Carlisle United, Notts County and goal that went viral

He did, though, have a more recent reference point. “I’d seen Thierry Henry do a similar version,” he said. “The goalkeeper threw it to kick it out of his hands and Henry just nicked it in front of him.

“That one actually got disallowed. But that’s where I got the idea.”

Hope was referring to a moment between Arsenal and Blackburn Rovers in 2004 as the inspiration for his own entry in this niche category. It came 15 years later, in the most recent meeting of Carlisle United and Notts County at Brunton Park.

When the sides face off in another midweek encounter this evening, it is probably unlikely that we’ll see something as ingenious or audacious as what Hope did in the fixture five years ago.

It was a slow-burning, prolonged, frankly comical act of prowling deceit, footage of which went viral and which should, by rights, have been set to suspenseful music or David Attenborough’s narration.

It happened on a foul and filthy Tuesday night, as Carlisle were struggling to sustain a promotion push under Steven Pressley, who had replaced John Sheridan mid-season. Carlisle were 2-0 down when Hope plotted his ambush.

“I’d actually tried it a few times in previous games,” he said. “I always thought, when I made runs into the box as a striker, that there might be times when the ’keeper claims the ball and doesn’t turn around and check and I’m behind him. Sometimes they look over their shoulders, but, if they don’t, there’s a good chance provided you can stay out of the view of other players, too.”

That Hope avoided detection was one of the most ludicrous aspects of the episode, given there were 11 opposition players on the pitch, seven more on the bench with management and coaching staff, and 151 travelling County supporters in the section of Brunton Park’s Pioneer Stand that directly overlooks the penalty area at the Waterworks End.

As he hid in plain sight, some of the vilest weather experienced at Carlisle’s ground was in Hope’s favour. The distracting effect of crashing wind and sweeping rain was undeniable as Storm Gareth raged, United two down to Kane Hemmings’ Notts County brace.

The visitors were bottom of League Two, so this was developing into a rotten night. By the 76th minute Carlisle had come up with nothing to suggest that they could arrest the situation.

More often than not Hope was at his best for Carlisle when attacking from the left, and from this approximate angle he arrived in County’s penalty area as their goalkeeper Ryan Schofield, who was on loan from Huddersfield Town, collected the ball.

As Schofield dwelt and moved forward in his penalty area, Hope remained on the goal-line, creeping from left to right between the posts with soft-footed stealth, for a good 15 seconds.

“I was hiding for a while, wasn’t I?  The main thing was to keep out of the keeper’s eyeline and try to get the best angle to run at the ball when he rolled it out. I wanted to be directly behind him, so he wouldn’t see me coming from the side.”

Given the lingering nature of his wait, how on earth did Schofield know nothing of his presence? “I think the conditions helped,” Hope said. “They were some of the worst I’ve ever played in.

“The keeper just pushed the defenders up and I don’t think some of them saw me either. Maybe the one or two who did just assumed that the keeper knew I was there. There was probably a bit of bad communication between them.”

The other pieces required to complete the elaborate puzzle were on United’s side. Hope had to ensure that nobody in a blue shirt inadvertently sabotaged the scheme. “The reason why the keeper took so long to put the ball down was because Connor Simpson, our other striker, was trying to stay up to make him kick the ball out of his hands.

“I was trying to tell him to go away, to give him the space to put it on the floor. Eventually Connor saw what I was doing and went back. The keeper put it down…and then my eyes lit up.”

This is the point on the film when the music would change from slow and soft to crashing cymbals and blazing brass. As Schofield places the ball, Hope sprints 20 yards back from the goalline and intercepts it. He then turns to the side of the stupefied goalkeeper and sends the ball low into the net.

Hope, far right, turns the ball past the stunned Notts keeper (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Hope’s slow-quick ambush rendered any belated warnings futile. The shouts from the away supporters were too late for Schofield. “I think he was just so shocked,” Hope said. “He didn’t say anything. He just didn’t have a clue I was there.”

Given the game situation, it was not something in which Hope could immediately bask. Many of the 3,514 crowd, not to mention United’s other players, may have realised they had seen something remarkable, but the reality of Carlisle’s otherwise desolate night remained. Lewis Alessandra, the future Blues striker, scored a breakaway third to seal a 3-1 away win.

After the game Hope returned to the club house that he shared with teammates such as Kelvin Etuhu and Mike Jones. It was here that he began to appreciate the goal’s curiosity value.

“Everyone was disappointed to lose the game, but a few hours later we had a bit of a laugh and joke about the goal. The lads said they couldn’t believe it came off.”

These were the basic beginnings to its extraordinary new life. It was the first season in which Football League clubs were able to stream midweek games to a paying, online audience via the iFollow service. One supporter, Matthew Hill, had watched the Notts County match this way and uploaded a clip of Hope’s goal to Twitter. “Yep, this actually just happened at Brunton Park,” ran his accompanying words.

The footage of Hope’s pickpocketing moment was seen by more than two million people and Hope became aware of its unstoppable nature “when my phone started vibrating every two minutes.”

He added: “I got quite a lot of messages on Twitter and, when I watched the video back the next day, it had double the amount of views. Friends were sending me messages, family and friends in Barbados had seen it, it was on some Instagram pages that had football goals from all over the world and had more than five million followers.

“It was on Soccer AM. It was even on the news. I think the strangest thing was when someone sent me a clip of Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain talking about it. He said that I was like an animal stalking its prey on a National Geographic programme. I honestly didn’t think it would get as much notice as it did. It was quite something, wasn’t it?”

Hope left Carlisle a year later, joining Swindon Town, and a few games later tried to repeat his famous feat. “It was against Forest Green at home,” he said. “We were getting beaten and the fans were loud. The ‘keeper came out, caught the ball, got all the defenders up the field and took his time.

“It seems to have a better chance later on, when a game’s a bit more open, and this was about the 80th minute. I thought it was going to work again. I was a few metres behind him. But as he was about to roll it, one of the defenders shouted really loudly and he turned around at the last minute and saw me.”

Only at Brunton Park, then, had Hope’s devious thinking delivered the ultimate outcome. It is a quirky goal that seems destined to follow him for the rest of his days, but he feels we could see something similar, somewhere, again in the fullness of time.

“You might not see it a lot,” said Hope, who now plays for Morecambe, “but ’keepers have a tendency to be daft sometimes. If you get the right moment, I do think it will happen again.”

Adapted from Bolts from the Blues: Iconic goals in the history of Carlisle United – in the words of the men who scored them by Jon Colman. Paperback version now available priced £12.99, all author’s royalties go to the North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust.