Carlisle United’s chief executive has revealed how the Blues struggled to insure Brunton Park in the wake of Storm Desmond’s floods.

Nigel Clibbens said insurance premiums went “through the roof” after the stadium was devastated in 2015.

The director said the EFL ultimately helped United gain some cover.

But he said their insurance since the flooding is “nowhere near” the level they would like it to be.

Clibbens was speaking to the BBC in a special programme about the effects of climate change on sport.

He was interviewed by presenter Steve Crossman about the time United’s ground was under several feet of water in December 2015.

Clibbens, who joined the club several months after the flooding, said: “We were fully insured as a club and didn’t lose anything financially – but then we started to feel the ramifications afterwards.

“The year after, when we went to get insurance again, it was almost impossible.

“You’re faced with the risk that’s there, real and we’d experience it, and then we were facing the possibility of a real insurance issue.

“The EFL stepped in and were able to support us to get some insurance, but the premiums go through the roof.

“Like any kind of policy, there is always an excess before you can receive anything, and our excess shot up.

“So we’ve got an uninsured risk at the bottom, and then found there was a cap, a limit on what we’d be able to claim.

“Six years on we have got insurance but nowhere near where we’d like it to be.

“So we have to be really cautious and alert to the risks have. When we get warnings, we’ve had instances where it has been all hands to the pump, a case of removing everything from the ground floor where we can and move it up a floor.”

United, as part of their rebuild after Storm Desmond, moved many of their offices to a first floor area of a refurbished East Stand, having previously been based at ground floor in the Main Stand when the floods wiped out areas on that level.

Clibbens described the impact of Storm Desmond as “absolutely catastrophic” and said that, while flood defences near the ground have been increased in the last year, there is always anxiety at this time of year about whether they will be enough should flooding strike again.

The full BBC show can be heard HERE