A struggling Carlisle United team bound for the foot of the table, and picked off in the FA Cup first round by Wigan Athletic…one hopes that not all the parallels appear this weekend, some 90 years since a highly infamous meeting of these clubs in the famous competition.
Nine decades ago the Latics came to Cumbria and inflicted a result which retains a notorious place in United’s history, and is also still a significant mark on the competition in general.
While this Saturday sees Wigan as League One visitors from a division above the Blues, 1934 saw them as relative minnows. Wigan Athletic were playing in the Cheshire County League, the club having only formed two years previously, after the demise of Wigan Borough.
By contrast, Carlisle were embarking on a seventh season as a Football League club. The Blues’ early adventures in Division Three North were pioneering for the Brunton Park team even if, by 1934, a period of struggle was beginning to set in.
Carlisle could no longer, after all, call on players such as Jimmy McConnell, whose rapacious goalscoring from 1928 to 1932 would make him the club’s all-time record marksmen. United began 1934/35 in modest shape yet the FA Cup first round draw was greeted with measured confidence.
“Carlisle should win this tie, but they will have no easy task,” opined the Cumberland Evening News correspondent. It was noted that Wigan were unbeaten in the Cheshire League with seven wins, two draws, 18 goals scored and five conceded.
They had progressed to the first round proper by defeating Northwich Victoria – and Carlisle had recent history of coming unstuck against non-league opposition, having been turfed out of the Cup by Cheltenham Town the season before.
The competition was highly prestigious and captured the local mood in spite of competing attractions and news bulletins. The headlines in November 1934 included, for instance, warnings in Parliament from the Epping MP Winston Churchill about the looming threat of Nazi Germany and the need for increased defence spending; while in Carlisle the Lonsdale cinema offered the delights of ‘My Song For You’ starring Jan Kiepura; a new Citroen Super Modern Twelve was available for £250 from Lightfoot’s Garage on Lowther Street; and John Watt & Son were offering their time-honoured beverages “fresh from the roaster every day” on Bank Street.
Yet 6,892 made their way to Brunton Park for the Cup tie on November 24, the majority anticipating success against the “lads fra’ Wigan,” as our pages described the opponents – but swiftly being sent into a demoralised state by the vibrant non-league visitors.
There was further intrigue in the away side given the presence of two former United players, the forwards Teddy Felton and Sammy Armes, while Carlisle’s own line-leading relied on the scoring strength of Bill Slinger. On a cold November day, the teams arrived onto the pitch to the strains of ‘John Peel’ and some supporters were still taking their places as the game got under way.
Carlisle, in the league, had made a struggling start, with just four wins and nine defeats, and the winning habit was elusive enough to make the game an immediately awkward one...and soon a desolate one. John Stevenson made the first attack for the hosts, and United might have scored early on when John Ranson appeared to bundle the visiting keeper over the line, but a goal was not awarded.
The first steps in an alarming result were then taken as Wigan went into the lead. As if to prove that nothing is as certain as a former player returning to haunt Carlisle even in far-off times, it was Armes with the opening goal, his fourth-minute shot striking goalkeeper George Wolf, the crossbar and eventually the net.
United struggled to impose themselves on Wigan in response, Wolf called to make saves and Robert Elliott unable to score from a tight Carlisle angle. The visitors then doubled their lead on 19 minutes through the dangerous Jack Roberts, who powered away from the home defence to slot past Wolf.
It did not help that, when occasional chances then came the home side’s way, they struggled badly to take them. Ranson missed the ball entirely when a cross came his way in front of an open goal, and Wigan went on to take further advantage of a home defence which remained in a muddle.
The third goal was accepted by George Scott, who left United for dead when cutting in from the left wing, and a fourth soon followed via Roberts. Soon before half-time a fifth was dispatched by Norman Robson and the interval came with the scoreline a slightly astonishing Carlisle United 0 Wigan Athletic 5.
The home side and indeed the favourites had little to play for now but pride, yet they shipped a sixth early in the second half through Armes. It required more stout goalkeeping from Wolf to prevent the humiliation from growing and Carlisle spent the rest of things in largely vain pursuit of a consolation, and no doubt praying for the full-time whistle to end their gloom.
They did finally register a goal, Ranson’s shot striking the angle of post and bar, the referee eventually deeming it had crossed the line, yet that was the last significant act in a bruising Brunton Park afternoon. It finished 6-1 to Wigan and this, we reported, left the crowd “bitterly disappointed” at the spectacle of a “demoralised” Carlisle team.
It was, our correspondent would further write, an inevitable “crash” after some shaky performances recently, and it exposed United’s many flaws. 'The Traveller' pulled few punches in his analysis. “Perhaps it will now be realised that the team lack method both in attack and defence, and that positional play is seriously lacking,” he wrote.
“So long as the present half-back and forward line formation is persisted in, there is little or no hope of success. Tactics seem to have gone by the board – is it any wonder that we see the team all sixes and sevens as they were in this match?”
There were further calls for “drastic action” to restore hope and to preserve attendances after such a “football tragedy”.
“There is no room in a football team with Carlisle’s past traditions and history for half-hearted players who showed such a lack of will to fight back,” the report went on. “Coolness and determination gave way to demoralisation, haphazard kicking, inertia and fatal hesitation. Cup ties were never won in this way; they never will be.”
A warning to echo down the decades, for sure. Wigan’s intrepid side settled into history, having inflicted the biggest defeat on a league side by a non-league team in the FA Cup; a mark which still stands. They made it to the third round in 1934/35 before going out to Millwall.
Action was indeed drastic, meanwhile, at Carlisle. For their next game, a league fixture against Chester, their directors made eight changes, a consequence both of the miserable Cup performance and their injury list. Eight local players were drafted into the side and, if it did not result in an immediate uplift – they lost 3-1 at Brunton Park – the performance was more spirited at least.
Yet Carlisle’s era of struggle remained. After 16 games they were second bottom of Division Three North and, of their remaining 26 matches, they won a mere four and lost 18, including eight defeats in a row between January and March. The floundering team ended bottom of the table after comfortably their worst season since joining the Football League in 1928, and United relied on re-election to spare their Football League status, which was feeling precarious and in decline.
Bill Clarke was replaced by Bob Kelly as manager late in the campaign and United, thankfully, improved from there, gradually growing more competitive again. As for Wigan, it was not until 1989 that the clubs met in the FA Cup again, and after a wait of 55 years, they certainly made up for lost time, being drawn together three times in four seasons.
In all of those, and a later tie in 1997, Wigan prevailed, making it five wins to nil for the Latics. The challenge feels considerable to prevent the visitors reaching another half-dozen, then, today. Avoiding the company of their 1934 forefathers in the history books would at least be a start.
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