Hi

[shoddycollins]

How've you all been, this is just a polite prelude to what Carver will post here once he gives his court appointed guardian the slip

 

[The Terminator]

Only 6 of the last 28 seasons we've NOT ended up in the same league together. Next season will hopefully be my 14th visit to Brunton Park FFS.

WABLO

 

[shoddycollins]

We're in the same division as stevenage yet again, having been relegated alongside them originally.

Also our last promotion, two of the teams promoted alongside us were Orient and Northampton.

 

[denzel ecfc]

And we meet again. Look forward to playing you on a Tuesday night in November

 

[HutchECFC]

Welcome back, lads.

 

[Bobbin']

Glad you’re here, we seem to only get promoted at either Carlisle or Wembley so our chances have doubled now.

 

[valefan16]

Welcome Carlisle and enjoy the trophy like we have!

Happy to see you win and especially for Ryan Edmondson who was a great loanee for us and didn’t get on a year ago today… was nervous for him with his penalty after his miss in the semi last year!

Somehow you seem to have got the best out of Holy as well! Not the best for us last year but played a part nonetheless.

 

[Pompeyblueboy]

Welcome Carlisle and enjoy the trophy like we have!

Happy to see you win and especially for Ryan Edmondson who was a great loanee for us and didn’t get on a year ago today… was nervous for him with his penalty after his miss in the semi last year!

Somehow you seem to have got the best out of Holy as well! Not the best for us last year but played a part nonetheless.

Welcome Carlisle and well done. Not that I fancy the long trip to Brunton Park

 

[Andy Proctor]

I'm glad carlise have come up. One reason is they have 3 ex vale players Callum guy, Thomas holy and Ryan Edmundson. Another reason is I didn't want Stockport to come up as they only allocate 1300 to away fans so loads of fans would have been moaning about not getting a ticket. Anybody who wants to go carlise will get a ticket just be nice for it not to be on a Tuesday night or or the Saturday before Christmas.

 

[kieran_vale]

Well done to Carlisle. One hell of a job Simpson has done there. Huge fan of Brunton Park as a stadium as well with all the terracing. How it should be.

 

[codaplenty]

Welcome mate and enjoy the rollercoaster. Always good to see a Northern team in this division

 

[Luke Imp]

Welcome Carlisle!

Thought Moxon(?) looked a decent player in CM today.

 

[E10rifle]

Welcome Carlisle!

Thought Moxon(?) looked a decent player in CM today.

Moxon was the best contracted midfielder in League Two by a country mile this season. Excellent player.

Welcome up, Shoddy. Pity about the two clowns you’re bringing with you.

 

[Carver]

Moxon was the best contracted midfielder in League Two by a country mile this season. Excellent player.

Welcome up, Shoddy. Pity about the two clowns you’re bringing with you.

Thank you for welcoming us up, but if you are referring to me as a clown then I really don't know what I've ever said on here to deserve to be called that.

There is a clown of ours on here yes and he's a massive one, but it's certainly not me.

 

[Moonie]

Evening chaps, first post in this forum for me - looking forward to boring you all with a load of negative nonsense over the coming 12 months or more...

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Moxon will be big call for Simpson now, do you keep your best player for higher division or cash in to give you a budget for team strengthening

 

[Muzzle]

Welcome mate, personally glad you guys won, didn't realise that Stockport had any supporters in the stadium

 

[BarrieOwl]

Moxon will be big call for Simpson now, do you keep your best player for higher division or cash in to give you a budget for team strengthening

Thought you'd gone all non league on us?

 

[hellogregory]

Moxon will be big call for Simpson now, do you keep your best player for higher division or cash in to give you a budget for team strengthening

You persuade him to sign a new extended contract, give us a year in League 1, see his value likely increase with another year of league football under his belt, and then sell next summer.

 

[Carver]

Hopefully we will go the way of the likes of Wycombe and Lincoln have done recently in this league and not go the way of Forest Green and Northampton.

I think the high of promotion and the likelihood of our manager staying should comfortably keep us in this league, but to go further than that is going to require investment as there are some big clubs in this division.

 

[hellogregory]

Morning guys.

As I said in the league 2 playoff thread, it’s just starting to sink in. Totally unexpected, a year ago we’d just managed to stay in the football league and now this.

I’m not worried at all about stepping up to this level. It’s going to be hard but I’m just going to enjoy it. If we come straight back down like many others have so be it, not the end of the world. But we have as good a chance of staying here with Simpson in charge than we’d have with anyone and as mentioned above hopefully momentum will help us. We’ll have to strengthen significantly for sure, and keep hold of certain players. But it’s all positive, unexpected and an interesting few months ahead seeing what we do.

I can’t wait.

 

[Carver]

Morning guys.

As I said in the league 2 playoff thread, it’s just starting to sink in. Totally unexpected, a year ago we’d just managed to stay in the football league and now this.

I’m not worried at all about stepping up to this level. It’s going to be hard but I’m just going to enjoy it. If we come straight back down like many others have so be it, not the end of the world. But we have as good a chance of staying here with Simpson in charge than we’d have with anyone and as mentioned above hopefully momentum will help us. We’ll have to strengthen significantly for sure, and keep hold of certain players. But it’s all positive, unexpected and an interesting few months ahead seeing what we do.

I can’t wait.

Not bad is it, for a part time club who in your mind are all but relegated to the non-league every August.

 

[BarrieOwl]

As much as I like my trips to Brunton, been 4 times with Wednesday, I hope you have a great season next year but not by playing us.

 

[hellogregory]

Not bad is it, for a part time club who in your mind are all but relegated to the non-league every August.

Well we won’t be relegated to non league this august will we

All positive now. I am here to enjoy the ride in League 1 however it goes.

 

[Carver]

So what can we expect from L1?

Is there a much larger gap from L2 in terms of quality and physicality?

 

[Soz]

So what can we expect from L1?

Is there a much larger gap from L2 in terms of quality and physicality?

You'll need at least 15 players on 30 grand a week to break into the top 20 in league one and if you predict that you'll pick up any more than a couple of world famous draws this season as a playoff winning team then we will all pretend that you think you'll walk the league.

On the other hand, the finishing is the main difference between the leagues and we saw a lot more great goals scores past us. Its tougher but no reason you can't stay up as a promotes team. The playoffs deffo cost us last year in terms of being a month behind on recruitment plans and we started the season with no strikers and about 15 senior players.

Most of all, you'll get some great new away days and no reason why you can't go and compete with the Derby's of this world over 90 mins.

Congrats and enjoy! I still watch our playoff highlights every few months.

 

[Gassy]

Huge congrats to Carlisle. Incredible job really, I remember in our promotion season losing to them at thinking out promotion was over.

They looked very good that day in their turnaround in form and it was clear they’d challenge this season. To stop us at that time in the season was mighty impressive as we were a machine at the time.

Welcome to L1 boys and girls. It’ll be interesting to see how the new teams do this year. My gut feeling, without anything to back it up, tells me that apart from potentially Orient the teams aren’t as strong as the promoted teams from last season? (Expect FGR, sorry).

 

[thewwfc]

It's entirely doable for an L2 team to stay up provided they:

a) keep the spine of the side that won them promotion (i.e. their squad wasn't heavily dependent on loanees who all buggered off, or they don't lose their best players)

b) strengthen a little in a few key areas


Looks like Wigan are doing their best to get relegated before a ball is even kicked, and there has to be question marks around Fleetwood with the Pilley situation, as much as people are saying, "oh no, it's nothing to do with the football club". So some of the drop spots may already be reserved this season.

If you play grindy 10-men-behind-the-ball stuff, then that alone should be enough to keep you up as a lot of teams in this league (and I include us there) can't cope with it, at least not in terms of forcing a win.

The last time we were in L2 it was very much an "anyone can beat anyone" league with all the comedy inconsistency that that implies, I feel like L1 is more polarised in that the very top sides are genuinely decent and the bad ones are genuinely shite.

But that said, I think it will be less polarised next season as the sides that came down are probably worse than the ones that we lost - we'll see, obviously everyone needs to do their transfer business first.

 

[Gassy]

It's entirely doable for an L2 team to stay up provided they:

a) keep the spine of the side that won them promotion (i.e. their squad wasn't heavily dependent on loanees who all buggered off, or they don't lose their best players)

b) strengthen a little in a few key areas


Looks like Wigan are doing their best to get relegated before a ball is even kicked, and there has to be question marks around Fleetwood with the Pilley situation, as much as people are saying, "oh no, it's nothing to do with the football club". So some of the drop spots may already be reserved this season.

If you play grindy 10-men-behind-the-ball stuff, then that alone should be enough to keep you up as a lot of teams in this league (and I include us there) can't cope with it, at least not in terms of forcing a win.

The last time we were in L2 it was very much an "anyone can beat anyone" league with all the comedy inconsistency that that implies, I feel like L1 is more polarised in that the very top sides are genuinely decent and the bad ones are genuinely shite.

But that said, I think it will be less polarised next season as the sides that came down are probably worse than the ones that we lost - we'll see, obviously everyone needs to do their transfer business first.

I think that’s a fair summary. I have to say I preferred football in L2. It used to be that L2 was all about 442 and lumping it long, certainly not the case when we were there.

The problem with L1 is the game management for me. Yes we’re a sucker and fall for it every time, but the diving, wasting time, hassling the ref is unreal. There was so little of that in L2, it was actually about who’s better at football.

No surprise then that most of the teams who went down last season have struggled in L2..

 

[kieran_vale]

So long as Carlisle don't get raided for a load of their best players they should be more than competitive I feel. Just seeing them in the playoffs they resembled the Vale side of the previous season in that they weren't flashy but worked better as a unit than the others in the playoffs. The standard of football in L1 is certainly better, multiple times we'd get punished for the sort of mistakes you'd more often than not get away with in L2. It's not insurmountable though. Brunton Park is always a difficult place to win at so Carlisle should have that in their favour I feel.

The league this season has been a bit skewed by the fact that three teams were just so far ahead of everyone else it was ridiculous. Derby, Barnsley and probably Bolton will be the favourites you'd expect but I think there will be a far smaller gap between top and bottom next time round. At least I don't think there'll be three teams hovering at the 100 point mark, conversely I don't see any FGR's at the other end (no disrespect to them).