by Alfie Irving
The name Jon Colman will be no stranger to any Carlisle United fan that has ever picked up a copy of the News & Star or looked at Carlisle United discourse on social media. Jon has been the main sports reporter at the News & Star for the last 18 and a half years and has collected many accolades in this time for his stellar contribution to football journalism.
I managed to sit down with Jon last week and get to know him and his relationship with our great club. Jon is in the position of having experienced life following Carlisle as both a fan and a reporter. This has meant that he has been able to assess the club in a way that virtually no fans of the club have been able to. He was able to provide me with an excellent insight into his experiences following the club.
In this article, I will provide you with the key questions that I asked Jon, if you want to listen to the whole interview simply scroll to the bottom of the page and listen to the podcast at your leisure. Hope you enjoy reading and listening to Jon’s responses as much as I enjoyed interviewing him. You can also catch Jon’s reaction to reporting on Wembley in May in my upcoming article.
What was your first memory of watching the club?
JON: “My first memory of watching the club was way back in January 1989. I was 8 years old. I didn’t really know anything about Carlisle United then to be honest. I was more sort of into first division football and Liverpool were the greatest team and I had a bit of a liking for them. That year [1989] they happened to get drawn against Carlisle in the FA Cup at Brunton Park. Again, I didn’t really know much about it, but my dad managed to arrange to get some tickets for us and it was in demand because Liverpool were one heck of a team then. It was Kenny Dalglish’s team with John Barnes, Peter Beardsley, Steve McMahon, Ronnie Whelan, people like that. They were the greatest team in the country and the thought of going to see them live was incredible and it was at Carlisle. My uncle actually used to play with the then Carlisle manager, who was Clive Middlemass, they used to be teammates at Workington Reds, my Uncle Barry Gibb. So, I think he must’ve pulled a string or two with his old mate and managed to get us a few tickets for me and my dad and my cousin. I think my uncle might’ve come along as well. And that was it. So, we went in the old ‘Scratching Pen’ where the East Stand is now. It was absolutely packed. It was a January day. It was cold. It was misty. These legendary footballers were out on the pitch and Carlisle were having a right go at them to start with as well. It was yeah, an incredible experience really. Watching John Barnes score a goal right in front of me. I know it was against Carlisle and you know in the fullness of time, I have become a Carlisle fan but to be able to see that and witness that was magical really for a little lad. I didn’t see the second two goals Liverpool scored because there was that many people in the ground, I couldn’t see over the top of them and it was at the far end, the Waterworks End. You never forget your first time going to a football match, I don’t think anybody would. That was always special to me and from then, my dad started taking me down to Brunton Park. He sort of really stressed on me that these are our local team. As much as you can enjoy watching the top football, the elite football on tele and Match of the Day etcetera, these are our local team, and you should support and back your local team. He kind of bred that into me and we went from then on really, quite regularly over in the Paddock. That became our regular spot, through some fairly rubbish times, to be honest in the late 80s and early 90s and then there were ups and downs, some great highs, and terrible lows all the way. That’s how it started for me, so as I say I wasn’t immediately a Carlisle fan but kind of from then on it became our lives really, myself and my dad.”
What are the games that have stood out from your time following the club?
JON: “My time watching Carlisle is divided into two, which is the period when I was purely a fan on the terrace, on the Paddock and then the point where I have been a reporter. You watch and experience the games differently in those two scenarios. As a supporter, there are one or two that stand out. This is a period from 1989 to 2005, so there is quite a few in amongst that. I mean the real first bit of success that I enjoyed as a Carlisle fan was in the mid 90s, when the first portion of the Michael Knighton era was really successful and colourful, and the people were really behind it and ‘The Deckchair Army’ and other things. I mean going to Wembley that season in 95, the first time Carlisle had ever been to Wembley in the Auto Windscreen shield against Birmingham. Wembley was packed. 76,000 in. More than the League Cup final, more than some England games that year. It was an incredible atmosphere. It was quite an emotional one too, as a lot of people had waited all of their life to see Carlisle at Wembley, it had never happened before. There was 20,000 Carlisle fans. There was 50,000 Birmingham fans. It was at historic Wembley under the old twin towers with a Carlisle team that was really going places it seemed. Not so much the game, it wasn’t a bad game but more the occasion and just the community experience of being there and the colour and the atmosphere, the history that you knew that you were experiencing. That would be a day I would love to relive again and again for those reasons.”
“Other great memories as a supporter, we went back there [Wembley] two years later in the same competition [Auto Windscreen shield] and won. So, seeing Carlisle win at Wembley and being quite close behind the goal when Steve Hayward scored the winning penalty. To see your team, win at Wembley, that will take some topping really. Again, you remember the victories and the things that you win a lot. The Playoff final at Stoke in 2005 when Carlisle got back up from the Conference. Peter Murphy scoring. Paul Simpson’s first spell in charge. That was a great occasion. It was such an important occasion for the club as well. If they hadn’t won that, if they had stayed down, you don’t know what shape the club would’ve ended up in. It could’ve been a long stretch in the Conference. They had a good owner in Fred Story. They clear had a good manager. It would have cut them off a bit. Getting up then was absolutely key and there was a lot of relief, I think from people in amongst the jubilation. It was quite a stressful day really; it wasn’t an enjoyable fiesta of football or anything. It was just that Carlisle got the goal, and then can we hold this, and they did. I remember the celebrations. I remember the songs after the game. I remember turning to my left and my dad was dancing, and my dad never danced. My dad was never a dancer, to put it mildly and there he was jigging, and I was jigging with him. That was quite a special memory too. There are so many, I could bore you senseless. There was a game in ’94 which was in the Auto Glass trophy, as it was known then, it was the Northern final. Carlisle had been pummelled 4-1 by Huddersfield in the first leg so it was very unlikely that they were going to comeback and yet they scored two goals in the first half of the second leg. The second one was by Joe Joyce, a fullback that never scored. He just popped up on the edge of the box and hit a volley, he creamed it into the top corner and the place went ballistic. It was just like electricity was going round the ground. That feeling. That was probably my favourite goal watching as a fan because the place went wild. In the end, they didn’t get that third goal and it was a sort of glorious near miss but just the atmosphere in the Paddock that night was phenomenal.
“I’m still a fan of course, but as a reporter since 2005. The playoff final this year was one heck of a day. I think that was one of my favourite experiences of being at a Carlisle game. Just, one being able to report on that, the epic kind of nature of the game, it was typical Carlisle, it went all the distance and more. The fact that it was a little bit of an unexpected promotion. It was kind of a bit of a pleasant surprise. The fact that it was Paul Simpson, who lifted the club up from its uppers, from the brink of non-league and then a year later he’s taking them up. It was a pretty likeable team, I think it’s fair to say as well and thousands of people behind that end where Omari Patrick scored. They just seemed to be having the absolute day of their lives. It was such a happy occasion. It was emotional in the best possible way. Yes, I was reporting on it, so you never kind of get a moment to breathe on a day like that as a reporter but that experience is one that will be right up there for me, I think for ever as a reporter.
“Prior to that, things like when they won the League Two title in my first season as a reporter, ‘05/06. The day at Mansfield where Karl Hawley scored in the last minute and that clinched promotion. That was a great day. That was just again another real sort of party kind of feeling. That team that had grown that same season under Simmo, after coming up the year before was remarkable. Hawley [had] one of the best seasons of goalscoring that I have seen watching Carlisle. Michael Bridges coming in a couple of months into the season and just that quality he had was on another level most of the time. What a pleasure to watch. People like Kevin Gray, kind of ruled that team with a rod of iron at the back. Kieron Westwood, the best goalkeeper I’ve seen in a Carlisle jersey. I wasn’t old enough to see that great Alan Ross, but Kieron Westwood was a magical goalkeeper. You can go through that team and that was the first team that I had reported on so that was really special. I can pick one or two more. A couple of seasons on when they played Leeds at home in front of a full house of 16,600 or so. They were the first team to beat Leeds that season. That was probably the loudest, I’ve heard Brunton Park when Simon Hackney scored his great goal and [Carlisle] went on and got two more to win. Seeing Peter Murphy get the winner at Wembley in the JPT [Johnstone’s Paint Trophy] in 2011. That was a real special story for him and kind of a rare bit of success for the team in that period, in that League One stretch. Others such as Liverpool in the [Capital One] cup the other year, in 2015. Taking Liverpool to penalties and you know another day that could’ve gone their [Carlisle’s] way and what a famous result that would’ve been. And other ones that have a degree of emotion such as when the floods came in 2015 later. Seeing what that did to the club, inside and out and then the way they recovered from that and got that first game on back, which was against York City, with the pitch having to be relayed and all the rest and then they got Everton in the FA Cup soon after. Things like that were really kind of quite resonant occasions, I think. There are many more and there are many really bad ones as well, which are memorable, some of the hidings we’ve had. Getting relegated in 2014 with a team that [had] totally lost any sort of identity I think and how things were before Simmo came back were memorable in the wrong sort of way, but they’ll always sort of stay with me as well. 18 years of reporting and many more before supporting and you kind of feel like you’ve been on a journey and you’ve been in the washing machine and spat out again, but I wouldn’t swap it.”
Do you have a favourite player from your time following the club?
JON: “Favourite player, well, I do have a favourite player from all my time watching Carlisle and that is David Currie. [He] only played for Carlisle for a couple of seasons in the mid 1990s. He had long hair and a lovely moustache. It is fair to say that he wasn’t the most athletic of footballers, but he was a key player in that first team that I saw that was so successful in 94/95. He was always sort of one of my dad’s favourite players in that time as well. My dad was a good footballer in his youth, and he knew quite a lot about the game. He would always tell me, ‘Just watch Currie and look at the craft in his game, look at the brain on him’. Currie wouldn’t be the top scorer. He wouldn’t be the one running up and down the pitch. He wouldn’t be the one sliding into tackles. He wouldn’t be getting the crowd up with things like that but if David Reeves, the top scorer and the athlete in the attack, if he made a run, Currie would find him. Currie could find him in a darkened room. He had that instinct and that intelligence to pick a pass. [He had a] Lovely left foot. There was culture about him, and I think the fact that he was a nice player to watch, the fact that he was part of my memory of watching the great team with my dad in the Paddock as well. I’ve just always had a great fondness for him and the fact that he’s a bit illusive in his post-playing days as well adds to a bit of mystique around him. Some ex-players, you pick the phone up to and talk and its brilliant and they are great guys, and you see a lot of them. Currie has only ever really appeared back in Carlisle probably once in all that time, which was a few years ago at the reunion. I’ve tried to get hold of him since and failed miserably. He’s almost like this illusive genius. I did have a chat with him at the reunion a few years ago and I tried to explain that he was my dad’s favourite player and that I had such a great fondness for him. He was a bit bemused by it, I think to be honest. I’m not sure he knew what to make of it. He’s always kind of a standout and a special player to me.
“There are so many others. Again, maybe you look at them differently when you are just a fan, maybe you look at them differently when you are a fan as well as a reporter. As a fan, Matt Jansen was a real favourite he is probably the most talented local, homegrown player, I’ve probably seen in a Carlisle shirt. I mean Jarrad Branthwaite might deserve that [best homegrown player] eventually but Jansen was touched by genius. It was such a tragedy what happened to him, that he didn’t go and play for England many times, but I was very lucky to work with Matt on his book and tell that story too. That was a little bit of a pinch myself moment. Players of different eras, like Stéphane Pounewatchy, Dean Walling, [David] Reevesy, from the 90s team. Going on into Simmo’s first era, the Kevin Gray’s, and Karl Hawley’s and this overlapped with when I became a reporter. Michael Bridges was just…it was hard to believe he was playing at our level most of the time. People like that and then as that team evolved you had guys like Lee Miller when he came in and became a real kingpin of that team. He was so key to that team almost getting to the playoffs in League One with the team that Greg Abbott rebuilt I suppose. Later times under Keith Curle, players like Nicky Adams, was a favourite. Danny Grainger, I thought was a player, a real character, a real captain in every sense was Danny. He came through a tough start, and he really showed his metal. I had a lot of time for Danny Grainger. You know you have people like Jason Kennedy, who had really good spells and were popular and memorable, and Jarrad Branthwaite’s emergence. I was a big fan of Kyle Dempsey in the same way when he came through too, he had a toughness about him that a lot of young players didn’t have, and I thought he was excellent. He reminded me of Paul Murray, another of my favourite young players when he came through in the 90s. I remember he had a real kind of arrogance and attitude about him and how he played, that young players in the main didn’t tend to have. I think as a reporter you try to not have too many favourite players because it can skew how you report on them. In last season’s team, I was a big fan of Kristian Dennis and I’m not sure he always got the praise he deserved, but he scored 20 plus goals. Another striker with a bit of intellect, again might not have been an athlete or a big striker or a sprinter or anything like that but take his goals and his nouse out of that team and I don’t think Carlisle come close to promotion. The way Owen Moxon played last season was a heck of a story too and obviously big Jon Mellish is on some level got to be everyone’s favourite player hasn’t he, not just for how he plays but just for telling the Stockport fans, words I can’t repeat, when he whacked that penalty in. That summed him up in all of the best ways. A lot of favourites there and there are many more. I’ve been lucky to watch a lot of them and experience the many different things they brought to this mad football club that we follow.”
Tune in to the full interview below: