Hello again

Look, we could talk about Mark Knighton's regular mobile phone calls to his dad, the real owners of the club and the rest but what is the point? This column will be up for a month, the whole climate might have changed by then and - in any case - the message board and the debate all over the other sites is full of it. Hell, I'm just glad that my last column with it's cautious welcome for the 'new' owners is out of the way. Speaking of which, is anyone visiting the pages dedicated to saying goodbye to the Knighton years which went up around the same time as my last column? A month is a long time at Brunton Park eh?

So let's plan for some future days of excitement, goals and top notch Blues action. Some days that will be with us soon. Days that throw up equal delights for fans from Keswick to Kobe [hello Chris!].

Within the last two months Internet watchers have reported an unexpected change in the use of the web. From the first trustable surveys to the end of last year everyone knew that the most common subject browsed and the most common word entered [heh heh heh!] in this regard was 'Sex.' Not any more. MP3 music downloads now rank on top of the heap. It is an insight to who is using the web most often. Most of us are there from time to time but younger people with more time, less fear of the more complicated tasks and a desire to own everything in their record shop without having to fork out a fortune are in there in spades.

There are already MP4 files and even more ambitious ways of coding and transferring information. These deal with pictures and sounds and someday soon most computers will be able to download movies, television shows and endless video clips. Mobile phones will be a matter of months behind with some of the same capabilities. Which set me thinking about Carlisle United. Then again, it doesn't take much to get me thinking in this direction.

At the end of January I posted a message on the board wondering about the football nightmare video tapes in the shops. You know the ones, Nick Hancock and the others with clips of own goals, people accidentally knocking themselves out and the like. For reasons I can barely fathom myself I have a sneaking desire to see again the suicidal strike from Jim Tolmie that started somewhere near the halfway line and ended up in the back of the Carlisle net. We were 2-0 up in a desperate game for us as we fought relegation. That own goal from hell gave Charlton a stake in the game, fired them up for an eventual 3-2 win and ensured they went into their last game almost certain of promotion whilst we stumbled into the old Division 3.

The truth is, working near Charlton and sharing the workplace with their fans, I've talked about that goal a lot. I remember it starting life near the halfway line and my vantage point in the paddock should mean I've got that more or less right. I did watch a video of it at the time but I'm not sure where that came from. Probably local television in the South East once I'd gone back South after the match.

Whatever, I opened up some more reliving of that nightmare and nobody posted a message to suggest that goal made it to a retail video. Maybe I'm kidding myself that the moment was that spectacular. If the goal exists on video now it will probably be some treasured but ageing tapes in private hands, mostly in homes within a few miles of The Valley. Most local television stations - like Border - and local radio stations keep limited archives. Radio Cumbria have goals, a few interviews and virtually nothing else. Border Television have something similar. Their goals go back to the sixties and include the scrappy and telling strike from Frank Large that set United up for their first ever championship win, some key First Division action from that legendary season and more key moments recently.

Within a few short years we'll be trading clips of these moments on the Internet and our faulty memories will be a thing of the past. It will - probably - be a mixed blessing.

There will be legendary players who look a little ordinary. David Reeves for one. Lots of graft, lots of timely tackles and generally willing to roll up his sleeves and contribute in defence when he had to. But sometimes I find myself talking about his surging runs and spectacular strikes. Maybe the video downloads will show these. More often they'll show scrambled goals and desperate Second Division struggles with Reevesie struggling to make that final telling contact.

Reevesie has figured in another strand of debate on the message board recently. The revival of the all-time Internet favourite, All Time Greatest XI. The predomination of players of the nineties in these line ups suggests that the younger end of the fan-base are the most active in these discussions. Hell, there was open discussion at the end of January about whether Rod Thomas really was shite!

Personally, I don't think so. Okay, this column - like all the others - will probably feature a picture of me and Rodders but we were hardly best mates. I'm keeping the picture up there mainly because I want to see how long it will be before Al Woodcock runs out of smartarse one liners to stick next to it (Oi, watch it - Al). Rod was effective in the promotion team, scored some tidy and telling goals and cut through Third Division defences, some of the well organised, some of them there for the taking. He had his great moments. He had some bad ones too. Wembley 1995 ranking in the latter category. I don't think I was alone in reckoning he was playing in the hope of impressing some watching manager with a big chequebook. Shame the ball didn't leave his feet a little sooner sometimes. At his worst, over-flashy, greedy sometimes and prone to losing heart if he couldn't crack it right away but shite? Never. Hell, if you think Rodders was shite you never saw Billy 'Bunter' Wright, the abomination claiming to be a striker and answering to the name of MacDonald or the last desperate months of the once reasonable Mike Graham. Not to mention........oh hell, it's too depressing, there are so many worse that Rod, we won't go there again.........Kevin Carr!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But - within a short time - going there will be simplicity itself. Those message board favourites will come complete with downloads and every single one of us can build up a video collection. Hell, I'd welcome this. I've lost count of the times I've regretted throwing away old programmes and the like. My main reason being the need to get rid of clutter. Computer hard drives, floppy discs and CDs on the other hand take up very little space.

Maybe time has played a few tricks on my mind but I've got a genuine and personal reason for looking forward to the mass download days. I don't think there is a hope in hell that any definitive Carlisle XI could ever consider a goalie other than Alan Ross and yet I didn't notice his mass appearance in the recent message board all time top team frenzy. My all time hero, one of the few top level United players who gave his very best games and almost all his career to Carlisle. Loyal, supremely talented, a genuine character and a crowd pleaser in several senses. First off because there were saves of supreme skills and a handful that made a crucial difference, one against Sunderland in 1974 without which - in all probability - we would never have made the First Division, others in key cup games that contributed to the beating and dumping of top grade opposition like Chelsea.

If the few of us old timers who spend huge amounts of time on the web are ever gonna convince future generations that the old days truly were some of the best we'll finally have our chance with the mass advent of digital downloading. If you've got Mike Barry's thunderbolt strike against Chelsea from the mid seventies your time has come. For my money that still ranks as the best goal I've ever seen from the boot of a Blue. Then again, if you've got a video of any of his blatant and often desperate attempts to repeat the same magic, spare us the torture. Hell, the possession and opportunities wasted on those still haunt me today.

So it's time to rifle the video collection and plan for the future, it'll be here sooner than we think. We'll have a great team available on demand in cyberspace. The only question that needs answering the in the meantime is whether the team on the pitch on the same time will have turned it round to perform as well.

Email Neil @ neil@hockers139.freeserve.co.uk