“For the first couple of weeks, I was driving home from training thinking, ‘What have I done? What the hell am I doing here?’” says Dan Kirkup, smiling at the instant madness of life as a football manager.
Kirkup, who was on Carlisle United’s professional books before a long career as a non-league defender, is the new manager of Carlisle City: a step into the dugout after five years playing for the Northern League Division One club.
He accepted City’s offer to succeed Jim Nichols, who left Gillford Park this summer after six successful seasons, and while he had always imagined he would be a manager eventually, the first days at the helm were bracing.
“I realised it was a bigger job than I thought,” Kirkup says. “I probably reckoned it was going to be plain sailing. I think my lass has been sick of me, sat there on my phone all day. But maybe that’s just a pre-season thing. I feel a bit more relief now with the season starting.”
City started with a 2-0 victory at Tow Law Town on the opening day then lost 3-1 at Newcastle Benfield, while tonight sees Kirkup’s first FA Cup game in charge, when City go to Whickham in the extra preliminary round: the early stages of the 36-year-old’s managerial baptism.
When Nichols and assistant Alan Inglis left this summer, City’s chairman Brian Hall asked Kirkup to take training – and then offered him the job. “I asked the lads what they thought. They all said, ‘If you take it we'll stay – if you don’t, we might go elsewhere’. So I just went for it.”
City still lost some key players to Gretna 2008 and Kirkup admits he was “scratching around” for numbers – but after recruiting replacements, he says: “I think we're looking a little bit stronger than last year.
“We're trying to play a little bit better brand of football too. I think football's sort of moved on from how we have been playing. It seems more football is being played than the league I remember ten years ago. We're trying to be a more dominant team on the ball.”
Kirkup says the principle of trying to ‘control’ with possession has filtered down the levels. “It's probably the last thing people would expect from me [as a manager], because I was the complete opposite – head, kick, scream, shout. Some of the lads are looking at me thinking, ‘Are you for real?!’”
His grounding in the game was at Carlisle United, whom he joined at 12 having been released by Newcastle United. The year 2000 was in a time of Knighton-era chaos at Brunton Park but Kirkup – a big, dominant defender from Haydon Bridge – was simply a lad with dreams.
“By all accounts, it [the club] was a total mess. But when you’re a young boy, I don’t think you take any of that in. You just go in and train.” Kirkup progressed through the age groups, captained United’s youth team and always looked likely to become a professional.
“I was playing reserve football at 16-year-old. I don't think kids now recognise how good that was – every Wednesday, playing against pros. Simmo always played good, strong reserve teams as well, so you’d be with people like Glenn Murray, Simon Grand, Keiren Westwood.
“My dad still keeps team sheets from back then. You see names who went on and played 600 Football League games. You got beat up a bit, but it was great.”
Kirkup was thrilled when, in January 2005, he made his first team United debut against Morecambe in the Conference Cup, joining fellow 16-year-old Dan Dillon in the side. “I remember being a bag of nerves, but I handled it well. I don’t think I looked out of place.
“Simmo even put me up front for extra-time. I was up against Jim Bentley, a big centre-half, and I remember giving him a bit of a hard time. I was thinking, ‘I'm alright at this’. It went to penalties and I missed mine, but it’s still a real memory. I’ve got pictures from the night and my parents have got the shirt.”
The following season’s run to the quarter-finals of the FA Youth Cup also put Kirkup in the spotlight. “I remember scoring in every single round until the quarters,” he says. “I wouldn’t say we were the greatest youth team but we just kept scratching through. We beat teams like Sheffield United before we went to Liverpool.”
Anfield, under the floodlights in the last eight, was a surreal occasion, Carlisle fans in the Kop cheering on the Blues’ youth team against a home side who included players such as Jack Hobbs, Paul Anderson and Adam Hamill. “That was an unbelievable night,” Kirkup says. “We probably got a little bit star-struck. We got done 6-0 in the end and it could have been a lot more.
“I remember being in an absolute howling huff when I came off the pitch. I think most of the other lads took the occasion in a bit more, but I just went off to the changing room. I suppose I wish I’d stayed out there for a bit. But I had that bad-loser mentality. I was straight down the tunnel.”
Kirkup was awarded a professional contract by Simpson in 2006 and had already relished being part of the first team group in training and on matchdays. “I loved being around the older pros. As a young lad, I was often the traveller in the squad – not making the bench, but making the teas on the bus…the 17th man, sitting in the hotel room hoping someone gets flu so you can get on the bench.
“Some of the younger lads would rather have their weekend than do that, but I was happy to go, and listen in on conversations on the big boys' table….just soak it up.”
Kirkup says United’s older pros were the ideal tutors. “You’d learn so much. They would shut you down if you went a little bit above your station. But Lummy [Chris Lumsdon] is still one of my good mates now. I talk to him pretty much every week. The centre-halves in front of me were Kev Gray, Danny Livesey, Murph [Peter Murphy] and Grandy. You had Westy, Matty Glennon, Karl Hawley, Bridgey [Michael Bridges] came in, Arnie [Paul Arnison]…brilliant characters. I’m not sure you get fellas like that in the game now.
“Being from the north east, I would jump in the car with some of them. I had to bring them a bacon sandwich or something, and they would have your life. It was a case of, ‘Just earn it a little bit’. But I loved it. I think they enjoyed having me around. I don't think I was that much of a nuisance…”
Simpson was “brilliant,” Kirkup says, as was Billy Barr, his first youth team coach. Then there was Simpson’s grizzled assistant, Dennis Booth. “He was a tough cookie. When I was with the YTS, you had to go and get someone to check your jobs so you could go home. He would just put a bit of mud on the floor and say, ‘Go on – do it again’. You’d be there for another hour.
“At the time you’d think, ‘What a ****’ – but I think the harsher he was, the more he wanted you to do well. Same with Billy. If they didn't say anything to you, it was probably because they didn't really care much for you.
“I used to get it right in the neck if I didn't make a cup of tea right. And I’d have to go to buy Dennis' tabs – 20 Benson and Hedges from that shop on Warwick Road, every single morning at nine o'clock.”
Kirkup hoped for first-team graduation but it was difficult bearing in mind defenders such as Gray, Livesey, Murphy and Grand were helping the team to consecutive promotions. “As good as the time was at Carlisle, it was probably a bit difficult on me because the team was flying. They were challenging for too much. If they’d been mid-table in the Conference or League Two, I might have got thrown in. But there was never realistically a time when Simmo was going to play a 17-year-old centre-half.”
After Simpson left for Preston North End, Neil McDonald took charge. “He’s one of the best managers I’ve had,” Kirkup says. “He got me a couple of loan moves, to Southport and Clyde, and he always checked in on me at 5.30pm on a Saturday. There was one day Carlisle had got beaten three or four-nil and I thought, ‘I cannot ring him now’. But the next morning he rang me, going mad for not ringing. He said, ‘Forget about that, son, it’s all about you’.
“I always felt like I was going in the right direction with him. After the first game of the [2007/08 season] at Walsall, he sat me down on the bus and said, ‘Don't go out this weekend. You're playing in the Carling Cup against Bury on Tuesday.’
“He was sacked on the Monday. Greg [Abbott] took over and I never even got on the bench. I’m not saying I would have done this or that. What happened happened. But you’re always thinking, ‘What if I’d got a game there and done well?’”
Kirkup never felt so close to that chance again under McDonald’s successor, John Ward. “They started bringing a couple of lads in who were the same age as me, people like Darren Campion. It was like, ‘They’re coming from Birmingham, they must be better than this kid from Carlisle’. But I thought I was better than them. That was probably the stage where it got annoying.”
Kirkup drifted from the first-team scene and was eventually released. “I knew it was coming. I was prepared for it. It was still hard, because it had felt like home for eight years. And I didn't really have any credit in the bank to go and get another full-time club.”
After playing for Workington Reds, Kirkup received a call from Billy Barr with a message from Jonathan Gould, the ex-Celtic and Preston goalkeeper. He was the manager of Hawke’s Bay United in New Zealand and needed a centre-half.
“I went out there on the Wednesday. I had nothing to stay for. It was the best year-and-a-bit of my life. I was playing for a part-time club, but I was a full-time player. That maybe didn't help, because I was probably doing the wrong things when they were at work. I was a bit bored and going out a little bit, going down the beach when I probably should have been training.
“But I wouldn't change it for the world. Jonathan Gould’s dad, Bobby, was there too. What a bloke he was to be around. Everything he’d done in the game, winning the FA Cup and so on, but so funny, so laid-back, couldn’t do enough to help you.”
Kirkup eventually returned home and reconciled to part-time football. He joined Morpeth Town through another ex-Carlisle team-mate, Jamie McClen, and went to work for a living. He says he never had any qualms about dropping levels.
“I think I was always ready for non-league football, with the size of me, and the way it was played at the time. And in the end, you play football because you love it. Obviously getting a few quid helps, but I would play for nothing. I just love it. Most of that Carlisle youth team aren’t playing any more. Why? I can’t understand that.
“I ended up working in a paper factory, but I would never miss football for a shift. I would always get a swap. I would find time for my football. I would never miss a game.”
Kirkup became a Northern League stalwart, playing for clubs such as Jarrow Roofing and Seaham Red Star. In 2019, after Carlisle City had moved from the North West Counties to the Northern League, Nichols persuaded Kirkup to join. “I’d moved to Haltwhistle by then, and it made sense. I remember my first game, we got beat 5-0. I was thinking, ‘What the hell have I done here?’ But obviously, the rest is history. The last five years have been as good as any I’ve had at a club.”
Under Nichols, City won promotion from Northern League Division Two and the Cumberland Cup in 2022. They have since been solid competitors in Division One, and Kirkup is now challenged to build on this progress.
Will he still get his boots on this season? “I’m signed on, and I’m sure I can do a job for a game or two if needed…but I'm not going to lie, my knees have totally gone,” he says.
“I’ve always dreaded the thought of retiring. It started to get to me when I was injured, thinking, ‘Oh, God, this could be the end’. But since I took the manager’s job, I've actually not missed playing. It’s taken over everything that I was dreading leaving behind.”
Is he already seeing the game differently as a manager? “Yeah. I think I'm a bit of a freak on football. I watch every game, I study teams and how they play. People probably don't think I’m anything like that. I also think I've calmed down a little bit.
“I was brought up in an era where you screamed and shouted at everyone. I was fine with that. Anyone could come and shout at me and I wouldn’t fall out with you. But life’s changed. We’ve got a couple who probably do need a rocket at times, but I think these days, if you did go and shout at someone, they might not come back on the Monday – especially at part-time level.
“So you've got to be careful. It's just about adapting.”
Among Kirkup’s signings is the young Carlisle United defender, Josh O’Brien. He hopes the loan deal can be part of a fruitful relationship with his former club, something Paul Simpson – whose nephew, Josh, captains City – also wants.
“I'm not saying Carlisle United owe anything to us, or we owe anything to them, but I just thought there could have been a better relationship, a better link,” Kirkup says. “I see them playing friendlies at Penrith and Kendal, and they’re getting 1,000 in. We would love that. That would probably give us a better budget. It might even make people want to come and watch us for the rest of the season.
“I would love to get more people down here. For the size of Carlisle, it’s got to be possible. They'll be surprised how much they'll like it for a fiver, get a cheap pint and a cheap burger, and watch football at a decent level.”
Kirkup is at the outset of an interesting new journey, and isn’t setting big managerial goals just yet. “I just want to do the best I can. Whatever is possible in the future, I’ve got to do well here first. I'm learning my trade and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.”
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