I know sometimes in this column I'm guilty of just banging on about the way I feel. Y,know the kind of thing: Knighton is an overweight, fantasy prone individual for whom I have no respect etc etc. I have a hunch I'm not alone in that opinion. I also have a hunch that it would be too easy to slip into anti-Knighton rants for months, maybe a year or two, to come. It's depressing but also a fact of life that there seems to be no end to the situation. And, like living in a rat infested house, the grim realisation that FGB is still the majority owner of the club and, in the opinion of almost anyone we might choose to trust, still in charge, makes every other issue insignificant. This grim reality is there for me everytime I watch the team.

I dunno if it was a break or not, but a mate in Oxford got me a decent seat in amongst a few neutrals and helped ensure that my car wasn't parked in Crack-cocaine central for the duration of the match. We chatted, United threw chances away, we chatted some more, a few more chances were thrown away, we chatted some more and two teams fallen on desperate times by anyone's reckoning played out a gritty match, both of them failing to deliver. The real result of the night, I've still got a car and it has still got hubcaps.

However, I'm not gonna let the worst of Carlisle's situation get me down more than I can help it. Depression is often the result of feeling powerless. Or, more accurately, letting yourself feel powerless. This side of a major jail sentence it seems we can't do anything in the short term or medium term to dislodge the Fat Greedy one. That is powerlessness. Despite transfer money we still have a team huffing up and down and connecting once in a while. Tactically we're back to the kind of scattergun, unpredictable stuff that was the hallmark of a Aiden McCaffery. But, there is hope and there are ideas that might make a few of us out here feel better. I'm still sticking to my pledge on Collins, I'll leave it till Rushden to declare my opinion for backing or sacking. But I'll stand up and be counted before then.

In the face of the Taliban regime at BP we have few options. I know some people on the message board felt the comparisons between the Afghan fundamentalist dickhead dictatorship and FGB's regime was unfair. I can understand that. Hell, if I was running Afghanistan I'd be offended being compared to FGB! But the comparisons are worth a look. Like the allies, those massed against FGB and his cohorts are a divided and uneasy community. We kid ourselves that our love of Carlisle United is enough to bind us. But it isn't that easy. CCUIST have an aim and a membership. They represent the most organised and consistent opposition to the current situation but there are those who, understandably, want instant results and more direct action.

Others point out that mass boycotts hit the team we support and those with whom we sympathise the most, other fans and players. Also true. The problem is that disorganisation in the anti-Knighton alliance plays into his hands but this disorganisation and disagreement is a fact of life.

Put this in the wider world and we have other things to consider. However hard done to we reckon we are there are other clubs and supporters out there making the same claims and getting some of the limited media attention. The media love stories and events. Things that are so obvious and self explanatory that they write half an article before the journalist in question really has to start digging. This is not an insult aimed at the media, just a fact of life. Everyone of us who writes for a living has to deal with a world in which our work competes for space and attention and succeeds when it makes an impact.

So, if CCUIST, or any part of the loose anti-FGB coalition that has been in action for a few years is going to make a major impact it won't be from the worthy and important fund raising of a golf tournament.

We have to be aware of a few things. The Oxford team that shuffled, scrapped and ran around in about the same combination of disorganisation and inspiration as us in late October did so in front of 7,500 fans. Their fan base and pride are suffering badly at the moment, my mate talked bigger crowds and better days throughout the match. That crowd was, roughly, what we managed on St Jimmy's day. We need to consider this fact. What it tells us is that other teams suffer in the same way and, looked at by the national media, some of them are bigger news than us. Bigger news because they have bigger support.

Publicity for our cause is good. National publicity is the best of all. At this level we get attention from everyone from the FA to parliament and the national press. It's all gone a little quiet on this front at the moment.

One fan in a deckchair outside the ground as a match of genuine importance played itself out to little effect inside got some national television coverage. The truth is, stunts work. They work because people wake up, understand and, in some cases, come along and help. Fans up and down the country with grudges against chairmen can chant, complain and generally cry into their beer and nothing happens. Oxford are lower than they have a right to be, a few years ago Brighton were in the same situation. Lincoln City had jitters a while ago and now, for better or worse, have fans running their club. Budgets may continue to be a problem but at least they don't think that some fat git is lying through his teeth as he struggles to line his own pocket and use the last remnants of his fast fading power base to haul his crumbling empire out of the rising shit.

If one fan can make national television it is time we all did something on a similar scale. That's why, despite all the misgivings and uncertainties that have gone with the debates about CCUIST's work to get a foothold in running the club, I'm still prepared to stand up and be counted with them. Their compromise option between outright boycott and no action seems to me to be the best possibility of making a point and not harming our team. A one match boycott followed by a mass turnout. If loads of us stick to it the financial effect on the club should be to provide the same income they would have seen over two normal games. Perhaps even a little higher. More importantly, it is more publicity for the cause, a reminder to anyone from the local MP to the national press that we've still got a problem and still got the passion to fight and it is doing something. That last point alone takes us away from a pit of total despair.

If anything can shake the present regime it is the thought that the people who supply the income are capable of organisation and mass action. Fan power is still power after all, but only when we do something with it.

Depressed me, nah! Forgive me for banging on about music again but it's worth remembering the words of John Lydon, on the message board of this very site a few weeks ago. "Anger is an energy." See you at the mass turnout.

Email Neil @ nlnxn@aol.com