United media officer and first team kitman Andy Hall spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips on Friday evening ahead of Carlisle's pre-season friendly at Darlington, Hall first talking about the team's training camp away in Leicesteshire this week :
" It has all been work at the training camp, we have been outdoors and the weather has been absolutely fantastic, it was a top class training facility. I am just going to jump in with a answer to a question you haven't asked yet. I have had quite a lot of e-mails asking why do the team spend the money and go away on trips like this.
" I can speak from experience with my time in the Army, if you take a group of lads away from where they do their core business into a completely locked down environment then you get that daft thing called male bonding.
" It is so important to get that within a team, particularly when you have got new members knocking about in there. That is why we do it as a club, it has worked, I can tell you that without a shadow of any doubt, and hopefully that will stand us in good stead for the season ahead.
" I know it was frustrating for you guys as well, the press, the News and Star, everybody up in Carlisle wanted to know what was happening with various things around the club. "
" But we do it every season now where we lock ourselves away and it does work, I can tell you that, genuinely it does work. It is something that we will continue to do because it is important, the financial thing - we budget for it every season.
" Because we do think it is that important to get this period away where you work hard, you do really work hard, the lads do really work hard down there. It is a different environment so their minds are away from their family, they concentrate on the football and getting to know each other and hopefully that will stand us in good stead.
" I think the main thing of it was the fact that we booked into a Health Spa, so the amount of different treatments they could go into, and they did themselves off their own back, not paid for by the club by the way.
" Things I have never heard of, Thalassotherapy, Jason Price told me that he was doing that the other night and I said "pardon", and even he couldn't explain it. It is all these weird and wonderful things that they have been able to do and they have had the benefit of it.
" There is a lot of confidence in the squad, I think you get that from a week like we just have had anyway where the lads have been stuck together as it were, for want of a better way of describing it. A lot of confidence about we are really looking forward to it, the fact that it is Brentford and we started off so badly last season against the same team. "
" Everybody is aware of that, it is not a case of revenge or anything like that, but if we could start off properly, maybe that would send a marker as well. So, there is a definite confidence and a bit of a determination to do things properly from the off.
" It is testament to the way we are scouting I think this season, the way that things have been reshaped. Everybody who has come in has given the manager (Greg Abbott) something to think about. I think we saw with the likes of Jake Simpson and the other lads who came down the other week, Greg kept them for an extended period and that is because he really had to think about what he was going to do next.
" That is good because we are getting people in who are making us think about what we do next. That is what you want from trialists because every now and then you might get one that does more than catch the eye and actually catches a contract.
" I don't think the future of the two trialists depends so much on tonight's game. I think Greg has got to sit down with his staff, possibly not tonight because it is an evening game, but certainly over the weekend and look at the lads who are here now and decide if they come on with us.
" Because we are starting to get that stage now where we are going into the Hibs game next week and then almost into the season. It is all coming to a head as it were so he will have to make a decision, but he will have to do that with his staff in the correct timeframe for him and them so that they get it right. "