League 2 club Carlisle United have offered their senior and youth players to help their community following the recent Storm Desmond in the local area.
In Cumbria and Lancashire alone, the storm affected more than 43,000 people and is estimated to have flooded over 5000 homes. Carlisle’s stadium Brunton Park, is currently almost completely submerged in water. This is not the first time that this has happened following the 2011 floods.
The Carlisle players returned from their resounding 5-0 FA Cup second round win at Welling to find the pitch under 8 feet of water and some of their cars swept away, following the worst floods in the area for more than 30 years.
Carlisle player Alex McQueen lost is his Mercedes in the floods and he had this to say: “I have only seen the pictures but my car was at the ground, it is probably floating half-way down the M6 now!”
The Northern Club have become a figurehead of what football teams can do for their local area after setting up an email address to be contacted if they can ‘loan’ some of their players to be of assistance.
The club say that the players can help clearing furniture, cleaning and tidying, or just being of general help. The question begs to be asked that if this had happened in the area of a Premier League football ground would the clubs get their players to be hands on and go out into the community and help their fans or would they just throw money at the cause. It’s tough to say which would help more, but the willingness of this local club once again shows the beauty of the Football League.
Carlisle face Oxford away at the weekend, and are not due to play in Cumbria until they face Notts County on the 19th December. Luckily, Carlisle’s regular training pitch has missed the worst of the weather and has enabled the team to continue regular training.
Following the storm, both home and away hospitality tickets have been suspended, so time will tell how much of an attendence these games will get.
