Donnelly's Away Days Part One - Chesterfield

In the first of a new series for this season 14 year old, Yorkshire based Blues fan Mark Donnelly brings us his views of his visit to the Crooked Spire town.

I was accompanied to the game by two friends (neither of them Carlisle fans) in the promise they would see some ‘proper football’. We joined over 500 other Cumbrians at Chesterfield’s b2net Stadium, in the hope that Carlisle could string together two successive wins.

The midweek win over Tranmere had given fans renewed hope in the build up to the game, and Greg used the ‘If it ‘aint broke, don’t fix it’ mentality, sticking with the same XI that started at Prenton Park, meaning Liam Noble was again preferred to Tom Taiwo.

Leon Clarke had been in the centre of much controversy in the weeks leading up to the game (picking a fight with Paolo Di Canio is NEVER a good idea), but entered the game in a rich vein of form, and this continued after 3 minutes of the match. Mendy’s cross was too deep, but Westcarr knocked the ball back across the face of the goal, giving Clarke the simplest of tap-ins.

United continued to press, and after a string of corners, they finally got their reward on 20 minutes. A Berrett corner was headed upwards by Murphy. Miller challenged Fleming for the ball, and at the second attempt he volleyed in to equalise for United.

The lead was short lived however, as only 6 minutes later; Clarke doubled his and his sides tally for the afternoon. Former Carlisle target Danny Whittaker, subject of many ‘Where’s your eye patch!’ calls (mostly from Mr McGee (lies! - Ed.)) crossed, and Clarke met the ball with a glancing header. The ball crept past Collin, who looked as if he could have done more to save it. Lee Miller was then forced to come off through injury, with Craig Curran coming on. Surely The Ginger Kuyt was just as prolific as Miller?

Carlisle somehow kept the score at 2-1 coming into half time, courtesy of some fantastic blocks from Michalik and Thirlwell. I met up with John at half time, and we both agreed that the Robson/Murphy partnership on the left side of defence was poor. We also agreed that Chesterfield weren’t particularly impressive, but Carlisle were appalling.

United did little to liven the spirits of the travelling army after the break and after six minutes Clarke completed a career first hat-trick. United failed clear a Whittaker free kick, and after Clarke’s original effort was blocked, he converted a Craig Westcarr flick, to the annoyance of Adam Collin.

The game was put beyond doubt 15 minutes later, as Westcarr headed in to complete the rout. The Blues hadn’t learnt from previous defensive mistakes, and gave him enough time and space to find the finish.

At this point I stopped concentrating on the game, and instead joined in the chorus’ of ‘Twist and Shout’ by The Beatles that a number of fellow Blues had started. Both people I had come with commented on our fans never say die attitude. Despite being 4-1 down, the United faithful were the ones making all the noise.

The only other chance of note came close to the end. You wouldn’t believe it, but occasionally Mr Curran does like to play football instead of rugby kicking out the ground. He slid in a Loy cross, but the linesmen (who in all fairness, looked about 12), deemed the ball to have not crossed the line.

The game finished 4-1, and on the way out the ground, many Chesterfield fans saying ‘How did we score 4?’ As I usually do, I waited outside the players entrance post match. I had a brief chat with Greg, who apologised for the result, and said ‘Things will get put right’. I am an Abbott fan, and have complete faith in the man. This may be an unpopular opinion after the recent sets of results, but I feel Abbott should stay around for a bit longer. The main point is, who could we get better than Abbott? He’s done wonders on our small budget, and established us as a mid-table League 1 side. This may be another unpopular opinion, but as Chris Lumsdon said on BBCRC, we are only a mid-table League 1 side. It may be unwise of me bur, for the foreseeable future at least, I will be staying on Team Abbott.

UTB

Mark

Just Desserts?

As some of you may know I write a short weekly piece for the print edition of the Carlisle Evening News & Star under the hackneyed moniker 'Blue in Exile'. I wanted to share this week's piece more widely as I felt the theme was more universal. This is it...

Before I move on to Carlisle this week, I’d like to spare a thought on Plymouth. On Sunday afternoon they sacked their beleaguered manager Peter Reid after an early season run saw them to the bottom of the table.  This is the same Peter Reid who has had to shed 40 players from his staff over the last 18 months in football’s hottest seat.  The same man who, after repeated board room promises that a takeover was in the offing, sold some of his own football memorabilia to ensure that those office and ground staff living on a working wage could put food on the table. His reward? Being sacked by the classless oaf Peter Ridsdale.

Over the years, I’ve come to expect little from a sport that can install the man who oversaw, and was untouched by, its worst disaster – Dave Richards of Sheffield Wednesday – to its highest position as Chairman of the Premier League. But the taste left by a serial meddler like Ridsdale pulling off such a charm free act is particularly sour.

So where do Carlisle fit in? Well, this Saturday our fans showed their complicity in the whole charade with a piteous and fickle tirade at a beleaguered manager.  Before readers clamber atop their soapboxes I must first say this – everyone is entitled to voice an opinion and right now, to stand at the back of the b2net Stadium, or Brunton Park for that matter, and holler ‘Abbott Out’ seems a perfectly valid act.  I’m of a sensibility where seeing fans of any colour turn on their manager makes me pall. But if you’re a reader doing that, go on, it’s your right to be heard.

What really grated about Saturday’s rough and raucous post game bawling, though, was that its source was the same as that was singing altogether different songs in the first half.  The chorus with their drum seemed happy to lead a stirring chant of ‘Yellows’ as the team went one down, to belt out ‘Greggy Abbott’s Blue and White Army’ after Miller’s stabbed leveller. Forgive me for shaking my head at the two-faced nature of that.

Forgive me too for feeling contempt for those calling Greg Abbott’s failure to wave to the fans ‘the final straw’. These are the same people who demand burning passion in the representatives of their club, yet fail to see a man bursting with wounded pride unable to face the shame of being booed by those people he is paid to entertain.  The same man who spent 15 minutes apologising to a 15 year old fan who’d stayed behind post-match to meet his fallen heroes.

This isn’t to say I’m pure – my years supporting Carlisle have been pocked with as much badmouthing as the best; I’m complicit. But that doesn’t stop it grating – this necessity of fandom to dash one’s own team.  Next time you’re wound up by the Ridsdales and Richards of this world, wound up by the ill-informed commentariat or even just irked by Abbott’s own in-interview arrogance perhaps it’d pay to pause a moment and think about yourself – what is all this mess that is modern football, if not our own fault?  We get what we deserve.

Gordon Abbott and Greg Brown

I’m currently reading the second volume of former Sunderland MP Chris Mullin’s political diaries. ‘Decline and Fall’ covers the period of transition from the Blair to Brown eras through to electoral defeat in May 2010. It forms the droll author’s pitchside musings on the web of intrigue and catalogue of mistake that define the period.

Whilst thumbing the pages this last week or so I’ve felt a rather odd parallel calcifying and repeatedly asked myself the same question – is Greg Abbott to Carlisle United what Gordon Brown was to the Labour cause?

I imagine that note has already led to a number of click-throughs but I hope some of you will stick with my facile commentary awhile; at least in my mind the case is quite compelling…

The Coup

In some quarters of Carlisle’s support Abbott has never been able to shake off terrace innuendo that he facilitated the downfall of his erstwhile gaffer – the lithe, showbiz John Ward was, some say, victim of a briefing campaign by Abbott and a number of senior pros, including ‘Abbott henchmen’ Paul Thirlwell and Graham Kavanagh.

Pause a moment and consider that – the unheralded, bruising back room boy who stood aside and allowed a shiny PR wizard into the role only to grow resentful and plot to overthrow when the good times stopped rolling? Sound familiar? For Abbott and Ward read Brown and Blair?

The Public Image

Gordon Brown – a great thinker, a global titan, the man who made the health service better for all, pay better for public sector workers, conditions better for young families and who according to many saved world finance.

Gordon Brown – public buffoon, PR man’s nightmare, persecuted for shortcomings with a microphone.

Greg Abbott – righted a sinking ship, brought consolidation and footballing improvement, a glut of good new players and links to great clubs and a shiny trophy.

Greg Abbott – public buffoon, PR man’s nightmare, persecuted for shortcomings with a microphone.

Failing Tactics

Much has been made recently of Abbott’s inability to find his best XI, his loyalty to personal friends, and often in the past to his perversion towards loan players and long ball tactics. Much too made of Carlisle’s inability to raise their game against mediocre opposition.

In Mullin’s account of things Brown is painted as obsessed with tinkering in minutiae – constantly proffering new and unnecessary initiatives, failing to get to grips with the talents of the likes of Jack Straw and David Miliband and, tellingly, an almost pathological need to shuffle his Ministerial pack at the first sign of danger.

Re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic’s deck may be a little forward a metaphor for Greg at present but there certainly seem to be similarities.

The Denouement?

In Brown’s case this was, of course, defeat to Cameron’s Conservatives and Clegg’s Lib Dems. But this wasn’t before a number of staged coup attempts – first from obvious quarters (James Purnell and Patricia Hewitt) but latterly from loyal sages such as the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee and a number of Government whips. You’ll recall that David Miliband’s panic stopped Labour short of regicide and the ‘will they, won’t they’ saga fully and finally punctured Labour’s electoral hopes.

For Greg to fall the rebellion would need a Miliband like figure to call him out – though the Brunton Park heroes of the past who chatter in local pages are too loyal to BP’s ancien regime to provide that voice. I think Hughie McIlmoye enjoys his well earned hospitality a little too much for that. So what about one of the directors? If past form is anything to go by – our own electoral defeat, or relegation to League 2, could be in the offing. Nevertheless, last night’s JPT defeat to Accrington has seen a number of Abbott ‘uber-loyalists’ (as Mullin calls them) desert the cause.

Same problem, different context.

Who's Next?

The key to Labour’s maintenance of the status quo has always been cited as the surety of electoral defeat under Miliband, Alan Johnson or whoever else. The Brown fingerprints couldn't be cleaned away.

So who other than Abbott to kickstart the campaign? Aidy Boothroyd? No thanks. John Coleman? Can we afford the compensation? Paul Ince? One success and two failures, and would the fans accept his tainted MK Dons past? And even if someone were found would they wrest a decent side from their arrow straight path back to mid-table? It seems doubtful.

The Legacy?

It is oft said of Brown in dispatches that history will smile kindly on the work he did in his short time in the ‘top job’. One can’t help feeling the same may well be true of Abbott when his time comes too.

Does Seven into Five Go?

Following his recent election to the Football League board Carlisle United Chief Executive John Nixon gave the world his killer idea to safeguard the future of lower league football and keep clubs living within their means - reducing the number of matchday subs a side is able to name from seven to five. The motion was duly brought and passed so, as of this Saturday, club benches the country over will be bearing rather less weight than they've become accustomed to.

Nixon's rationale seemed sensible; the measure would save the 72 league clubs an aggregate figure of £10 million pounds, no drop in the ocean when it comes to the funding of what are, essentially, hand to mouth social enterprises. His track record of stabilising a hitherto shaky Carlisle will surely have carried sway with those who saw him as a sage and wise advisor.

It hasn't gone down well universally though - South Coast based shrinking violet and Brighton gaffer Gus Poyet has gone on record lambasting the move which will stop his youngsters (he named the promising Jake Caskey) experiencing big matchdays and tasting a small amount of first team action.

So who's right?

The figure of '£10 million' raised a few eyebrows at Keith Mincher Towers when it was quoted; it seemed awfully large. A bit of 'back of the envelope' maths seems to bear out that notion too.

So what are the overheads of naming an extra two players in the matchday squad; travel and accommodation are obvious, as are a few sundries such as post match pizzas, strapping and kit washing (lets assume all kits are washed after every game) as well as appearance bonuses should the player get onto the pitch and goal bonuses should the substitution fulfil its aim.

Based on a small sample of hotels close to Carlisle away fixtures this season (Bournemouth, Stevenage and Yeovil - all prices correct as at 2 August using comparison site Kayak) the average price for dinner, bed and breakfast at a 4* hotel is £136 based on two sharing (as is normal practice on away days). If we use this across the 13 potential overnight stays Carlisle may have this year (Bournemouth, Brentford, Charlton, Colchester, Exeter, Leyton Orient, Milton Keynes, Notts County, Scunthorpe, Stevenage, Walsall, Wycombe, Yeovil) then the potential accomodation cost is £1,768 per season. The club travel to games by executive coach - its probably a fair assumption that the cost is the same regardless of number on board.

Assuming the cost of 'sundries' is £50 per game this works out at £650 per season.

For appearance and goal bonuses I've used Nixon's own rule that a player must play 15 minutes to gain the appearance bonus. Let's say two substitutes meet this in every game at £200 per appearance - this works out £18,400 per season. Going further and suggesting that a sub scores in half of these games that's another £4,600.

The total financial cost to Carlisle United of having two extra subs is thus potentially £25,418. This is a 'worst case' scenario wherein any sub used is from the 'extra' and so are goals scored.

If we extrapolate this £25,000 figure across the seventy two FL clubs we arrive £1.8 million per season. A significant figure but hardly in the ball park of Nixon's '£10 million'.

This calculation also ignores what I'd call the 'opportunity cost' of the change - this is what policy makers use to decide whether to go ahead with changes in Government direction or business strategy. It appears to be totally absent from the Football League's reasoning; this isn't surprising given it'd be incredibly difficult to quantify.

The initial thought on how to work out the opportunity cost of this change in rules was to look over Carlisle's results for the last couple of seasons and work out how much they'd have lost in prize money if they (theoretically at least) had less access to 'bench' alternatives. A quick e-mail to the Football League later and it was apparent that the 'prize' awards for places 3 to 24 were the same; there is no direct financial incentive for avoiding relegation, or winning the play-offs.

That isn't to say that there aren't benefits or disbenefits or promotion or relegation though. Coming back to Carlisle; they gained three points through the positive intervention of substitutes in 2010/11 - a meagre return for sure but the difference between finishing twelfth (top half) and seventeenth. Directly this meant the club was seeded for the League Cup (though copped a frustratingly tough draw away at Oldham) and indirectly it'll have put a smile on a few Cumbrian faces and could have helped the tenor of summer transfer negotiations.

Going back another year and the Cumbrians took 12 points from losing or drawing positions thanks to the input of subs (mostly Scott Dobie and Joe Anyinsah). This was the difference between finishing fourteenth and twenty-first - in the relegation zone. The opportunity cost here is much easier to visualise, if not quantify, lower league football means worse players, lower crowds and greater supporter antipathy. Surely that wouldn't go down well with Mr Nixon's punters?

It's impossible to know whether those substitutes who 'positively intervened' in games wouldn't have made the squad under the new rule and thus difficult to say how many, if any, of these points may have been lost. However, given that most positive interventions come from attacking substitutes it may be fair to assume that at least some of this gain would be lost. During the last season Carlisle manager often fielded as many as three forwards on the bench - there is no such luxury this campaign if all wventualities are to be covered.

An interesting aside come from Carlisle's Johnstone's Paint Trophy form. In reaching the final in both of the last two seasons, and winning in April, they needed the help of substitutes in progressing three times. One of these was a late equaliser from striker Jason Price in a first round tie against Port Vale last summer - the only defining act of his season in Cumbria. We can work out the opportunity cost of these changes - Carlisle's owners have stated that both runs to the final were worth £300,000 each to the club. Alas, the JPT has had a five subs rule since its inception.

The other lost opportunity is that flagged by Poyet - the chance to blood young players in match situations. In raising this issue he makes a fair point but one wonders whether he overstates it a little (in his usual flamboyant style). Is there anything Jake Caskey could learn from an 88th minute appearance at Portman Road which he couldn't learn better on loan at Gillingham?

So the £10 million saving is seemingly pie in the sky and the cost of losing those extra options could just see sides troubles compounded. Doesn't seem like such a sensibe idea any more...

New Signing Profile - Stephen O'Halloran

To this viewer this signing presents United's most intriguing and risky of the summer - the added competition at left back and centre back is to be welcomed but the injury record is a concern. With a friendship group almost universally culled from the premium young talent of Solihull I've long been aware of the reputation of the Villa academy which has produced the likes of Agbonlahor, Albrighton, Clark, Bannan and, of course, Luke Moore. O'Halloran was touted as Villa and Ireland's next great left back by Steve Staunton (a man who knows a little about that role) a few years ago, his seemingly unstoppable march only stopped by a catalogue of setbacks. The next Frank Simek or another, unfortunate, Sean McDaid? Ross Mackiewicz, Villa fan and scribe for Soccerlens amongst others and Coventry mad Neil Allison, proprietor of the Sky Blues blog offer the inside track...

A Claret and Blue View

"Stephen was highly regarded at Villa during his time in the youth set-up. He was sent to Leeds United on loan in 2008 but suffered cruciate ligament damage to his knee during the warm up against Swindon Town. Unfortunately that more or less ended his prospects at the club and he has been plagued by injury ever since - prior to which he was on the verge of breaking into the first team fold.

He has been terribly unlucky but had he remained injury free, there is no doubt he could have been a Villa regular. He is highly thought of by the Irish national team but again, injuries have hampered his progression with them.

In regards to his attributes, Stephen is very aware of his tasks in hand. He has good positional awareness and does his utmost to track/mark his man. He is a little suspect when opposed to players with pace. He isn’t exactly the quickest of players and I suspect the injuries to his knees have done him no favours in that regard. Nevertheless he is a very intelligent defender who has so much potential. He is still a young man and if he can remain injury free, there is absolutely no reason why he cannot become an integral figure with Carlisle."

A Sky Blue View

"It’s fair to say Coventry fans didn’t get to see the Stephen O’Halloran that was so highly recommended when he arrived. Whether that was down to ability or circumstance is debatable. What has to be acknowledged is he mainly figured during the last (woeful) months of Aidy Boothroyd’s reign, in a period when he looked desperately short of fitness, playing with players short on confidence. Never a good combination, and unfortunately, this does have a bearing on our view of his time here.

His most notable appearance was in a 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace in the FA Cup. It was one of the Sky Blues’ most impressive performances of the season, and a big talking point afterwards was the new lad O’Halloran, and just how solid he looked. He made some mistakes, which were put down to fitness, but he had a look of quality about him. We were all very keen. In many ways, he reminds me of another former Carlisle left back, Ian Harte. He doesn’t have the same ball striking quality, but his movement, positioning and the way he covers ground are all very similar. The left-back position clearly comes naturally to him.

So given how things went for the club as a whole last year, it’s more difficult than it often would be to give a definitive judgement. Providing he does something to address his fitness issues – a good pre-season ought to do the trick – there’s no reason he won’t be become a good player. He showed it in patches for City.

Just watch out for those tired legs."

An understandable mixed bag then given the injury issues but a smack of promise for sure. No doubt in my mind which words will prove most divisive in this article though - 'Ian Harte'!

Another Nice Mess

A story broke last week which may have bypassed Football League and SPL fans. It concerns the latter league's two major protagonists and my own, beloved, Carlisle United.

Over the last year the Cumbrian club have worked to strengthen links with the Glasgow giants, seeing these cross-border but near neighbours as ideal test beds for competitive reserve team fixtures and even smuggling Rangers fringe player Rory Loy down the M74 in January. The relationships have caused some consternation with some of the fanbase whose upbringing in the shadow of the two clubs has led some colour (either orange or green) to rub off over the years but the majority, and prevailing, view has been that such links with internationally renowned clubs (Carlisle also have good ties with the Uniteds of Newcastle and Manchester) are in our best interests and a solid marker of the esteem in which Carlisle are held.

Bhoys manager Neil Lennon sought to cement the ties by offering to send a Celtic squad to Brunton Park for pre-season friendly on the 30th of July. A chance for Carlisle's young charges to test their mettle against players of top pedigree and for the club to take advantage of hosting a Champion's League side and their fervent travelling hordes. A moneyspinner, surely?

Well, not quite.

Enter Cumbria Constabulary to voice concerns over the safety of the match. The 'local fuzz' have a track record for taking a 'safety first' view of matches at Brunton Park which has seen potential revenue raising clashes with Leeds United and Newcastle (in pre-season) clock in only just in the black. The official reason given for classing the clash as 'high risk' was the potential that Rangers fans would stop off en route from their clash with Blackpool at Bloomfield Road the day before the proposed game. The result being that the game has been mothballed with a projected crowd of around 7-8,000 even too low to cover the potential policing costs.

Forgive me for a moment for wondering if we have stepped back to the 1980s; I may be wrong but I thought the days of club 'casuals' turning up at rival team's fixtures died when the last Danny Dyer 'rumblepic' flopped at the box office. Besides, I take my hat off to any 'NED' so committed to the cause that they pull into a conveniently placed Premier Inn overnight and pay Lenny Henry's wages for the chance to be charged by a police nag. It shows more commitment than Richard Offiong did in a Blue shirt in any event.

Admittedly tensions on either side of the Clyde reached a newly worrying peak last year with the tinderbox style of Lennon seemingly the heat to complete the combustion triangle that is the Old Firm landscape but it still seems a shame that this has been allowed to spill over into the fortunes of a club based around a hundred miles, and a different league away. One hopes, perhaps, that such a churlish knock on effect may give the central actors pause for thought where the intervention of conflicted, partisan or unwanted political influence has failed in the past.

Rangers reaction has been, perhaps fairly, nonplussed. In a statement to local Cumbrian Newspaper the News & Star they spoke of their consternation at the cancellation:

"The reason this fixture has been cancelled cannot reasonably have anything to do with Rangers or our supporters.

“The suggestion that a game should be cancelled on the off chance of a small number of supporters being in the same town a day later does not make any sense.”

Part of me has sympathy with the Gers position but when I call to mind the behaviour of their fans following the 2008 Uefa Cup final, that for all the provocation of the 'Ginger Dwarf' it is Rangers fans actions, along with the hot air expunging from Lennon's mouth, which have really ramped up the heat in Glasgow. They who sent the bullets, the bombs and the veiled threats.

Whilst Cumbria Constabulary's actions have recalled those of silent movie mogul Mack Sennett's 'Keystone Kops' in their madcap, self defeating and frankly laughable handling of the situation, Rangers response to a regrettable set of affairs seems to come straight from the playbook topped 'Wisdom of Fools'.

Extending the analogy it's tempting further to see the errant Lennon, in proferring assistance, cast as the born and bred Cumbrian Stan Laurel - all non-plussed head scratching and (not so) cheerful bluster. For all their posturing Rangers come over like the bluff and lagubrious Oliver Hardy bemoaning Lennon's actions, without stopping to consider their role in the palaver - 'another nice mess' indeed.

Watching the Rangers/Celtic debacle from a distance is harrowing enough, but when your club's the stooge, taking the metaphorical custard pie in the face it really does grate at the levels of childishness at play, the impact that it can have on the most tangentially pointless event. As it is we'll merely have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and ready for the next two-reeler. It'd be refreshing to think that next year's Old Firm blockbusters will continue in this vein to resemble in plot the lines of the halcyon days of early Hollywood rather than the gangsta stylings of the modern box office leviathan; it'd reinvigorate the interest of this observer at least.

New Signing Profile: Jon-Paul McGovern

Following the excellent reception for Ben Barrett's profile of Andy Welsh I'm delighted to be able to bring similarly informed views of CUFC's second summer capture, JP McGovern. Chris Ledger custodian of the excellent 'Obscure Music & Football' blog details his days at Sheffield Wednesday while Ron Smith of Swindon blog 'The Washbag' brings us up to date. Over to them...

JP the Owl

'Carlisle United may well have picked up a bargain in Jon-Paul McGovern. During his time in League One, he displayed his best form at Sheffield Wednesday during the 2004-2005 season; he also won the club’s player of the season award when the aforementioned season finished. The Scottish midfielder is a dynamic and consistent player - who displays good trickery on the right wing and also has a fine eye for goal, as shown by his eight goals in 49 League One matches for the Owls.

He does lack pace, but his commitment and work ethic makes up for it. His strengths include tracking back to get the ball, and he can also defend and overlap the right back effectively. His chemistry with Lee Bullen at Hillsborough means that McGovern should form a promising partnership with Frank Simek next season. The ex-Owls favourite is also a strong character in the dressing room and this was a big reason why Sheffield Wednesday got promoted to the Championship in 2005.

McGovern was plagued by injuries in the 2005-2006 season, mainly with back problems, and was released on medical grounds in May 2006. His regular appearances for MK Dons and Swindon Town, however, seems to suggest that injuries have not affected McGovern’s post-Hillsborough career.

If there is one aspect of McGovern’s game that has divided Sheffield Wednesday fans, it is his “hit and miss” delivery of crosses and set pieces. Although his delivery is adequate enough and can create goals, they can sometimes be mediocre and miss the intended target. But, with the right training, improvements can be made.

Overall, McGovern is a useful addition to any League One side and has a superb attitude to match some good all-round play.'

JP the Robin

'JP McGovern joined Town back in August 2007 and has made over 130 appearances over four seasons. A solid first team player in his first seasons under Sturrock, JP suffered from Maurice Malpas’s poor decision to force him to play in a defensive role in midfield, which coincided with poor performances all round. Soon JP found himself behind Anthony McNamee, Mark Marshall and even Craig Easton for his natural right midfield position and begun to wonder whether his future was away from Swindon.

Even when Danny Wilson joined the club back in January 2009 JP’s position at Town was still in question. Hal Robson Kanu joined on loan from Reading and made the right wing his own for the remainder of the campaign. JP found opportunities limited and after an ankle injury in February his only other game came as a right wing back away at promoted Peterborough on the final day. At this time JP admitted he saw his days at Swindon were numbered.

So, at the beginning of 2009/10 and to everyone’s surprise, JP was thrust back into the first team following the 5-0 defeat away at Gillingham. JP capped a great performance with a moment of brilliance scoring a 35yd goal against his former team.This moment of individual skill pretty much set the ball rolling for the season to come. JP featured in every league, play-off and cup game, making a total of 55 appearances, only failing to play full 90 minutes twice and scoring two goals. McGovern became our creative linchpin with 15 assists, the most of any player in League One that year, contributing equally well by his set pieces.

As for 2010/11, JP's form hasn't been a patch on a year ago with only 3 League assists, but the same failure can be said for the whole squad. Similar to earlier days, McGovern has again suffered as a result of manager changes, also competition from Paul Caddis on the right and a narrowing midfield, JP has rarely played in his preferred wide right role so he was never going to repeat the near Play of Year performances of a year ago.

What you get from JP is a hard working wide midfielder who can whip in some fantastic crosses, although I'd wish he'd refrain from using his left foot so often are these rarely find the mark. However, he's getting older, losing pace and find the space harder to find, so whether he'll be able to keep it up in League One for Carlisle is another question.'

So a mixed bag with arguably more good than bad. Sounds like the calculated risk Greg Abbott loves to make. Here's hoping he works his alchemy and resurrects another career at Brunton Park.