Brits bacon was saved for another day in this battle of the basement when the Harriers finally won a game.

Our last win was at the start of the season away at Darlington and, apart from single points against Oxford and Macclesfield, it's been downhill all the way.  With next weeks visitors being the Drewe Broughton inspired Southend this win couldn't have come at a better time.  For Ian Britton, the team and the fans.

The other good thing to come from this game was the return of the prodigal Irishman, JJ Melligan.  He started the game with Dean Bennett making way for him.  John Williams was the other change when he made way for Andy Bishop.

There was a bit of a dis-jointed start to this game with the Harriers looking a bit nervous.  Not surprising considering the recent run of results, but it wasn't long before we started to get it together.

Bo Henriksen was the first to test the Carlisle keeper, Glennon, when he forced him to push his shot into the path of the waiting Andy Bishop but, luckily for Carlisle, it was blocked on the line by one of their defenders.

United then tried their luck with a shot that Brock could only punch away.  It would have been better if he had collected the easily saveable shot.

JJ was starting to find his feet again after six months away and it was his pass across the face of the goal that Bo just failed to latch onto.

Carlisle were playing their part in the game too.  As usual with them they didn't give our players an inch, harrying them all the time and not letting them settle on the ball.

They came close to scoring themselves when McDonagh capitalised on a mistake from Scott Stamps but his easy shot from just a few yards out went way over the bar along with a rendition of the Big Top song from the Harriers fans.

JJ was back in action again minutes later when he got his head onto the end of Adie Smiths ball into the area but again there was a Carlisle defender waiting to mop up any danger.  And he was the man again when he was involved in the best move of the half.

He saw a chance from outside the area and took a shot at goal but, as luck would have it, it struck Bo's ponytail and was deflected towards the top corner of the goal.  Glennon did amazingly well to reach it and tip it away to safety.

The lads were playing much better than in recent weeks and all it needed was a bit of luck to come our way.  That came after the break.

The first bit of luck came when Stamper almost scored an own goal for the visitors.  Under slight pressure from a Carlisle forward he headed the ball the wrong way.  Brockie saw it at the last second and leapt across the face of the goal to grab it safely.

The game was still fairly even but at just the right time we took the lead.

Danny Williams played the ball into the goal mouth and this time there was someone there to get a head onto it.  That head belonged to Andy Bishop who sent the ball into the back of the net past a flailing Glennon to send the Aggie crowd wild and to shut his detractors up at the same time.

Today's game was the last of his loan spell so it may have come at the right time for him and he may be staying for another month.

We'd got the goal that we'd all been waiting for but at the back of our minds we knew that all it would need would be one mistake to let Carlisle back in.

It wasn't just one mistake, it was three!

Peter Murphy capitalised first on a Sam Shilton mistake when he lost possession and then as Murphy took the ball on towards the goal Adam Willis backed off and backed off until Murphy had a clear sight of goal and let rip with a shot that Stuart Brock saw too late to stop it creeping between the post and his hand.

For ten minutes the Harriers heads dropped and Carlisle had probably their best spell of the game but they failed to make the most of it and eventually we started to creep back into it.  JJ was the man who prompted the comeback and it was his shot from 25yds out that went tantalisingly wide.

The strangely subdued Foran, playing the lone striker, missed a glorious chance for United to take the lead when he found himself unmarked at the far post but his free header went the wrong side of the post.

After that the game really turned with two well won free kicks.

First a foul on JJ on the edge of the area was awarded a free kick.  With JJ and Danny arguing about who was going to take it Danny won out and took the kick.

Apart from the pointless exercise of Stamps standing in front of the ball,  Why?  it was a blockbuster of a kick that was headed off the line by Richie Foran.

We had free kick Mk2 just a few minutes later.

This time a foul on Deano after he had released the ball gave Danny a second bite of the cherry.  Again JJ made his case for taking it and again he was told to leave it for the Master.

This time Danny made no mistake, even though it took a deflection off a Carlisle defender, it ended up in the back of the net.

It was still a tense time till the final whistle because knowing our luck Carlisle would have grabbed another equaliser.  They didn't though and as well as our first win in ages it was also our first League win against Carlisle.

The bogie has been buried!