It is mischievous, but also tempting, to trace all the years of debate on Carlisle United's East Stand to a delicious misprint in the of April 14, 1996.
The paper quotes an ebullient United chairman Michael Knighton on his shiny new creation. "We have not got a stadium to be proud of," the caption reads.
"Now", it should have said - but in the period that followed, some felt the paper had it right first time. Others have taken a more balanced view of the big, blue structure that has now been officially open for 20 years.
It is unquestionably Brunton Park's most modern stand; comfortably equipped, superficially at least, for the football crowd of today.
The devil has always been in the detail - the fact it is considerably out of line with the rest of the ground, with empty shells where executive boxes were supposed to be and other unexplored potential within.
It has been both benefit and burden to United - and one of the strangest sights in English stadia. "It's skewiff, but we've sort of got used to it," says chairman Andrew Jenkins who, like supporters on the west side of the ground, has looked directly at the stand's asymmetrical appearance ever since it was opened in 1996.
Its overlapping of the pitch by about 21 metres is its oddest feature, yet this detail conceals a story of wild ambition and thwarted dreams. It is United's clearest legacy from the boom-and-bust reign of their enigmatic former leader.
The original idea, as Knighton moved his affections from Manchester United to tired old Carlisle in 1992, was to construct a stadium fit for the gods. Brunton Park would be transformed into a 25,000-seater ground, surrounded by hotel, multiplex cinema, restaurant, bowling alley, tropical plant array and, bizarrely, a "butterfly kingdom".
By the time on a sunny June 1995 day that Carlisle-based Seymour Plant Hire started thundering its demolition machinery into the old Scratching Pen terrace, the vision was being realised. The gleaming East Stand would sit slightly to the north, before the rest of the stadium, after subsequent, staged work on other stands, would move with it.
"He [Knighton] was going to knock the Warwick Road End down, and have offices and shops along the front," explains Jenkins. "He had people eating out of his hand."
Yet even at the outset there was a sense of ego driving the JCBs. Jenkins says initial plans to construct a more modest new stand had been on the drawing board before Knighton assumed total control. A firm in Leeds was hired and the cost of the new design was £3m; £1.125m from a Football Trust grant, the rest borrowed by Knighton Holdings.
As surreal as the big picture may now seem, it cannot be overstated how buoyant United felt at the time. Mick Wadsworth's revitalised team had just won the Division Three title and basked in the club's first Wembley appearance. The upgrading of the 'Scratcher' felt like another leap into the future by a club the smooth-talking owner insisted would inevitably play in the Premier League.
The new stand's short-term spec was just as bold - a museum, 18 executive boxes, luxurious boardroom, directors' seating, media area - but problems arose in its birth, and its planned opening in August 1995 was postponed. This was due, Knighton said, to building regulations and the need to provide up-front payments. Further targets, December then New Year's Day, were also missed.
It meant, as Oasis and Blur fought for chart supremacy, United had started that new season to the backdrop of a building site. The team went on to struggle after promotion, having made few consolidating signings because, Knighton protested, of the cost of the stand.
With 'director of coaching' Wadsworth leaving for Norwich mid-season, it was not until March that the stand passed its safety inspection and was finally ready. Brunton Park's new capacity was 16,651 - the East Stand containing 5,832* seats - adult tickets were set at £11, and fans first lowered themselves onto the plastic blue seats (or white and black, spelling CUFC) for Wrexham's visit on a Tuesday night, April 13, 1996.
In very typical United style, the grand opening was a flop. The relegation-bound Blues lost 2-1, with new boss Mervyn Day lambasting "pathetic defending" - though the new addition was met with some approval by the 7,317 crowd. As Roger Lytollis wryly noted in this paper: "It's big and strong, and its mobility must make it a contender for a regular place in Carlisle's starting eleven."
The official, ceremonial opening came later, with the Blues back in the fourth tier and Knighton still vainly trying to persuade the city council to back his wider £20m redevelopment scheme. Bolton's visit on August 10, 1996, was arranged with the help of Blues director Barry Chaytow, once Trotters chairman, and the legendary Nat Lofthouse cut the ribbon with Knighton on the pitch. A hot-tempered pre-season friendly was then edged 1-0 by United, as Dean Walling headed home a free-kick from the precocious Matt Jansen.
The East Stand, then was active from here - but never fully. The executive boxes remained hollow, not even decorated or furnished, and while the refreshment facilities on the lower concourse were enjoyed by fans, other vast space on the first floor was also empty.
The intention was to fill these gaps as United grew - but, as the years unfolded, the team declined and the club's finances came under scrutiny, Knighton's vision soured and died. By the time the old showman left in 2002, after a bitter conflict with fans, little had been added to his creation - which was also being used by away fans at its northern end. "It wasn't really built for segregation," Jenkins says. "So they had to get these big doors up to separate [fans]. Some mistakes were made, I think."
Final payments for its construction were made by 2000 - yet the club was suffocated by the high interest on Knighton's loan from Bristol & West Investments. Fred Story, owner from 2004-8, eventually removed this millstone, replacing the heavy arrears with an interest-free loan from his own firm (which he has since written off).
Over the years the stand's untapped potential has been explored with barely any joy. Discounting the brief arrival of the bogus saviour Stephen Brown in 2000, the first record of a new regime looking at its possibilities was in 2002, when new owner John Courtenay revealed plans to move the pitch back into line and also build a new stand to replace the Waterworks End terrace.
The following year, some 1,700 people having by then sat in the East Stand to welcome Courtenay and manager Roddy Collins at an open-air forum, general manager Paul Bell spoke of "getting the East Stand up and running...[with] retail outlets in."
These were among many false dawns, and for every good day since when the stand has been well occupied - including the afternoon, in 2004, when United's last game before relegation to the Conference at Doncaster was beamed back on a big screen - there has been a hangover.
Among these, the fact the seats to the furthest left are almost never sold. The rest of the ground having not shifted as Knighton planned, the view from that corner, particularly low down, is of the Neil Sports Centre as much as the pitch.
Its incomplete interior, meanwhile, has been a permanent frustration. "The problem," says Jenkins, whose firm Pioneer sponsors the stand, "is that it was never finished. So any time I tried to get a grant to do something, we were told we couldn't have one.
"We've had a number of people look at it over the years. There was a time people were looking at putting casinos in football grounds. I had a man round and said, 'You can have the lot if you like'.
"We've tried the NHS, even the Cumberland FA, but nothing's ever come of it. It's a pity, because it's a big, fine building."
It was reckoned, five years ago, that it would take £1m to bring the stand up to scratch - yet, as this 20-year anniversary approached, opportunity finally knocked. The Storm Desmond floods last December devastated Carlisle but, eight months on, the recovering club are using insurance payments to modify part of the stand's interior.
Office staff who had previously worked in the flooded ground-floor area of the old, western Main Stand will, from next month, be housed in a newly-furnished first-floor area of the East Stand. New press seating and modern benches are also being prepared, along with a spacious media room.
"It's a shame you couldn't have a function room in there," Jenkins adds. "If people were dancing they'd bump into the pillars."
While United have had to negotiate further unusual happenings - in 2013, 81-year-old Herbert Paterson chained his car to railings at the ground, claiming ownership of a piece of access road connected to the stand - there have been many occasions when the "big, fine building" has simply enlivened the place: big-crowd days against Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds and Everton, June's memorable Rod Stewart concert, the glorious eruption when Jimmy Glass slotted home.
Its modern, ground-floor Family Zone, in what was originally supposed to be a reception area, is another obvious boon, while Jenkins also insists the first sight of the stand has impressed many new signings.
Its eccentric, overlapping appearance, though, remains - and, with plans to build a new ground seemingly back on hold, will endure far beyond this season: the "skewiff" symbol of some nervously radical but flawed Carlisle United days.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here