entire ownership team feels that same thing, that same anxiety.
“When we took over this club, one of the reasons we took over was a passionate fan base. And that fan base has just been unbelievable.
“You've shown it. With where we were last year in the League One table and then what's transpired in this first half, it's just unbelievable. We're down at Tranmere, 1,200 away fans.
“Every time we go to a match, we look and see that away fan base and say, wow. So your support is absolutely amazing. And we want nothing more than to provide you with a winning squad, a winning team.
“That's our sole focus, to provide that winning team. And we're not doing it right now. And so I would just submit to you as a leader, it hurts.
“It absolutely hurts us. And I want you to know we're doing everything we can to fix that.
“I can sit there and say how we feel and how I think you feel. But at the end of the day, it comes to actions. And we have to make things happen.
“I'm looking at where we're sitting right now in this lounge and saying, wow, this is a wonderful facility that wasn't here a year ago. But this really means nothing if we're not on the pitch. We have to win out there.
“We have to be competitive. That's what it's all about. And we're not doing that right now.
“Myself, the owners and the management team, we own it, we accept it, we are not good enough.
“I can assure you, moving forward and, you know, up to this point, we've been doing everything we can to try to provide a winning club here in Cumbria, for Carlisle, for the community.
“I mean, it's our goal. It's something that we are absolutely consumed with. And it is a focus.
“And it won't waver. We will continue to do that. So I can assure you right now, moving forward, every resource in the club has one focus in mind, whatever it takes to get points to move up the table.
“If you're not doing something in the club right now that can somehow increase our chances of getting points to move up the table, then stop what you're doing and refocus.
“And we're trying to focus everything on that effort. So we are 110% committed to this fight. And it's a fight. I've been in fights before. This is a true fight.
“I understand the position we're in. And we're going to battle, get out of it. You're going to get everything you can from the ownership team.
“And I truly mean that. You're going to get everything you can from the ownership team to get us out of this. We're committed to that.
“Everybody up here understands that, knows that, everybody on the staff, everybody on the management team knows that we will do whatever we have to do to win this fight. That is our message. That is our goal.
“And we're committed to that. It'll be a 24-7 operation, basically. But with that, I do want to address the key question that everybody's been asking…
“Mike [Williamson] wouldn't be sitting here beside me if I didn't think he was the right person to move this forward.
“Mike is the right person in the board's mind, the ownership's mind. Mike is the right person to get us out of this fight. He knows the position we're in.
“Changing the Head Coach right now will not improve our chances of winning this fight and getting us out of it. So he has our full commitment to lead this and get us through this.
“Now, it's not all on Mike. It's all on us up here. And the ownership and the staff, we have to provide everything necessary to win that fight.
“And that's what we're doing. It’s January 7th, and we have five new signings already.
“We are working constantly around the clock. I will say, Rob Clarkson has done a phenomenal job working with Mike and the ownership and Nigel to put this together.
“We meet in the mornings. We meet at night. We're going through it. He is assisting this club in ways that this club needs.
“And we've got the right resources doing that. So we're putting everything forward. And I would say you'll get that from all of us.
“We need everybody. We need all the supporters. We need everybody to help us.
“And it's not going to be easy. We all know that. But we can get out of this, and we will do whatever is necessary to get us out of that.
“I want this to be an open and frank forum. I've always said we're very transparent, very open, and we'll continue to be there.
“We're not hiding from this. We own this situation. We know the situation we're in.
"I've been in situations like this in other businesses. I know the fight that's needed to get us out of it. I'm committed to it.
“The family's committed to it. The ownership's committed to it. We will do what's necessary.
“We'll answer any questions and have an open, honest conversation because I understand there's a great deal of frustration. But just know that we're in this for the long haul. We're making the investments in Cumbria and Carlisle for the long haul.
“This club is going to move up the table and move up the pyramid. And we will be here.
“We'll throw everything that we possibly can at this fight to keep the club up.”
