Carlisle United: Countdown to Jimmy Glass miracle part one

You are fighting for your Football League survival. You sell your recognised first-team goalkeeper on transfer deadline day for £5,000. And then, with 18 games left of the season, his replacement departs as well.

To say Carlisle United were walking into crisis come the closing weeks of 1998/99 would be a slight understatement.

This was the predicament, with less than three weeks to go: Tony Caig, star and stalwart of the 1990s ups and downs, had left for Blackpool in a controversially cheap deal. Richard Knight, a young loanee from Derby County, deputised. Until…

KNIGHT’S OFF BACK TO DERBY

By Anthony Ferguson

Carlisle United goalkeeper Richard Knight has been recalled by Derby County.

The Rams need Knight back because regular keeper Russell Hoult has been banned for three matches and reserve Mart Poom is struggling with a groin strain.

Carlisle were this morning working to find a replacement keeper for the final three games of the season.

A Derby appeal over Hoult’s suspension was thrown out by the Football Association yesterday and Knight could face Southampton this weekend.

The Rams had hoped the serious foul play charge for the clattering challenge on Nottingham Forest’s Alan Rogers would be reduced to a professional foul, which would carry only a one-match ban.

Nice one then, lads. 270 minutes to try and remain a Football League club. Three points above the relegation place but having played two games more than bottom-dwellers Scarborough.

The Derby loanee's recall put United in a pickle... (Image: News & Star)

And…no goalkeeper. United could not call on their reserve keeper Paul Heritage, who was struggling with a stress fracture of his back.

There were youth goalkeepers on the books, but no senior gloveman. The Football League’s transfer deadline had passed, but it was expected that United would be allowed to bring in emergency cover for their remaining games against Darlington, Hartlepool United and Plymouth Argyle.

It was a tortuous struggle with three critical afternoons ahead. The Hartlepool trip promised a strong away following, with 400 more tickets made available, increasing United’s allocation to 1,139.

Neither side was out of the woods given Hartlepool’s position one place above United having played one game fewer, with two extra points to their name. The looming clash with the Monkey Hangers had extra spice because of the presence of a certain Peter Beardsley in the Pools ranks.

He had been the subject of much-publicised but unsuccessful talks over a possible return to Carlisle, where Nigel Pearson was now in charge after Michael Knighton’s three-man managerial team of himself, John Halpin and David Wilkes had been shelved in December.

Knighton, having met Beardsley, claimed the legend had refused to make a decision over a player-coach offer. The man himself went on to tell a national newspaper: “I could well have been playing for Carlisle now and I am convinced they would be out of trouble if I had been.

“I was very close to going there but Michael Knighton got cold feet and never had the bottle to tell me – he got someone else to do it.”

The bottom of Division Three looked ominous for Carlisle with three games to go (Image: News & Star)

Knighton’s stance was different, that it was Beardsley who could not commit. Either way, it had proved an exasperating position bearing in mind United had announced in the club shop and matchday programme that the former England star was poised to join.

In the event, he ended the season at Hartlepool. While Carlisle, in their fourth-last game which proved Knight's swansong, were getting a 3-1 beating by Rotherham United, Beardsley was helping Hartlepool defeat Scarborough 3-0.

Things were growing ominous, then, before Darlington’s visit. But first – the Blues needed a keeper. And quickly.