Heroes & Villains – Carlisle United
Hero – Jimmy Glass
Jimmy Glass made a name for himself on Saturday 8th May 1999. He joined Carlisle on loan from Swindon Town on an emergency loan deal after Carlisle suffered a goalkeeping crisis towards the end of the 1998/99 season.
It was the worst time possible for such a crisis as Carlisle and Scarborough were battling to stay up in the Football League. In those days, only one team were relegated into the Conference.
It went down to the final game of the season to decide who would drop down to non-league and who would stay in the Third Division.
Scarborough were at home to Peterborough United who ended the season in 9th place. Carlisle were at home to Plymouth Argyle.
Scarborough did well to draw their game 1-1 with Peterborough. As the final whistle went at Scarborough, there was still a few minutes to play at Brunton Park. Several Scarborough fans had made their way onto the pitch at the McCain Stadium. They were celebrating because the score was 1-1 in the Carlisle game.
What happened next went down in Carlisle folklore and made Jimmy Glass a household name.
The Fourth Official had indicated four minutes of injury time were to be played. In the final seconds Carlisle won a corner, Glass ran forward and took up a place in the Plymouth penalty area.The corner was whipped in from the right, a header at the near post was pushed out by the Plymouth goalkeeper and the ball fell at Glass’s feet.
The goalkeeper hit a powerful volley straight back at goal and it went past the goalkeeper and both Plymouth defenders on the line. Cue bedlam as a massive pitch invasion happened. Many fans jumped on top of Glass and his team mates who were on the floor celebrating.
Glass had preserved Carlisle United’s proud record of 70 years of League football. Carlisle stayed up by a single point at the expense of Scarborough who would never return to the Football League and folded in 2007.
The club were relegated to the Conference though five years later. Carlisle made a swift return to the Football League, gaining promotion via the play-offs at the first attempt.
Villain – Michael Knighton
Knighton tried to buy Manchester United and he was presented to the United fans at Old Trafford before a game against Arsenal in 1989. He even juggled a ball on the pitch as a publicity stunt in front of the crowd but the deal never materialised.
After the Manchester United deal fell through, Knighton turned his attention to Carlisle United. He bought the club in May 1992 and unveiled his vision of taking the club to the top-flight of English football. This was quite a claim as Carlisle were in the fourth tier at the time!
Knighton oversaw the building of a huge stand down one side of the pitch at Brunton Park. It dwarfed the other three stands at the stadium and was the first stage of his plans to build a new stadium. Having sat in the stand before, it is noticeable how it overlaps the terraces at both ends, making the stand look out of kilter.
The club were initially quite successful with Knighton as Chairman, with the club winning the Third Division title and reaching the Football League Trophy Final in 1995, losing to Birmingham City. They won the Football League Trophy two years later, beating Colchester United on penalties.
Knighton soon became unpopular with the Carlisle fans soon after. He fired popular manager Mervyn Day a few months into the following season and decided to become the manager himself.
He stayed in charge of the first team for a year until Nigel Pearson took over. The club stayed up on the last day of the 1998/99 season.
An independent supporter’s trust was formed in protest against Knighton’s running of the club. Two takeover attempts didn’t work out until finally Knighton’s shares were sold in 2002.
The former owner didn’t return to the town from when he sold the club until late last year.
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