Part two of our weekly 50th anniversary series charting the events of Carlisle United’s 1974/75 top-flight season.
If Carlisle United wanted a realistic taste of the level and excitement of top-flight football, it certainly came in their second Texaco Cup game as the countdown to the new First Division season ticked on.
It brought Newcastle United to Brunton Park, an occasion accompanied by a 13,560 crowd, four goals and some consummate football on both sides.
A big crowd, perhaps inevitably, also brought a degree of bother given that eight fans, including five from Carlisle, were arrested at the game on public order or theft charges while another 12 were removed from the ground. “Now that Carlisle are in the First Division, we are taking First Division measures for crowd control,” a police spokesman said.
There were some 60 officers inside the ground, a significant increase on the norm, with two watching with binoculars from a new booth in a floodlight pylon at the Warwick Road End.
Those looking on from a more orthodox vantage point in Brunton Park were rewarded for focusing on events on the grass. Initially, Newcastle were dominant, the visitors controlling things for the first 45 minutes with their midfield, staffed by Terry McDermott and the future Workington Reds manager Tommy Cassidy, setting a superior standard.
The opening goal went their way on 34 minutes when Micky Burns finished from close range, and it seemed an appropriate reflection on Newcastle’s class. Yet Carlisle turned things around with real gusto in the second half and subjected the Magpies to a recurring wave of attacks.
Joe Laidlaw and Chris Balderstone both came close to an equaliser yet the introduction of Mike Barry, who had returned from a long and frustrating period of injury, raised United further. The midfielder showed immediate invention and further pressure duly led to the leveller: driven home by Barry after an enterprising John Gorman run.
Carlisle went for the winner, with Hugh McIlmoyle once more leading the line with authority, and they thought they’d got it when Laidlaw hooked the ball superbly past awestruck defenders and keeper Ian McFaul with four minutes to go.
Yet two minutes later they were pegged back when Burns headed home for Newcastle to make it 2-2. That’s how it remained, a breathless pre-season cup encounter fought hard right to the last. It came with certain bruises, the impressive McIlmoyle on the treatment table after some rough challenges, though there was good news in that fellow line-leader Frank Clarke was finally back in training after a knock.
The Cumbrians were left with a decider against Sunderland in order to progress further in the Texaco Cup. All in all, there was clear optimism in the ranks, keeper Allan Ross confident enough to write in his regular Evening News & Star column: “With performances such as this, how can we fail to do well in the forthcoming season?”
As for their record summer signing, the £52,000 defender Bobby Parker was struck by the passion and intensity of the north west versus north east contests which were whetting the appetite for the season proper. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he said. “The games we have played so far have been really ideal preparation for the season.”
In the event, United’s Texaco Cup campaign had run its race. At Brunton Park, they drew 0-0 with Bob Stokoe’s Sunderland, and that was not quite enough for progress given that Newcastle’s 4-0 win over Middlesbrough took them to the quarter-finals on bonus points, that outcome also costing the Blues £2,000 in prize money.
Carlisle had certainly been more sterile against the men from Roker Park. “Certainly [they] will need to play with a lot more penetration and drive to do well as a First Division side,” our match report concluded.
Their yearning to call themselves a First Division outfit would be fulfilled the following week. The top-flight opener against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge was looming ever larger in their sights, and from here, for manager Alan Ashman it was a case of guiding his squad safely through the closing stages of pre-season and shaping them up for their momentous season to come.
With less than a week to go, Ashman gave his players a day of relaxation. Three of his ranks – McIlmoyle, Parker and Ray Train – volunteered for some extra training, but the rest of the squad ventured to Hexham for a round of golf, where they were again taking on Newcastle.
Once back from the fairways, 1974/75 would be soon at hand. “Few experts rate their chances of staying up highly,” wrote our correspondent Ross Brewster,” but Carlisle are quietly optimistic that they have the ability and determination to knock a few big club egos…”
Click HERE to read last week's 1974/75 feature
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