Proud Carlisle City boss Jim Nichols has spoken of the dramatic moment his players learned they were champions.

The Gillford Park club are celebrating winning the Northern League Division Two title after a memorable last day of the season.

City’s 3-0 win over Ryton and Crawcrook Albion left them with an anxious wait for the outcome of rivals Heaton Stannington’s game against Easington Colliery.

That game, which finished about seven minutes after City’s, ended 2-2, meaning the Carlisle club finished top on goal difference.

Manager Nichols said: “We were in the centre circle after our game finished – a couple of lads went and got their phones, and were just refreshing Twitter to see what the scores were.

“We made it a deliberate thing not to check the scores whilst our game was going on.

“There were people whispering things around us trying to tell us stuff, but we knew what we had to do and if we didn’t, and it wasn’t good enough, so be it.

“We knew we had to win and that was all we concentrated on. Fortunately results went our way elsewhere.

“The lads deserve it. They’ve had a tough couple of seasons when they’ve been in great positions, and we’ll enjoy this.

“We’ve had a tough run-in, a tough week and we’ve come out with two trophies [including the Cumberland Cup] so we couldn’t ask for any more.”

City’s historic title win capped a high-scoring season, with goals from Jordan Palmer, Jordan Irving and Arran Bradbury sealing their crucial last-day victory.

Heaton Stannington, trailing 2-0 at Easington, set up a nervy finish with two late goals, but couldn’t get the third which would have denied City the title.

Nichols’ side have surged up the table in recent weeks with an impressive winning run as they chalked off games in hand.

A 4-0 win at Esh Winning on Thursday kept them in the title hunt ahead of Saturday's dramatic finale.

The manager added: “The first 15-20 minutes were really nervy. We’ve got a lot of young lads who’ve not been involved in these sort of games before, and we struggled to get a foothold on the game.

“But the goal from Jordan Palmer really settled us down. After that it was probably quite an even contest but we took our chances and they didn’t.

“I’m really, really proud of the lads. It’s been a long season, a long three years in fact, because we’ve been in this position twice before and not got our rewards.

“I’ve just been informed the club has never won a league title before. We’ve been at this level of football for five years and we’ve won a league and cup double, which doesn’t happen very often.

“We’ve got ourselves into a really good and competitive league for next year, which brings different things like qualification for the FA Cup for the first time.

“It’s massive for the football club. You want to progress and do well, we’ve done that and it's probably as proud as I’ve ever been in football.

“On a personal note, I’ve been in senior football for 20 years nearly, and have won nothing – been in about nine finals, lost three play-offs…football wise it’s probably one of my better weeks.

“I think we deserve what we’ve got. It’s been an unbelievable run to the end of the season, we’ve won ten in a row in all competitions.

“Lads with full-time jobs playing three or four games a week continuously – and that’s credit to them. It's a massive achievement.

“I’m sure it will dawn on me in a couple of days. I’ve been in charge for three years and we took over a team that had one win in 13 games and were in freefall really.

“We made a promise to ourselves we’d try and change it, bring in different players and try and refresh the club. I think we’ve done that.”

City must wait to receive the title trophy, with the Northern League having sent the silverware to Easington in the event of Heaton – leaders on Saturday morning – winning the championship.

Arrangements will now be made for a presentation to the Cumbrians.

READ MORE: Carlisle City win the Northern League Division Two title on dramatic final day of the season