Carlisle United 3, Charlton Athletic 1

Nov 2 2009 The Journal

CARLISLE United fans were treated to a few tricks from veteran midfielder Graham Kavanagh as he led the celebrations at a Brunton Park Halloween party that brought a second consecutive home win for Greg Abbott’s side.

The Cumbrians, seemingly in disarray following a behind-the-scenes boardroom tussle earlier in the week, put their woes behind them to turn in their best performance of the season so far against one of the division’s pace setters.

Abbott said: “None of the off-field stuff has been mentioned at all by my players. The focus has been on how we wanted to play against Charlton, and the lads have been magnificent in the way that they approached this game.”

Defender Ian Harte opened the scoring after a tense start to the game, but it took two attempts to beat on-loan keeper Carl Ikeme when he pushed the initial spot kick on to the woodwork.

Harte explained: “The gaffer spoke to me earlier in the week and told me that I might want to think about where I put my penalties, because teams will have had them watched. I have to admit that I was relieved when it came back to me after the keeper saved it, because I don’t think I’d have heard the last of it.”

Abbott confirmed: “He had to score that. He told me that if he struck it properly then it didn’t matter what the keeper did. Well, the keeper went the right way, so if he hadn’t got to the follow-up I’d have had something to say.”

Hero-in-waiting Graham Kavanagh committed the foul that handed Deon Burton the opportunity to level the scores from the spot on the stroke of half-time, but he more than made amends in the second half with two goals that had the quality to grace any game.