Paul Huntington opens up on his Carlisle United release

“It just hasn’t been the case. And I don’t think the club needs any more bad publicity.”

Huntington is measured about the end of his two years at Brunton Park: disappointed, clearly, but long enough in the tooth to roll with the punch. With his young family, the 36-year-old is taking a long summer holiday before considering what his next move might be.

Driving around America will give him plenty of time to reflect, and naturally he will prefer to think of the good times at United rather than the frustrating 2023/24 season just completed. The campaign before, he captained his home-city club to promotion at Wembley.

“I’ve tried to look for that side of things in the many messages I’ve had,” he says. “I’ve been in the game a long time and am used to most things, but when my wife put a post up on social media the other day, it made me a bit teary.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the messages have been positive. You get the odd one saying, ‘Your legs have gone, right decision’…it still hurts, but you take it with a pinch of salt.”

Huntington attracts much more respect than that from the majority, while at the start of our interview he is keen to stress that he was not embroiled in any major dispute with Paul Simpson over his more sporadic appearances last season. As much as he was disappointed not to play more, he says he respects Simpson “as a manager and as a guy”, and says much of the speculation that has circulated is simply wrong.

“Nothing has gone on [in terms of a fall-out],” he adds. “It’s a football decision. We move on. It’s easy when things haven’t gone to plan, and people claim to know everything...it doesn’t help.

“Everybody at Carlisle needs to be on the same page next season and pulling together, not blaming certain people, whether it’s players, staff, budget, whatever. It’s easy to point fingers but it’s about correcting it now.”

Huntington, after joining United a few weeks into the 2022/23 season, brought his experience and defensive stature to an aspiring Carlisle team which famously rose to promotion through the play-offs on that blissful day against Stockport County last May. League One was then hugely challenging and Simpson relied less on Huntington in his struggling defence.

One theory some fans entertained was the idea that an appearances clause was behind Huntington’s non-selection. Simpson has denied that this was an issue and the defender says he took this assurance at face value.

Huntington says he has not hard feelings to Paul Simpson, left, over his release (Image: Ben Holmes)

“Don’t get me wrong – we had conversations around the end of January, when I maybe needed ten out of the 20 games that were left [to trigger another year]," he says. "I spoke to the manager and he said that wasn’t an issue for him, so I just took that for what it was and cracked on.

“I’m not one for knocking on the manager’s door all the time. If you’re not in the team, it’s about getting your head down and working harder in training. I said to him that I’d love to stay and be part of it, and I didn’t want my spell at my home-town club to end as this season has.

“I ended a couple [of appearances] short. That’s football. He [Simpson] did make it clear to me that he didn’t maybe see next season how much I would play. Which you accept, even if you don’t agree.

“I respect his decision, respect him as a guy. We’d already spoken the week before the end of the season and I took from that 20-minute chat that I wasn’t going to be offered something. So our one-to-one [last Monday] was only a couple of minutes. He said he was going in a different direction, looking to the future and there would be big changes.

“I accepted that. He did say, ‘You’ve been great for me’, especially last [2022/23] season. Personally, I feel when I’ve played this year I’ve done ok. I’ve tried to use my experience to help the other lads as much has possible, and I can look myself in the mirror.

“When it’s discussed about whether everyone was on board and giving everything, I can say I was. So there’s no ill feeling. I’m sure our paths will cross again.”

That question of everyone being “on board” is a crucial one given what Simpson has said about there being elements of a bad “atmosphere” in the dressing room during United’s futile fight to stay in League One. The manager said some players acted as though they knew they’d soon be leaving. He has also remarked on “snidey comments” made by some towards those who’d try to do things with maximum professionalism.

The former captain’s perspective on this is that Carlisle were short in the department of character as a result of some departures following their promotion, and with the difficult recruitment position they then found themselves in.

“I think it's easy to say with hindsight, but in terms of the players that we lost last year, I think about this in terms of Morgan Feeney, Tobi Sho-Silva, Jamie Devitt, Kristian Dennis, even Mick Kelly,” Huntington says.

“It’s not just the players that they were, it was the characters and the personalities and the good people in the dressing room that they were. And I don't think we replaced that.

“I think [that highlights the need to] do those background checks – what are they like as a person? Are they a good team member? When they're not playing, are they wanting the best for the team? Are they behind the team?

“It's funny to say, because it's a team game, but a lot of footballers are quite selfish if they're not playing. Especially if they're younger players, their reaction can be not very mature in their way of thinking. It can be to sulk and not want the team to do well.

“I don’t think we had that last year. The likes of Tobi, Jamie and Mick hardly played, but they were a real positive influence around the place.”

Huntington was proud to captain Carlisle to glory at Wembley in 2023 (Image: Richard Parkes)

This does, it must be said, chime with what Simpson has said about some of the questionable motivations in his squad in 2023/24. Huntington believes the reasons for United’s struggles are varied but this aspect appears prominent.

“It was a scramble getting players in and, because of the budget, we had to get untried loans and the loans haven't worked out, if we're being honest,” he added. “As a lot of the signings haven't.

“But I think it's important that you get the right characters in terms of: are they a team player, are they just out for themselves? If they find themselves out of the team, are they giving their best in training? Is their attitude and application right? Is the way that they conduct themselves away from the pitch right? Are they giving themselves the best chance of performing on a Saturday?

“I'm not sure everyone was. I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned for this summer.”

United, Huntington felt, suffered for their lack of experience at times. By the stage the season had unravelled, certain things were stark.

“At the start, we drew too many when we should have won, and we lost a lot of games 1-0, which you can put down to fine margins – but it was always an error or a big miss of a chance, then letting in a rubbish goal, then confidence was drained.

“It was quite a young group dealing with that. I remember warming up before the Wycombe game [late in the season], and Sam Vokes, who I’d played with and against plenty, and David Wheeler came up to me and were like, ‘You are so old, mate’…

“They had a list of our squad in the changing room, and they said I was the oldest, and next was Georgie Kelly at 27.

“I know there were a few young ones on the bench because of injuries and stuff, but I think, at the same time, you need some more leaders, more characters, more personality.”

Huntington says he relished the “balance” United had in defence in 2022/23 when the younger and more athletic pair of Feeney and Jon Mellish were the mainstays either side of him, “and I’d mop up, head, defend and organise…it worked quite well.”

Carlisle’s clean sheet tally was enviable en route to promotion, but that sort of solidity collapsed at the higher level. “The manager himself said we weren’t the best team in League Two by a long stretch, but we had a real desire and hunger to give it everything we had for 95-100 minutes. We had a real togetherness and left it all out there,” Huntington says.

Huntington was used more sparingly by Simpson in 2023/24 (Image: Richard Parkes)

“I’m not saying we haven’t had that this year…it’s just seemed different. A lot haven't played League One, if you look across the squad. A lot didn't have the experience to lean on.

“It’s been a tough watch, and demoralising at times, but we have to look forward now. That season’s history, and the players that are going to be staying have got a job to do to turn it around – because we need to get that buzz back that we’d built up, because it's obviously been damaged.”

Undamaged, at least, will be the memories of the season before, and Huntington will not forget how it felt to captain Carlisle in such memorable times.

“I’ll always be grateful of the opportunity that he [Simpson] gave me to sign for my home-town club,” he says. “Being honest, when we were talking it took a bit of persuading. I was thinking, ‘Is it too close to home? Is the team going to be capable of doing well?’ And at the time I wasn't really wanting to go to League Two. I'd always played League One or higher.

“But then the longer I spent at home with my family and my young daughter, and having spoken to the manager and Greg [Abbott, head of recruitment], it just made sense.

“And last year it was the best decision I could have made and I'll always remember that season and that day at Wembley that we shared together. I think it'll go down in history. It's just a shame that it hasn't worked out this season.”

Huntington will now watch United from near or far, depending on his next move, and with affection and hope that the potential unlocked by the Piatak takeover can help the club flourish. He believes Carlisle should be able to establish itself in League One in the long run, and then look to grow.

“It shouldn’t be a yo-yo club,” he says. “When I used to go and watch with my dad in the 1990s, with Reevesy [David Reeves] and Deano [Walling] and Rod Thomas, we’d always go up and then back down again. Now, especially with the new ownership, in time you’d like to hope it will be in a better place.

“Having met the owners and sat down [with them] a few times at the club, I think they're quite new to it in terms of football experience, but they seem really driven, positive people.

“So, hopefully the club is in good hands and it sounds like everything is going to improve, which the club has needed for a very long time. I genuinely wish them all the best.”

Huntington has said as many goodbyes as he was able to, although says he is not “pestering” team-mates whose futures may be up in the air, however many people, he says, have tried to elicit information from him about who has been told they could leave United.

He wishes them all well. “I’ve left the group chat, after putting a long message in there,” he says. “But I’m still in our play-off group chat. There’s a lot of crack in there and everyone’s thinking of meeting up over the summer.

“It was a special group. The sort of people you’d want in the trenches with you.”

Tomorrow: Paul Huntington on his plans for the future after leaving Carlisle United.