Carlisle United

Husband purchased offsite hospitality at Halston Hotel which was amazing. He had discussed, with Katie, the need for accessible seating and access, and was assured that all would be done to accommodate our request as I am disabled, walk with a stick and have major difficulty climbing stairs. Upon arrival we were faced with 2 flights of wet, slippery concrete steps to get to the stand – lift was out of order after to flooding ( we were not advised of this), and our seats were 1 row from the back of the stand in the middle of the row, which made thing even worse. I have emailed the club to express my feeling but haven’t even had the courtesy of an acknowledgement. Why promise something that cannot be guaranteed? Am not impressed.

We bought our tickets in advance from York and I phone Carlisle to book a disabled car park space, but it was on a first come first served basis.

We ate at “Lakeland Gate” a Brewers Fayre pub, 5 minutes walk from the ground.

Arriving at the ground there weren’t a lot a car parking spaces due to all the flood damage, but the car park stewards were brilliant despite their difficult circumstances. We parked close to the away turnstiles free.

It was unbelievable that the ground was several feet underwater only 3 weeks ago and the damage was horrendous.

Entering the ground we were shown to the disabled section, Quite a large open area, pitchside, in the corner behind the goal. We were the only people not under any sort of cover, but the view was good.

The disabled toilets were underneath the stand where our fans were and the tea bar was there as well, but unfortunately they couldn’t sell hot drinks or hot food.

Program sellers were both inside and outside the ground.

We had a good day and the stewards inside and outside the ground were very helpful.

Comments noted re the Sheffield United match – comments re the toilets have been passed on to my groundstaff to attend to. In addition we have recently had an Access Audit done so we will be looking at these comments and addressing any issues brought to our attention when it arrives.

As previouos comments sat in the open with no cover whatsoever and get cold and wet when it rains. Excellent view but watch out for the ball. !!

The toilet was the only thing that lets them down as it is small and dirty. NO soap as the dispenser was broken and empty, NO paper towels, NO emergency pull cord. Toilet seat loose and the toilet bowl needs a good clean.

The food bars were in a convenient place on the concourse although we did not purchase anything.

The stewarding was good and helpful though and the coaches got away quickly as they held up the cars in the car park for us to get away.

This was our first visit to Brunton Park as away fans and given the one previous review on LPF review, we made our longest yet away trip with some trepidation. We found a mixture of negatives and positives. The positives were that Brunton Park is easily accessible from the M6 and well signed (straight road virtually). On this road there are a variety of eateries and a large supermarket. The stewards were very welcoming and the disabled parking was immediately adjacent to the away entrance. It was a short distance and the slope was gentle.

The seating for away wheelchair fans is at right angles to the stand where the away fans sit. It consists of 4 (I think) spaces and adjacent carer/PA seats at pitch level between the corner flag and goal, in what is an otherwise unused stand of old terracing where some work appears to have been started and abandoned mid project. Despite appearances it offered a good view of the game and very few club officials walked in front of us during the game. Those that did pass us prior to the game were eager to ask if we were ok. The seating is completely without cover (unlike all the other away fans who are under cover) and on a cold Saturday in February we discovered we were on a very windy corner. The seats/spaces furthest away from the corner were a little less windy. Luckily it didn’t rain or snow on us but you do need to take full waterproofs to avoid getting soaked. Take our advice and don’t take up position until after the players have warmed up as you are right behind the practice goal and I got hit by the ball but thankfully it didn’t cause me any injury. It seems that the Club has listened to the previous review on LPF as we were only charged £4 for the two of us. In the second half the wind did drop a bit and we noticed that we were the only away fans that didn’t have the setting sun in their eyes. Whilst we always want to sit with our own fans, at least we were close to them, could see them and could use the away end facilities.

The facilities for away fans are all underneath the away stand and there is flat access to them immediately in front of you as you enter. The accessible toilet is on the left, clearly signed, you need your radar key to unlock it. It was reasonably small for a power-chair but just about ok. I have to say though it had the thinnest loo paper I have ever encountered, it was almost see through. I could get no hot water and no hand soap out of the dispenser. I did inform Steward No 3 who was the nearest and asked him to sort it which he said he would but he seemed rather clueless as to what to do. My advice would be to take your own toilet bag until someone can report the situation has improved. We always travel with our own food and drinks so I didn’t use the snack bar but could see it beyond the loo.

My husband is severely visually impaired. When I looked at Carlisle’s web site it stated that there was no Soccer Sight service available at Brunton Park. It did give the frequency of the local radio but a radio commentary does not provide the ball location information that Soccer Sight does.

A nice gesture by the stewards as we were leaving, which given the 250 mile journey we were facing we did appreciate, was that they stopped the traffic so that we could get out of our parking plot, we have found this happens infrequently.

We would happily go to Brunton Park again with our waterproofs but hope for good weather.

Poordisabled facilities theymake you sit in rain all through thematch and still charge the full price