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

Bill Shankly called it football’s “greatest achievement” and half a century after Carlisle United’s promotion to the top tier is still under intense scrutiny.

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

Either way, the return to the EFL basement as the 50th anniversary approaches has emotional resonance.

The new American owners promise investment and better times ahead, but their first full season in charge will begin far from the heady heights of April 1974.

It was the month that Cumbria first became a county, an amalgamation of Cumberland and Westmorland. Terry Jacks topped the charts with “Seasons in the Sun”, which proved prescient, and Carlisle ended their finest campaign with a 2-0 victory over Aston Villa.

Their relegation came 50 years after Carlisle gained promotion to the First Division.

Goals scored by Joe Laidlaw and Frank Clarke in front of nearly 12,500 people at Brunton Park.

“We thought we were on the rise,” John Gorman recalled. “We were hugging each other, lifting each other up. We celebrate on the pitch. Then we realized that we were not standing and that we had to wait for the Orient.

Carlisle finished third and it was the first time that three teams had moved up from the second tier of English football.

Until then, there were only the first two. They knew this well. They had finished an unrewarded third in 1965/66, in the first spell under Alan Ashman, a manager who later moved to West Bromwich Albion where he won the FA Cup, and Olympiacos in Greece, before returning in Carlisle in 1972.

Ashman worked in tandem with Dick Young, the club’s longtime coach and later manager. “Alan left the training to Dick,” says Gorman, whose long coaching career included assistant to Glenn Hoddle in 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 exercises, practicing with both 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 would come out for 10 minutes in his big sheepskin coat, look at us and go back inside. We wondered what he was doing, but he was recruiting players and building the team.

Ashman has built a good team, led by his inspiring young captain Bill Green at the heart of the defense. Allan Ross was a legend in goal, amassing a record 466 appearances for Carlisle. Peter Carr, bruised right back. 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 victory over Villa, was Leicestershire’s top scorer in the Benson and Hedges Cup final at Lord’s.

Two years later, Balderstone faced the West Indies pace attack on his Test debut. Meanwhile, in September 1975, after joining Doncaster Rovers, he played in competitive County Championship and Football League fixtures on the same day.

He was not out at 51 after the opening day’s match against Derbyshire at Chesterfield, traveled to Belle Vue to play out a 1–1 draw against Brentford, then returned to complete his century the following day ( 116) and took three for 28. Leicestershire won by 135 runs and clinched 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 says.

They were third after beating Villa but Leyton Orient had one more to play, also against Villa, the following Friday. Orient trailed by two points and it was two points for victory, but they had a better goal average so any victory would take them into third place and dislodge Carlisle.

Nearly 30,000 people gathered expectantly on Brisbane Road, a number swollen by numerous trespassers.

“More hoping than waiting,” admits Malcolm Fawcett, one of the spectators, cheering Villa on in his blue and white scarf. “With Carlisle, it’s usually hope that kills but waiting seems to reach Orient.”

Another remembers the home team running away with bouquets of gladioli in their arms. “They handed them out to the crowd before the match,” says 80-year-old Harold Bowron. “I remember thinking, ‘I wouldn’t do that.’ I would have saved that until 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 a goal down to equalize but could not find a winner.

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

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

Bill Shankly, who played for and managed Carlisle, said the club’s promotion to the top flight was the “greatest achievement in the history of the game”.

The London branch of the Carlisle Supporters’ Club was born from that euphoric night and continues to grow. Forty years later, they made t-shirts with the quote.

Gorman still has his own and is not about to disagree 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 were top of Division One three games into the following season, with wins over Chelsea, Middlesbrough and Tottenham, but they were relegated never to return.

At least not yet. They have not been above the third tier since 1986. The season in the sun is now just a memory in the border town but those who were there will not forget the feat or its scale.

Promotion specialist Challinor succeeds again

Dave Challinor was appointed player-manager at Colwyn Bay in the Northern Premier in May 2010, the same month that 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 the second time with Stockport, completing their return to League One.

Dave Challinor sealed a seventh promotion as manager by leading Stockport into League One