Carlisle’s season in the sun 50 years ago remains the game’s greatest feat (and don’t take our word for it… listen to Bill Shankly!)

Bill Shankly called it football’s ‘greatest achievement’ and half a century since Carlisle United’s promotion to the top flight is still up for debate.

Perhaps it was the scale of the improbability, the audacity of such a modest club or the added drama of the false ending.

Whatever it was, the descent into the EFL cellar as the 50th anniversary looms has emotional resonance.

New American owners promise investment and better times ahead, but their first full season under control will start a far cry from the heady heights of April 1974.

That was the month in which Cumbria first became a province, an amalgamation of Cumberland and Westmorland. Terry Jacks topped the charts with ‘Seasons in the Sun’, which proved prescient, and Carlisle ended their best season with a 2-0 win against Aston Villa.

The goals scored by Joe Laidlaw and Frank Clarke in front of almost 12,500 at Brunton Park.

“We thought we were awake,” John Gorman remembers. “We hugged each other and lifted each other up. Celebrating on the field. Then we realized we weren’t awake and that we had to wait for Orient.’

Carlisle finished third and this was the first time that three teams would rise from the second tier of English football.

Until then it was only the top two. They knew this well. They had finished third without reward in 1965/66 during the first spell under Alan Ashman, a manager who subsequently moved to West Bromwich Albion where he won the FA Cup, and to Olympiacos in Greece, before returning to Carlisle in 1972.

Ashman worked with Dick Young, the club’s longtime coach and later director. “Alan left the training to Dick,” says Gorman, whose long coaching career included stints as assistant to Glenn Hoddle at England and Tottenham.

‘Dick wanted to pass, pass, pass, pass, pass. We were a push-and-run team. We spent all our time working on skills, repetitive drills and practicing with two feet. Dick was one of the best. I based a lot of my coaching on what I learned from him.

‘Alan spent most of the day in his office. He came out for ten minutes in his big sheepskin coat, looked at us for a moment and went back inside. We wondered what he was doing, but he signed players and built the team.”

Ashman built a good team, led by their inspirational young captain Bill Green at the heart of the defence. Allan Ross was a legend in goal, making a record 466 Carlisle appearances. Peter Carr, bruise on right rear. Gorman, an attacking force at left back.

There was Les O’Neill, Stan Ternent, Ray Train and Graham Winstanley. There was the versatile Chris Balderstone who, two months after that win against Villa, top scored for Leicestershire in the Benson and Hedges Cup final at Lord’s.

Two years later, Balderstone had to deal with the West Indian pace attack on his Test debut. In between, in September 1975, after moving to Doncaster Rovers, he played competitive matches in both the County Championship and the Football League on the same day.

He was 51 not out after the first day’s match against Derbyshire at Chesterfield, driving to Belle Vue to play in a 1–1 draw against Brentford, then returning to complete his century the next day (116 run out) and taking three for 28 as Leicestershire won by 135 runs to take the County Championship title.

Carlisle had a range of attacking options. Bobby Owen, Dennis Martin, Laidlaw and Clarke. “So many goals in the team,” Gorman said.

They finished third after beating Villa, but Leyton Orient had one more to play the following Friday, also against Villa. Orient were two points behind and were two points shy of the win, but they had a better goal average so any win would move them into third place and oust Carlisle.

Nearly 30,000 people gathered on Brisbane Road in anticipation, as numbers swelled due to quite a few intruders.

“More hope than expectation,” admits Malcolm Fawcett, one of the away players, cheering Villa on in his blue and white scarf. ‘At Carlisle it’s usually hope that kills you, but the expectation seemed to get to Orient.’

Another remembers the home team running out with bunches of gladioli in their arms. “They were handing them out to the crowd before the game,” said Harold Bowron, 80. “I remember thinking, ‘I wouldn’t do that.’ I saved that for the end.’

Some Carlisle players and staff went to the match, others gathered at the Cumberland News offices. In the end it was a joyful evening for them and a night of despair for Orient, who fought back from goal down to equalize but could not find a winner.

Carlisle was up. Cheering fans made their way from Brisbane Road to Trafalgar Square and celebrated with Liverpool and Newcastle supporters, who were in London for the FA Cup final.

It was an interview before the final at Wembley when Shankly, who started his managerial career at Brunton Park, said: ‘Let me tell you about my old club Carlisle United, who got promoted to the First Division for the first time last night. That is the greatest achievement in the history of the game.”

The London branch of Carlisle’s supporters club emerged from that euphoric evening and is still active today. Forty years later they made t-shirts with the quote on it.

Gorman still has his, and has no intention of disagreeing with Shankly, even though he and Hoddle led Swindon Town to the Premier League in 1993. “Very similar,” says the 74-year-old. ‘A good group of players, good characters who play attractive football.’

Carlisle topped Division One three games into the following season, with wins against Chelsea, Middlesbrough and Tottenham, but they were relegated never to return.

At least not yet. They have not risen above the third level since 1986. The season in the sun is a fading memory in the border town, but those who were there won’t forget the feat and its magnitude.

Promotion specialist Challinor succeeds again

Dave Challinor was appointed player-manager at Colwyn Bay in the Northern Premier in May 2010, the same month Stockport County were relegated from League One.

Since then, Challinor has won promotion seven times. First with Colwyn Bay, three times with Fylde, once with Hartlepool and on Saturday for a second time with Stockport, completing their journey back to League One.