Good times - Colchester ran out 3-0 winners at Brunton Park in March

Column: with Colchester United Supporters' Association chairman Jon Burns

I LONG for the day when I can set my alarm for the crack of dawn, board a coach at 6am with a bunch of bleary-eyed, yet ultra-keen, U’s fans and head almost as far north as you can get to in the English game to watch our team play.

Carlisle is quite probably my favourite away trip.

Not only can you get a hot sausage roll the size of house brick at Tebay Services on the way there, you can always get a good ale nearby and it has one of the best views of the pitch in the lower leagues.

Even with the horizontal rain, it is still a lovely day out and myself amongst many others will really miss it tomorrow.

Somehow we will have to try and replicate all of the above from our armchairs when we watch it on iFollow at 3pm.

It is still so rubbish that our two home games next week will also be armchair affairs.

Spikes, lockdowns and tiers are one thing, and everyone’s health is of course important, but why are fans of a former Arsenal manager allowed into a theatre for a book plugging when you and I cannot follow all of the precautions the U’s have undertaken to watch and support the U’s in the open air.

Quite simply, football fans are not trusted.

The words “double” and “standards” spring to mind.

A win tomorrow will see the U’s leapfrog our Cumbrian opponents and a win is what we need after some early season one-pointers, the last of which was a credible and very hard-fought one at Walsall last Saturday.

I have to say that I thought the Midlands team looking pretty dangerous so I was personally pretty happy with the point.

Pretty happy too that the U’s have added to their attacking ranks with the signing of Josh Bohui.

A young lad with a point to prove, and hungry to do well, is something I like to see on a football pitch.

Gazette:

Point to prove - the U’s have added to their attacking ranks with the signing of Josh Bohui

So onto “Project Big Picture” and the storm it has created in football this week.

Firstly, my brain struggles with the continual delays and game-playing that the Premier League and Government have engaged in for months.

I think I wrote in the first few weeks of lockdown, the future of football in this country will be decided by a massive power struggle and those with money will dictate it.

If a proposal was already being worked on by the whole of the Premier League, then how come this alleged breakaway group have come up with their own plan at the same time to save the football pyramid, which, like most pyramids I know, only stays upright if the building blocks at the bottom do not crumble and perish?

PBP delivers the crucial financial support that the EFL, and in particular Leagues One and Two, desperately need in the next few weeks in order to survive.

Their timing is cleverly well judged without doubt, but their strings attached are lengthy and in many quarters, unwelcome.

Yet whilst this massive bun fight is going on, clubs like the U’s are having to desperately implore fans to buy into iFollow as much as possible and to buy whatever they can from the club shop, just to try and bring some cash in.

It’s almost criminal in my view.

Fingers crossed for some positive and financially supporting news for the U’s next week and of course fingers crossed for three points tomorrow and again on Tuesday night when Forest Green Rovers are in town.

Two wins would be the boost that I think we all need at the moment.