FA Cup Third Round: Carlisle players hope to bring joy to flooded city in Yeovil Town tie

Kevin Garside finds Carlisle still in turmoil following last month’s storm chaos and meets the players hoping to sprinkle some FA Cup magic this weekend on the troubled waters

Carlisle United’s Brunton Park ground under water after Storm Desmond (AFP/Getty Images)

More than 50 skips still line Warwick Road in Carlisle, crammed full of sofas, fridges, carpets and sundry household detritus, a desolate reminder of the day in early December when the thoroughfare served as a waterway for evacuees fleeing the consequences of Storm Desmond. The players and staff of Carlisle United found themselves snared by a disaster that in the weeks ahead would see swathes of northern Britain devastated by floods, a desperate episode that will forever be epitomised by photographs of the goalposts protruding from a submerged Brunton Park and koi carp swimming in the goalmouth.

There is a romantic reflex which sees Carlisle responding to fate’s cruel hand by swatting Yeovil Town aside in the FA Cup third round at Blackpool on Sunday and pulling a plum fourth-round tie. The club hopes to be back in its decontaminated home later this month, though operating out of Portakabins, so you can see how the threads of this narrative might knit together to deliver a happy ending.

Were it not for the beating administered by nature there would be little interest in the fate of a club that has not been past the third round for 19 years and only once, in 1975, made it as far as the quarter- finals. Indeed it is dear old Yeovil who habitually attract our attention at this time of year. But what is a carousel ride in Somerset set against the redemptive potential of a Cumbrian Cup run?

Goalkeeper Mark Gillespie, unwittingly cast as the dramatic lead when the rivers Caldew and Eden spilled across the city, acknowledges the exceptional features that surround the Yeovil tie, and understands how his personal highlights reel has thrust temporary fame upon him.

“I’ve spoken about this more than my football this season,” says Gillespie, rescued from his rented accommodation on the day his team-mates were scoring five at Welling to reach the third round.

“When I was climbing out the window, I was thinking, ‘This could be an interesting story’,” he says. “Given what the club and the city have been through there is a wider significance than just football and if we can get in the fourth round that would be amazing, something for people to really look forward to.

“Walking out at Preston, the first ‘home’ game after it happened, seeing all the fans that had made the journey really struck a chord. We were wondering before the game how many would come. More than 3,000 travelled, which really increased our desire to get a result, just for what it would mean to them. Obviously a Cup run would be special but we know football doesn’t really work that way. We have our job to do on the field.”

Though Gillespie’s story has been told many times, the details have lost none of their impact and, layered with perspective six weeks on, are worthy of a reflective airing.

“I was pretty bad with a virus. I was in bed all day to 6pm. About 8pm there was a knock at the door from a neighbour telling me there was a red warning in place. I didn’t really understand how serious it was. They said the water had a good chance of coming in the house but, not really knowing how bad it would be, I kind of dismissed it and went back to bed.

“At midnight the police were shouting downstairs, asking if there was anybody in the house. They came with one of the groundsmen because it’s a club house. They didn’t know I was injured and were shocked I was there. Because I live in Newcastle and rent in Carlisle, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Players help neighbouring homeowners with the great clean-up (Getty)

“Because the water had not come in at that point they said I would have to stay put and hope for the best. I woke up the next morning and the water was up five stairs, or up to my chest – and I’m 6ft 3in.

“There were others who needed help first. I was rescued about 6pm that evening. Once I knew they were coming I just chucked my boots and gloves into the boat and left everything else.

“I’m a fit lad. I got out in about five minutes. It was taking about an hour a house for others, with families and pets etc. I climbed out the window, scraped down the wall a little and the police guided me in by my feet. We then went to get another family and literally rowed down the street in a dinghy.

“Looking back, I would have left the house when it got to ankle height and taken it from there. But not knowing what was coming I hoped I would be able to walk out in the morning. It was definitely an experience – and not a great one – to see the main road in Carlisle, the one I drive up and down every day, turned into a river. Seeing the devastation it can cause was an eye-opener for the players.”

The club was at the forefront of the clean-up effort, not quite first responders but for one day at least part of the heavy lifting that characterised the early hours of what was very much a communal operation.

Captain Danny Grainger believes the experience not only helped bind a close-knit group further but demonstrated also the connection between club and community that still exists in the lower echelons of the game.

“We were just a group of players who genuinely thought we could help,” Grainger says. “It was not about egos or media attention. We just felt we needed to do something. This is a community that is always behind us and we wanted to give something back. This is a really community-oriented club. We wanted to be there for them in any way we could.

“We went into one house, an old lady and a young woman. We emptied the house in 20 minutes – that was the kitchen, living room and downstairs bedroom, carpets, underlay, everything. There were 15 of us. It would have taken them days, if not weeks, on their own.

“Things had been sat in water for two days. You don’t realise how heavy things get. You couldn’t just roll up the carpet; you had to cut little squares off, it was so wet. We got home afterwards and just glazed over. That was someone’s house we had literally picked up and put outside.

“I went up to my parents’ farm in Eamont Bridge, just outside Penrith, with Gary Dicker. Our wives were walking around looking at the devastation. They were finding wedding pictures and things like that stuck in fences where the water had smashed them. It looked like a war zone.

“It was the same walking down Warwick Road going into Brunton Park. There were desks and stuff just thrown about the room. You couldn’t get your head around it.

“Once the flood defences are breached it happens so quickly. Unless you’ve seen it you don’t grasp the scale of it. Six or seven lads left their cars at Brunton Park; they came back to them smashed to pieces. Up in Eamont Bridge there were big slabs of concrete washed up in people’s gardens.”

And, as Grainger points out, it is not just the damage wrought, but the horrors left behind. “The silt, sand, mud, the crap and the smell. When we went around Brunton Park it stank like a sewage works.”

Though the players are still dealing with the consequences, training at a local school ahead of tomorrow’s match, the worst is behind them. Newcastle United have been generous in offering training facilities and Blackburn Rovers as well as Preston and Blackpool have enabled Carlisle to fulfil “home” fixtures. And now that Brunton Park is close to reopening, perhaps the ribbons will be cut in the presence of a Premier League club on the occasion of the FA Cup fourth round. Wouldn’t that be a story?

Gillespie thinks so. “We can get on with our careers, but people’s homes and lives have been devastated. All we can do is try to get the best results we can and hopefully bring some joy to the people of this city. It’s a long time since our club has been in the fourth round.”