Day the Blues buried the past
United manager John Ward, left, Greg Abbott, centre, and Dennis Booth celebrate the 3-1 win against Leeds United TAKE Saturday’s most popular anti-Leeds song, give it a twist, and what you have is a pretty concise summary of the current state of affairs down at Brunton Park.
Leeds, according to that seething home following, are “not famous any moreâ€. That’s debatable, given our national prints’ continued obsession with all things Elland Road at the expense of 23 other clubs in League One this season.
But as for Carlisle United, well, they’re not infamous any more.
Here’s a test, to prove the point. Ask your average football person to write down the first things that came to mind when the Blues arose in debate six or seven years ago. Wager heavily on the list including, for instance: protest marches, relegation campaigns, mundane players, boardroom chaos and the occasional talented individual turning on his heel at the first opportunity.
Back then - and it still brings a shiver to think how recent it all was - Brunton Park was a theatre of the absurd. To the outsider, Carlisle United meant farce, tragi-comedy, shambles. But the outsider doesn’t really matter, since he can take his eye away from the keyhole whenever he chooses.
It was the faithful who remained locked in, strapped to their chairs and made to watch their club enter an advanced stage of decay.
Now, ask your man to ponder Carlisle United as they are this afternoon and scribble another list. If the words ‘ambition’, ‘progress’ and ‘success’ don’t crop up somewhere on the sheet of paper, he’s failed the test.
This is a club reborn, a football entity thriving in a more meaningful way than it has done for the last 20 years, easily; maybe more.
The chain of events that delivered Carlisle from anarchy to achievement is known to all: the prolonged levering-out of Michael Knighton, the crazy, pinball years of John Courtenay which led to non-league, and then the decision in the summer of 2004 by Fred Story to seize a fading civic asset and make it relevant again, by throwing business sense at the problem rather than immoderate pots of cash.
Three years later, Carlisle are tossing aside a one-goal deficit against Leeds United and assaulting them with three majestic goals to take them back to the top of League One, with 16,668 people there to watch the drama. Their team averages 24.5 years of age and contains emerging players who could make the club serious money, were they inclined to leave and were United minded to sell.
Westwood, Livesey, Hackney, Graham and Garner, to name the five brightest. On 2007 form, add Raven to that list as well. Six players, all 23 or under, not just playing but excelling, becoming authentic performers before our eyes. The stalwarts - Murphy, Lumsdon, Aranalde - are admired for their professionalism and appetite. Bridge-Wilkinson, plucked from relegated Bradford in the summer, has been a gem of a signing. Anyinsah, on loan from Preston, has improved the side further with his youth and vigour.
Talk about these players, whisper excitedly about where they might take Carlisle, but also acknowledge some of the people, past and present, who each take a thick wedge of credit for how things look today: Paul Simpson, for instance, deserves more praise than it seems he will ever receive. Neil McDonald - whatever the faults which forced him from office - unquestionably kept the evolution progressing. Dennis Booth, Billy Barr, Kevin Gray, Greg Abbott, Eric Kinder, David Wilkes, Neil Dalton, Andy Horn - all important cogs, all essential components. And a month in, John Ward’s influence is already diffusing through the whole operation.
No regime is critic-free - and, almost perversely, the questions will grow ever more demanding should United leap into the Championship next May - but today it is also necessary for every Carlisle fan to accept that on Saturday there would have been no stirring fightback, no capacity crowd, and no carnival occasion without Story. No revival and no double promotion, either.
What happens to the current promotion bid is the tale yet to be told. What Story and Ward can conjure in January to improve the campaign further will demand our closest scrutiny. What Carlisle United do from here - top of the table and Leeds put to the sword - will cause fascination and anxiety, wrapped together.
Today, though, is a good day to pause, to give thanks that infamy has long been wiped from the page. And to ring the bells again, for the football club that came back to life.
cumberland-news.co.uk
