CARLISLE 2 CITY 0

THE final word came from the mobiles of Omari Patrick and Jordan Gibson’s dad.

“Get abuse for years and years but wrong when we celebrate?” was the question posed by Patrick, scorer of the second goal.

“You have fun on social media, we have fun on the pitch.”

Andy Gibson also took to Twitter on Saturday night to condemn the abuse that rained on his son from the City section – the corner of Brunton Park where Jordan Gibson had joyfully cavorted in front of following his thumping opening strike.

It was an awful day all round for the Bantams, on and off the pitch.

A team talked up at having turned a corner with that gritty win at Barrow on New Year’s Day promptly walked smack bang into a brick wall.

No points, no shots on target, no hope.

The supporters, all 1,243 of them, had travelled back to Cumbria with similar ambitions and were greeted with a performance as poor as other away horror shows in recent seasons.

But those who chanted filth at Gibson did not cover themselves in glory; rather providing a constant motivational sound track for the winger finally finding that regular run of football with Carlisle that eluded him under a gaggle of managers at Valley Parade.

The same with Kelvin Mellor, subjected to pantomime boos from his opening touch of the ball.

The right back, too, had his revenge by waving goodbye at those travelling fans who had seen enough and were heading away before the final whistle.

Not that you could blame anyone choosing to make an early getaway. Fat chance of them missing any hint of a comeback – substitute Theo Robinson’s stoppage- time effort wide was the only kind of response in a wretched second half.

City have shown on several occasions this season that they can pick themselves up from falling behind. But not this time; not by a long shot.

The white flag was being waved from the moment that Gibson and Co had finished the exuberant celebrations at the end of the first half.

Derek Adams appeared remarkably calm when he emerged to face the post-match press. It’s safe to say he would not have been so taciturn in the confines of the away dressing room.

Where was the fighting spirit from the first trip of this Cumbrian double header? Where were the battling actions to match the rhetoric of making a move up the table?

Wall to wall second half City were embarrassingly second best; defence outmuscled, midfield overrun, going forward non-existent.

The biggest concern was the toothless nature of it all. Once Andy Cook went missing in action, so did the rest of the team in an attacking sense.

Cook was hindered from the opening moments – a spell when City actually looked like they had come to play.

Adams had kept faith with the same side after new arrival Dion Pereira had been ruled out feeling unwell.

It looked the sensible choice especially when they came bouncing out the blocks and Oscar Threlkeld blew a very inviting chance in the first 30 seconds.

But Cook took a bang from a defender jumping for a high ball that he could not shake off. Twenty five minutes of hobbling and his leg strapped up, the big man was forced to admit defeat.

Home keeper Mark Howard might as well have gone with him for the little he had to do from then on.

Cook, as has been pointed out, is the City talisman with an impressive scoring/winning ratio. But on the flipside, they have failed to win once without him.

On a bogey ground where the Bantams last triumphed in August 1985, that sorry statistic was never going to change.

There was one moment when the visitors could feel short-changed when the assistant flagged to rule out what looked a perfectly good header from Yann Songo’o.

The midfielder, the only player in claret and amber to finish with reputation still intact, was first to a Callum Cooke cross that had bobbed up off a defender.

Songo’o flicked past Howard but the City jubilation was cut short on the linesman’s flag. Replays suggested nothing out the ordinary – particularly with referee Andy Haines perfectly placed just five yards away to see everything.

But that still did not excuse the way that Adams’ side completely folded after Gibson had quickly responded at the other end.

It was a safe bet that any goal-scorers would have a connection with the opposition. Nine players, six of them in the home ranks, had been with the other club at some point in their careers.

City might have expected that Cook, a junior with the Cumbrians, would have made the defining impact.

Instead it was Gibson, the cocksure attacker who had as many gaffers as league starts in his three years as a Bantam.

Now finding his feet at League Two’s most northerly outpost, the 23-year-old was clearly spurred on by the bile being pumped from the stand.

He had spoken last month about how the challenges from the hard times at Valley Parade had toughened him up as a player.

The vitriol aimed at Gibson and his father – a vocal defender of his son on social media during that period – provided even more incentive to shut up the critics.

That opportunity arrived in stoppage time at the end of the first half.

Gibson had already had one sighter that flashed over the bar before he got the radar spot on from Carlisle’s first move of any quality.

Skipper Callum Guy, a Bantam loanee in the Simon Grayson era, switched play to Jack Armer on the left and he laid it back to Gibson loitering with intent on the corner of the box.

There was only thing on his mind and City obligingly provided the space, Songo’o’s desperate lunge coming too late after the shot had been dispatched with venom into the top corner.

How Gibson and his team-mates then milked it. The inevitable “shushing” of the City contingent followed by Mellor leaping on his back in choreographed bedlam for the benefit of their away audience.

The second goal, not that it was needed given the pitiful lack of reaction, came three minutes from time.

Patrick, scorer just three times in his 30 months as a Bantam, showed pace and power to shrug off Fiacre Kelleher and slot past Hornby.

He raced to halfway to tauntingly flex his muscles at the City fans while others in blue, including Gibson and Mellor, enthusiastically waved their farewells.

The rest of us thought we had said good riddance to painful away days like this with the arrival of Adams.

As the frustrated following turned on the manager as much as his players, it seems we were wrong.