Carlisle Utd's average crowd could drop to lowest since the Knighton years - it's time for owners to confront the issue

It is more than 10 years now that the Blues signed off with an average league crowd of 7,835. Currently they are at 4,135, meaning only a small further drop is needed before that figure is chopped down the middle.

The day United dip to a 3,917 end-of-term average will be the moment we can say they have lost half their regular support from those League One times, which were - it is a little painful to recall - full of possibilities.

This is the unspoken price both of this season’s policy of austerity and United’s longer inability to become a successful force, along with broader worries. This heady brew has put attendances on a definite decline.

Two options exist when looking at this. One involves putting a finger in each ear and shouting slogans about loyalty. The other searches for the alarm.

Can there be hope of an upturn? It does not seem immediately apparent. Today is United’s last home game before Christmas - seldom a gate-swelling afternoon. Boxing Day against Oldham will surely see a rise but then comes Macclesfield, who are unlikely to pack out the away seats even at festive time.

One or two of 2019’s visitors will travel well, especially those in the promotion running, but one struggles to see the consistent prospect of big crowds, particularly if Carlisle’s form - best described right now as predictable unpredictability - continues.

In other words, this is not going to be a campaign of numbers that reflects well. United’s lowest average of recent years was 4,243 – the relegation season under Graham Kavanagh in 2013/14 – yet that is now under threat.

Chances are the Blues will emerge in May with something worse, and if they do it will be the smallest average crowd since the last days of Michael Knighton. His final, wretched campaign of 2001/2 saw a paltry 3,204 and in the following period, whatever the trials, it has been comfortably better.

It surely won’t go that low by next spring, but even to threaten the worst figure for 17 years would hardly be a healthy reading. The only realistic way to massage the numbers would be to go on a positive run for the next five months.

Otherwise, there is no record of mediocrity doing anything other than taking the statistics down.

Carlisle’s smallest average crowd of 2,237 came in 1988, at the end of two relegations and a further flounder. We are still some distance from that sort of malaise.

Yet nor should the present be regarded with complacency. United have budgeted for the mid-4,000s, same as last, but that looks on the ambitious side as we approach halfway.

Why that should be is a debate of strong opinions, many of which point to the club’s ownership, and whatever other factors exist surely it would be good for that ownership to tackle the matter head-on.

We have already been informed, after all, that “ownership issues” are deterring potential sponsors. Those were the words of Kevin Dobinson, a businessman helping the club, and only an ostrich would consider they had no relevance on the terraces too. Indeed, several fans spent time on Thursday and Friday tweeting their criticisms and concerns in this area.

Dobinson, it is well-known, is close to Edinburgh Woollen Mill’s Philip Day, the one man who, at the stroke of a pen, could transform much of this. Yet it cannot all be about waiting for that hallelujah moment.

Considering we don’t know when (or if) that might be, what about the meantime? What about the fact the climb back up is going to get steeper? What about the slow eroding of more faith?

There must have been a plan for this, given the tightrope United were planning to step onto in the summer? Surely?

In the short term, that plan appears to involve further loans from EWM and Andrew Jenkins, judging by CUOSC’s recent update. Such things were happening at a time the fans’ trust said United faced “significant financial challenges”.

This, no doubt, is a result of those dipping gates as well as the legacy of large player bonuses about which director of football David Holdsworth has spoken.

The latter path towards a more even financial keel was never likely to be swift. This season, CUOSC earlier said, was to be of “short-term pain” before the utopia of investment and progress could be glimpsed.

Again, though – it cannot simply be a case of sitting and waiting. The here and the now can’t be sidelined indefinitely. There remains much that could be said and done and there is no reason why United’s owners should not be out there, accounting for what is happening and doing a damned sight more explaining to fans about where this ship is going and why.

It would appear that some are preparing to explain in the other direction, given that United fans are among the most to respond to an AgainstLeague3 owner survey which is doing the rounds.

A fairly reliable guess is that the results won’t be merry. It may prove a taste, rather than the definitive picture that a broad, Blues-specific survey would provide, but it would not do to dismiss it, either.

Appetite for change remains a bubbling matter, not to the boil in terms of direct action but something it is not hard to hear when you are around Brunton Park on a matchday, or read what others say on social media.

Appetite for improvement, regardless of change, is another constant, and surely an obvious thing to take away from those turnstile figures.

A few good afternoons – and pray there is one today – can always lighten the mood. But the sense of drifting uncertainty is not shifting and, with all this in mind and the predicted road ahead, wouldn’t it be better for those at the very top to confront it?

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The long-standing absence of competitive reserve football at Carlisle (and, in fairness, several other clubs) cannot help when there are injured players fighting to return – in some cases, from a good while out.

Jason Kennedy’s appearance on the bench at Lincoln recently was not, John Sheridan said, with an introduction in mind yet it was still a great reward after many months of hard toil.

The midfielder's proper comeback is hopefully not far away and there will be no cheerier moment this year or next at Brunton Park.

It is not hard to wonder where United might be had he not been struck down by such a serious pelvis injury. It’s also easy to imagine what a fit and productive Kennedy could do to this team.

It would, though, be foolish, given his time out, to set big expectations for the moment his boots kiss the turf again. One can only wish Kennedy well and hope his return is trouble-free and long-lasting.

It is regrettable that, in these final stages of his fightback, the chance to enjoy the snap of serious action in a reserve league is denied to him, even considering the competitive and financial reasons that have kept such football off the agenda at United for several years now.

If you are a Premier League player in this predicament, of course, you are luckier.

There happens to be a competition designed for the healing of experienced pros at the expense of youngsters who might alternatively get the chance.

Arsenal’s Laurent Koscielny, 33, recently took advantage of it, and thank the lord those claims about the Checkatrade Trophy being all about promoting the young players of this country proved a load of hogwash.