Last updated 09:23, Saturday, 05 April 2008

THIS column’s title is suspended for one week since it is not inside Brunton Park where we turn for today’s insight, but 270 miles away – and the beacon club for any League One promotion aspirant.

Hit man: United’s Jeff Smith, left, looks on as Jamie McCombe celebrates his first-half equaliser for Bristol City in a game the Robins went on to win 3-1

We’re just shy of a year on from the day Bristol City swung into Carlisle and laid down a performance of such power and purpose that their rise to the Championship seemed a formality, from that day forward.

Carlisle’s fans, in sending the Robins down the tunnel with a flourish of applause at close of play, knew precisely what they had seen that day.

Twelve months later, the Blues are where Gary Johnson’s men were back then; second in League One and within rapping distance of the door to the Championship. Meanwhile, the wonders of Ashton Gate today sit atop the division above after a season of further eye-popping progress.

To my mind, that means there is nobody currently better qualified than the engaging Johnson to explain why progressing from England’s third tier to the second need not be the suicidal leap that pessimistic fans fear.

By all means, accept that the Robins have a more substantial fanbase and, beyond doubt, budget than might be available to United should they complete the climb in the weeks ahead.

But shut your ears to Johnson and you’re blocking out one of the stories of the season – and some myth-busting truths about the perils, or otherwise, of promotion.

“With Yeovil and Bristol City I’ve gone from the Conference to League Two to League One to the Championship, with just one level left,” he told me yesterday.

“I’m qualified to know it’s a big jump. But if you are top of your league, you are already proving you are better than the level you are leaving behind.

“One of the reasons we got promoted last season was that I promised the players they would get their chance in the Championship. We had to make the squad bigger by four or five, but I kept faith in that group.” Proof: nine of the team that hit the Championship summit against Norwich last weekend were members of City’s League One runners-up in 2007. Their big £1 million summer purchase, Lee Trundle, has not been a first XI regular.

“In the Championship, people are more athletic and the quick ones are quicker,” Johnson advised. “The bigger teams who play the long-ball game have four or five 6ft 4in lads, instead of just one.

“Mentally, it’s also a big rise, because you’re playing big teams with massive names every week. We’ve actually given some of the teams different names so we don’t feel like we’re playing Sheffield United, Southampton and Wolves, for example. That’s a big psychological thing to deal with.

“Getting points on the board early is important, too, because it’s very difficult to claw your way out of trouble, as the likes of Sheffield Wednesday are proving. My advice to anybody would be to treat your first 10 games as cup finals, not your last 10.”

Sound counsel, certainly – and Johnson’s optimism wasn’t diluted when the specifics of Carlisle United were pitched into the questioning.

“If you get promoted, you deserve to be there, whatever your club’s size,” he said. “And John Ward has got the experience of the next level. If Carlisle do go up, he will know the standard and exactly what he’s got to be looking for. If you do go up, he’s the perfect person to keep you there.

“As for the run-in this season, I could give everybody advice except John Ward. He has total experience. The only thing I would say to everybody else is trust John.

“People like to see football towns like Carlisle doing well. I do remember the fans there were fantastic to us last season. When we were coming back from applauding our own fans, there were still a lot of Carlisle fans in the ground and I thought there was going to be some sort of demonstration.

“But they clapped our boys off and we thanked them for their appreciation. That’s the sign of a great football crowd.”

Of course, you take your own club, and your own challenge, on their own terms. Carlisle United might not be Bristol City in different colours.

But Johnson’s message still holds: don’t fear a thing, don’t underestimate yourself, keep the faith. Sounds like a mantra worth pinning on the wall.