Paul Simpson said match-saving defender Paul Huntington's commitment to Carlisle United could not be clearer.
And the Blues manager said the infamous Leeds incident of 2008 should now be left well and truly in the past.
Huntington was saluted by Carlisle fans after his header earned a 3-3 draw against Rochdale.
It was the experienced Carlisle-born defender’s first league goal since 2017.
And Simpson said Huntington’s devotion to the cause was all that mattered – not the past.
“We all do things in the past that are heat of the moment things. You just have to live by it,” Simpson said.
“He was representing a really big football club however many years ago [in the incident when Huntington gestured to Carlisle fans in Leeds’ 3-2 win in April 2008] - it’s donkey’s years. It’s irrelevant now.
“He’s shown his commitment to this club, shown his desire to want to come here, play, move things forward and I have been absolutely delighted with him in terms of his professionalism, his leadership, his performances…and it’s brilliant that he goes and gets a goal.
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“I think he could get quite a few for us, because he’s brilliant at reading the flight of the ball from set plays.
“We’ve got people like Owen Moxon, Jordan Gibson, Callum Guy and Jamie Devitt who can put balls in the areas for people like him to attack.
“We now need to get more players wanting to go and score, to have that desire to go and score. If they do that we’ll get more and more goals.”
Huntington’s goal for the Blues was the summer signing’s first in the Football League since a strike for Preston North End against Nottingham Forest on December 23, 2017.
It was his first in competitive football since a Carabao Cup effort for Preston against Hull City on August 27, 2019.
His goal came after strikes by Jon Mellish and Kristian Dennis as Carlisle twice came from behind to earn a point against Jim Bentley’s Dale.
Mellish fired home an impressive finish in the first half for his second in successive league games.
“It’s just having that knack of scoring, and he has got that,” Simpson said.
“I’m told he had a season where he got a bagful of goals [Mellish scored 16 in 2020/21]. That’s two now. Hopefully he’ll get another bagful this season.”
Dennis, meanwhile, got his sixth in seven games as he kept up his impressive start to the campaign
“He is a natural scorer, just like [Rochdale] will talk about [Scott] Quigley and [Ian] Henderson being the same,” Carlisle’s boss said.
“That’s what Denno does for us and we have to get our other forward players doing the same to help him out a bit.
“They need to realise the importance of getting goals and if we can just get them convinced about that then we’ll be pushing on with it.”
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