CARLISLE IN THE CROSSHAIRS

JON TAIT SAYS THE BLUES NEED THE FIGHTING SPIRIT OF THE PAST AS THEY BID TO RECOVER FROM BACK-TO-BACK RELEGATIONS...

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CARLISLE is a frontier city. At one time it was one of the most dangerous places in the country.

Situated just nine miles from the border with Scotland, it has a turbulent history. The castle is the most besieged in Britain.

Some would say that Brunton Park has been under similar pressure in recent times.

Carlisle United were top of the First Division for three games in season 1974-75. The club did a retro kit to celebrate the 50th anniversary while the local museum at Tullie House ran an exhibition celebrating the 120th anniversary of the formation of Carlisle United in 1904.

While there was much to celebrate off the pitch, the dismal form on it saw United crash to successive relegations from League One to the National League.

Football has a longer tradition than that in the old textile and railroad town; the first club, Carlisle Association, were formed in the mill worker's area of Denton Holme in 1878.

But football was being played in north Cumbria and its surrounds for an age even before then.

When Mary, Queen of Scots, was being held in a tower in Carlisle castle in 1568, she was allowed to watch a match played on the Swifts by the river Eden between her followers on a couple of occasions.

Others that were imprisoned within the castle in less salubrious conditions than those enjoyed by the monarch were members of the local mafia, known these days as the border reivers.

The Liddesdale Armstrongs arranged a football match at Bewcastle in 1599 that culminated in heavy drinking, an ambush and a couple of murders.

The man who was instrumental in arranging that match was Thomas Musgrave, who'd also been involved in a game seven years earlier when Cumbrian reivers such as Dick's Davie Graham, Wattie Graham and others were seen kicking a ball around with the Scottish fugitive Francis Stewart, the Earl of Bothwell.