I hear the other county league team that the reserves played on saturday had ex city first team players in the ranks ? what is that all about!! are they not still good enough for the 1st team??!! from what i heard good players they are aswell....
The only player I know of who is signed on for the first team but probably played for St Margaret Mary's last Saturday would be Phil (Hetherington). He would be with the first team without doubt had it not been for him only being available for home games because of his work.
We have seventy three players signed on for the reserves a number of which are first team, Under 16 & Under 18's. The first team have set up that if you don't come training you won't be selected. The likes of Peter Osgood who works in Newcastle and Phil Hetherington who can only play at home games and only trained twice that i can remember won't get any further. So they play for St Margaret Mary's. John's boy Tom has come on a ton this season and i am sure he will be asked to join us next season but these players are the lads he knocks about with and maybe he doesn't want to try and play at a higher level. City will always have Ex-Players at other Clubs you can't accomadate everyone and not everyone fills our needs. Whatever anyone thinks we are working 24/7 to improve as a club and to improve the players who want to play for us. Our Captain Ian Cummersky didn't like the new set up and has moved on that's life but it doesn't make us a bad Club. The reserves play Aspatria this week and another Ex-Player Mally Graham plays for them. Players move on it's a fact of life.
Peter has always kept himself very fit and could still do a job in the Alliance. Good "lefty's" are hard to come by and he was certainly one of the best we have had at City.
If things change, work wise, for Phil, and he can train, he will play first team, in my opinion, he's a good player and an honest lad, exactly the type you want at your club.
I haven't seen Tom play since he played for northbank's alliance team v us a year or so ago. He looked a decent player then, so if Dougie thinks he has progressed "a ton" he should be worth looking at.
Dougie's right about players coming and going, we have all been there and done that one. If someone is unhappy or wants a fresh challenge or wants to better themselves at a higher standard, good luck to them. The only thing I would say is be open and honest about it, as it's hard enough running a side without players telling you all kinds of rubbish.
I am a firm believer that if you have a good first team you should have a good second string so when they are needed the first isnt weakend, but if the second string are "not up to it" then how do you expect to attract good players if the team is lets say "not up to it"
A club like yourselves should always look out for good players and good coaches to have a chance to be better than all the other Carlisle clubs.
When you play at the level of the first team and that is ideally you want the full squad of 16 and add on injuries and work commitments that takes it too 20 for a strong first team squad. Now you want players just as good to be available for the reserves ideally 11 at least as cover. Take a goalkeeper i have used 7 different Keepers in less than 20 games. Players who think they are upto first team level will look too the likes of Northbank if they are not in the first team to play at least some Alliance level. The Reserves are caught between two sticks and i think that is why we are the only local team with a reserve side. If the first team has players missing they rape the reserve team and therefore the reserves have too have a core of players who will play for the reserves and trying too pull players from Junior squads is often diluted as the better players are concentrating on a Sunday too win their League and Cup so often the reserves get their fringe players which benefits the juniors as there squad is better for their subs getting games and also because they play on a Sunday some often work on a Saturday. Everyone wants to play first team especially now as they are winning and yes ideally it would be great to have enough players good enough to play so that the reserves benefit but with four Alliance sides & Penrith then the spread is wide. I have run the reserves for over ten years and believe me it's three times harder than doing the first team. Playing at County League level in the First Division is like sunday morning level where as the Premier League is a good learning curve and the Reserves need to be in that League for the players to benefit but the Players need to commit to playing at the lower level first to get the promotion and that comes from Team Managers from City's other sides seeing that potential through. Lets hope we can impriove the reserve set up when Paul Henderson takes over next season. GOOD LUCK!!!!!
If as you say you have struggled for 10 years with the reserves Dougie, did you have hair when you started? and if Mr Hendo who is at youth level now what kind of condition do you think he will be in after 1 year?
It takes a strong willed manager who likes punishment to run a senior side in the County league as i believe most are from the west and they will look after them sides first?
Good luck on your clubs quest to be the best but there is a few out there who are standing in your way to do that
Yes peter is still good enough to play at that alliance level and what does he do in newcastle now ? ossie was one of the best i had seen pulling the city shirt on!! phil if fit would do a good job but his work 1st for him atm. The maggies have some good young lads playing and i presume the manager uses ossie as a leader on the pitch to help them out as you can only do so much once they cross the white line!!!
Nice to see some people are worried about my welfare and have our club at Heart. I lost my hair during Cup Finals winning five by 1 - 0 and some in extre time. That's life at the top end of pressure. We know there are players out there who could do a job but if you play for City you have to be prepared to train and be prepared to lose your place when you fail to come up to the mark or miss out due to work. The reserves had a team this week and we started Josh Harding for the first time against Premier League Leaders Aspatria and brought back Mike Algeo to stabilise our defence and 16yr old Matty Hetherington also started at left back so only Chris Rush kept his place from last week game against St Margaret Mary's. Another 16 year old Dan Gawith fired home City's winner in a 1 - 0 win leaving us to play Longtown or Frizington in the Semi. All of Saturday's players want to play for Carlisle City and that's what its all about. We know we will have bad weekends when players aren't available and this week was the first we have had a proper Keeper for a month but these things you have to deal with. We had the parents down of some of our youngsters and i am sure they would be proud of how we played and how we conducted ourselves on the pitch. They left all the confrontations to the manager
-- Edited by Dougie on Monday 23rd of March 2009 10:13:47 AM
Excellent result Dougie, they are a very useful team as we experienced in the County cup when they knocked the senior team out.
Was the ball ok Dougie, I hear Trevor wasn't too happy with it?
I know we have some very good 16/17/18 year olds and with Andy Walker looking after the 14's we definitely have the young players coming through to the 2 senior teams
Howard Arms - what does Peter do now in Newcastle? Is he keeping the tanning studio in Heaton in business.
The ball was fine ask Dan Gawith when he struck the winner it flew off his foot into the top corner. I would like to say Aspatria's management were gracious after the game thay all came back to the Howard Arms and we shook hands after the game. I am sure they will look at the time they beat our Senior squad and were elated by the result and this time it was the Reserve side who were elated and look forward to a Semi-Final against Longtown.
And to be fair to Aspatria, they are having a fine season, and will surely walk away with some rewards, although Netherhall will push them for the league title.
I was told he is working for newcastle united and was seen at one of the recent games v man utd!!?? He could add some thing to the coaching set up that you have at city. Not sure about tanning studio in heaton ??
but there is a few out there who are standing in your way to do that 
