Carlisle United’s last win at Gillingham came in 1994, and their last win at Gillingham came in 1999. How so?
Well, put simply, the first of those occasions was against Gillingham, and the second was not.
In ’94, the Blues defeated the Kent club 1-0 on New Year’s Eve. But their most recent victory at Priestfield, just over four years later, came against Brighton & Hove Albion: a 3-1 victory at a time the Seagulls were groundsharing with the Gills.
Both games occurred in seismic Carlisle United seasons, and in either case it still means it’s been a wait of the best part of three decades for the Blues to win at the stadium since.
Here’s a look back at both occasions…
1994
DEAN, MOODY AND MAGNIFICENT!
That was the News & Star’s headline the last time Carlisle picked up an away win over Gillingham.
The fact the goalscoring hero that day is now 55 tells you it’s been a bit of a wait since then.
Dean Walling, in trademark style, was the man to head Carlisle to the points on New Year’s Eve 1994, amid a season of colourful and surging success for Mick Wadsworth’s United.
Come the winter of ’94, Wadsworth and his ‘deckchair army’ were very much on the march. Four days earlier they had beaten promotion rivals Bury at a packed Brunton Park on a day many fans were locked out.
That game took an unbeaten league run to 12 games and, come the trip to Kent, the Blues had lost just once, won 16 times and drawn four.
There was only one problem. The world was about to end.
Well, according to the club’s chaplain it was. The Rev Jim Rushton, vicar of St James’s, Denton Holme, made the front page of the paper with United scarf aloft but with a grim prediction.
“All the signs are there” for the end of the world, he said, suggesting that events in Rwanda, where a bloody civil war was raging, pointed towards the second coming of Christ and the day of judgement.
A bit of a snag, then, for United’s hopes of Division Three glory. “Jim’s a lovely man who does great work for the football club,” responded owner Michael Knighton. “Everyone is entitled to his beliefs.”
Thankfully, the planet was not cursed – and nor was Wadsworth by a second consecutive manager of the month award. The final day of 1994 brought a gutsy United away display in front of 3,682 in which the spring-heeled Walling was the difference.
It took Carlisle some time to get there in front of a good travelling support, the game far from flowing and with United reliant on Tony Elliott, in for the suspended Tony Caig, to make some important saves.
Gillingham made the early running, Elliott saving well from Richard Carpenter, with Richard Prokas also producing a vital clearance.
Carlisle failed in their own first-half forays, Simon Davey volleying over a Jeff Thorpe cross before Elliott was again called upon to deny Chris Pike and Adrian Foster.
Early in the second half there was a bloody collision involving Blues midfielder Paul Conway and the hosts’ Mick Bodley, the former returning after treatment and the latter substituted.
United grew further into the contest and cracked it open by the 69th minute, through an inswinging David Currie corner and Walling’s goalscoring leap.
It proved enough, top scorer David Reeves failing to add a second when clean through and the hosts having a late penalty appeal turned down. The 1-0 win left United 12 points clear at the top of the table, and Wadsworth in praise of his stand-in goalkeeper.
“It just shows the strength and depth of our squad,” he said of Tony Elliott’s performance. “We have a very capable number two who, but for injury and bad luck, might have been the number one.” The keeper on the bench for the Blues at Gillingham was Simon Smith, who would twice go on to be United's goalkeeping coach.
Wadsworth wanted United to “keep grinding out the results” and said talk of having one foot already in the third tier was “a load of rubbish”. Yet the march to the title continued unabated, and Carlisle duly swept to the crown as well as achieving a first-ever Wembley appearance in the Auto-Windscreens Shield, when – again – they wore that famous green, red and white deckchair kit with pride…
Team: Elliott, Edmondson, Gallimore, Walling, Mountfield, Conway, Thorpe (Peters), Currie, Reeves, Davey, Prokas. Not used: Robinson, Smith.
1999
Only four years later, but very different times…both for United, and at Priestfield.
Carlisle, since their previous win there, had achieved two promotions and suffered two relegations. Come 1998/99 they were back in the fourth tier and, by the new year, desperately trying to avoid going down again…and with a new manager at the helm.
Nigel Pearson had been appointed in December, Michael Knighton finally giving up on the unlikely three-man regime that had involved John Halpin, David Wilkes and…himself.
By early January, Pearson had overseen four games without victory…not that they were the only club at that level with issues.
Brighton, their next opponents, were homeless, the debt-ridden club having sold their Goldstone Ground in 1997, Albion by then having narrowly avoided relegation to non-league and now playing temporarily at Gillingham through a groundsharing arrangement.
The Seagulls were more than 70 miles from home and not especially strong performers in the fourth tier, although still not quite with Carlisle’s concerns. They were managed by Brian Horton and their squad included the former United star Rod Thomas - though he wasn't fit for this particular game - along with experienced figures such as Craig Maskell, Stuart Storer, Jeff Minton and Kerry Mayo.
Hope for Carlisle came via certain sources, notably the Nottingham Forest loanee Paul McGregor, who had been a bright performer in the autumn. Then, on a cold day in Kent, they gave Pearson some cheer – and his first win as Blues manager.
They went behind in a scrappy first half to Gary Hart’s header, but Carlisle flourished in the second half, with McGregor pushed into a three-man attack alongside Scott Dobie and Steve Finney.
Dobie got United level, breaking the offside line, rounding keeper Mark Ormerod and finishing coolly.
Carlisle came close amid further attacking waves, McGregor, Dobie, Finney and David Brightwells denied by the ‘hosts’ – and then went in front when Couzens’ pass found Finney, and the striker finding the bottom corner of the net with an unerring low finish from the left.
Even better was to come, as Carlisle – driven on by the combative Richard Prokas in midfield – earned an 80th-minute free-kick, and defender Scott Paterson thundered it into the top corner to make it a 3-1 triumph.
“We have been due some goals,” reflected a delighted Pearson afterwards. “And all three were top drawer.”
Fans left Priestfield to the sound of The Animals’ We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place’ – a sentiment very much shared by Brighton supporters – while Carlisle’s hopes of a relegation escape were boosted by a second win in 11, which took them up to 20th in the table.
“I got a buzz from it. It is very satisfying,” said Pearson, who was soon to be rebuffed in an attempt to sign his former Middlesbrough team-mate Clayton Blackmore, following his maiden win as a manager. “I just want the players to go out and build on it now.”
Which they didn’t, Carlisle stumbling along the same, struggling road until the very final seconds of 1998/99, when a certain goalkeeper was waved forward by Pearson against Plymouth Argyle to shoot his way into football history.
As for Brighton, they vacated Priestfield later that year, moving into the Withdean athletics stadium; their nomadic wanderings a far cry from today’s modern Premier League ventures at the Amex.
For Carlisle, Priestfield hasn’t been any sort of happy hunting ground since then – so emulating the boys of ’94 or ’98 would, it's fair to say, be long overdue come Saturday's 2024'25 opening game.
Team: Caig, Bowman, Clark, Whitehead, Brightwell, Paterson, Prokas, Couzens, McGregor, Dobie, Finney. Not used: Stevens, Searle, Anthony.
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