| Emotions of Near Relegation | |||||||||||||||||
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This a page of me explaining the feelings, the sadness, the elation, everything that I felt when Carlisle United were almost relegated to the Nationwide Conference, It all started to go horribly wrong at the start of the 1997/98 season, our beloved Chairman, Mr Michael Knighton, decided to relieve Team Manager, Mervyn Day, of his duties. In charge of training he put John Halpin, an ex-Carlisle favourite of the late 1980�s and early 1990�s, along with John Wilkes, who was Football in the Community Officer while Mr Knighton himself controlled the signing of players. Mervyn Day had the previous season won promotion back to Division 2 at the first attempt (following relegation in the 1995/96 season), and won the Autowindscreen Shield at Wembley in April of the same season. t of 92 clubs in the entire football league. Anything less than a win would not do. Scarborough, who were a point above us, were the favourites to stay up as they also had a superior tally of goals scored. The game at Carlisle was nervewracking (I wasn�t there but I was viewing the commentary courtesy of Carlisle United online), After 7 minutes there was a huge sigh of relief as it was anounced that Scunthorpe United had taken the lead at Scarborough, therefore meaning if we were given a glimmer of hope. Midway through the first half Carlisle had a goal disallowed, apparently for shoving. Then a hammer blow, Scarborough equalised. Even worse was to come in the second half when Plymouth took the lead after 49 minutes, leaving Carlisle with a big uphill struggle. With about 20 minutes remaining Carlisle equalised, a superb 25 yard drive by skipper David Brightwell, this set up an extremely nervewracking last period. By this time the sweat was lashing out of me, I felt physically sick and had no control over my bodily movements. With 5 minutes left, I had had enough and got up to go to my work. As I stood up, my legs buckled and I felt faint. I left the house for the short drive up to the chippy that I work for thinking of all the good times that I had celebrated with the club over the past few years, wondering if I would ever see the likes again. When I arrived at the chip shop I was asked to go for the lottery tickets, which I duly did. When I arrived back at the shop, the phone rang and it was my mother, she informed me that Carlisle had scored, now this was unbelievable, but the best was yet to come. The goal came 10 seconds from time, a corner from the left hand side of the pitch which was headed towards goal by Scott Dobie, the Plymouth Goalkeeper made a great save but only cleared it out to about 8 yards from the goal, where Carlisle�s on loan Goalkeeper had ran to, the ball fell to him and he hammered it home to secure a victory for Carlisle. News soon filtered through that Scarborough had only drawn and it was therefore them that were relegated and not Carlisle. The feelings that I felt cannot easily be written down, but I will try. It was the greatest adrenelin buzz that I have ever had, I was jumping for joy, lost the ability to speak, just completely overjoyed. It was a better feeling than winning the league, the AWS, anything you can imagine. Now, almost 2 weeks after this date, I am still on a high. I can only hope that this season was a one-off and never have to go through these feelings again. I hope this page goes somewhat towards letting you know the feelings of desperation and what the love of a football team can do to a man. Long live Carlisle United Football Club! | |||||||||||||||||
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