|
" It has been very, very disappointing at home, clearly the home fans have not seen Carlisle at their best. We have been very good away from home, and I think the key point, not only are we playing good football away from home but there is that fighting spirit that Greg (Abbott) spoke about. We came back against Morecambe, we shouldn't have been in that position but we came back and we actually beat them, and there is that determination, we are no longer a pushover away.
" It was perhaps missing last season and I think what we have got to try to do, we have got to realise the team is 12 months older. There is more determination, more experience and then you have got Ian Harte and you have got (Graham) Kavanagh. They have got that experience, they have got that determination and they have added a bit of steel to the team, no doubt at all about it.
" It is very frustrating at times because I don't think the fans realise how much effort does go in to try to get players to come here. We are an outpost, it is relatively easy to get Scots to come, it is relatively easy to get lads from the north-east to come because they know Carlisle. But people from London and the south, they are reluctant to come to Carlisle, we are seen as an outpost and Greg and his team have put in so much work to get players.
" It is so frustrating at the eleventh hour that players decide to go, even for a lower league team, if it is nearer home. It is frustrating as a position, nothing new about that, always been the case, I guess the difference might be that in the past we have been able to get far more Scots to play for us. You look at teams 20 years ago and half the Carlisle team would be Scots, that has gone because the Scots aren't producing the footballers and that is affecting us.
" So the pressure is on us to develop the youth team and bring on the young players from Cumbria, there is plenty of talent there. It is a critical match for Scotland themselves today, if they don't beat Macedonia then I don't know what the future is going to be for Scotland, well, the future is they are not going to be in the World Cup I think. "
" I do two or three things, I go to London most weeks and I sit in the House of Lords. Because every piece of legislation that goes through the House of Commons has got to go through the House of Lords. I have got to take the Labour whip, there are only 30% of the Lords in the House of Lords are Labour, so everything we get through the House of Lords has got to be done from a minority point of view. That is why the Lords have got a role to play, the party whip isn't as strong, so that is an important job.
" I also chair the Forestry Commission so that takes up quite a bit of time because we are the largest landowner right across Britain. I also do one or two other little things, I am involved at Sellafield, I am a Director there, because I think it is vital for West Cumbria that we keep Sellafield and we keep the nuclear industry, so many jobs depend on it.
" Representing the county of Cumbria is a role that I take on with a number of other peers from the area, there are about half a dozen of us. It is important that we try to get across the point of Cumbria as a whole as opposed to the individual constituent MPs who all fight like hell for Cumbria but they are also fighting for their part of Cumbria. We tend to fight for the whole of the county.
" I think that today's line-up is our strongest team. I thought when Joe Anyinsah came on against Morecambe, in the last ten minutes he did add something there. That is my strongest team and I expect that probably with 15 minutes to go he (Abbott) will bring on (Richard) Offiong to see how he goes on as well. "