More than a year has now passed since Lee Fearn was, briefly, Carlisle's spokesman to the world. Interviewed on Sky News about the flood that had just assaulted the city, United's fitness coach did his best to explain to Eamonn Holmes how it felt to be at the centre of a crisis.

"It was a whirlwind," Fearn says, reflecting on his media appearances. "You were getting calls from the club, saying can you go and chat to somebody on TV? And you do it, just to tick a box.

"But in the back of your mind you were thinking, is this really that interesting? Are people that bothered about it? Then a few months later you look back and think - yes, it was a big deal. A massive deal."

Fearn and several others at Brunton Park were pitched into the spotlight because Carlisle had been submerged and United's personnel were among the city's most recognisable figures. His own home flooded, the man responsible for keeping United's players in shape was also dealing personally with the challenges of Storm Desmond.

Although he cannot now quite believe it, Fearn says he was almost wilfully oblivious to the rising water when he was travelling with United to Welling in the FA Cup that weekend. Even when fielding concerned texts from partner Sarah, he admits his first response was: "Ah, it'll be alright. Don't worry about it."

As news spread of what was engulfing Carlisle, accepting its reality remained difficult. "You couldn't comprehend it. At one stage on the telly we saw a little lifeboat, a raft, going past our house. You could see our bedroom window. But seeing it on the television isn't really seeing it.

"It was probably 1am when my missus text to say she was being moved from the house, because the water was up at the door. Even then, I was only thinking the carpet would get a bit wet."

Fearn says it was not until a couple of days later, when he returned to his ransacked house on Greystone Road, that he realised the extent; several feet of filthy water having gushed through. The following days and weeks set a double struggle for both, as both Fearn's and Sarah's workplaces - Brunton Park, and Richard Rose Central Academy - had been flooded.

Yet Fearn now looks back on the better things that came from such a grim and daunting time. Originally from Buxton, Derbyshire, he says: "Not coming from the area, we didn't really have a support network in Carlisle; no family, not that many friends - yet the special thing was the way people reacted.

"People offered us their home. A pre-school nearby set up a base and were offering us cups of tea. We had some Birmingham Muslims helping empty our house. One of Sarah's colleagues let her stay at her house and we ended up being there for a couple of months. You knew you could talk to others who were in the same situation. It made us feel less isolated."

Fearn says that, having taken out contents cover for his rental property not long before the floods struck, he found his insurance firm initially reluctant to pay out. While this added to mounting stress, it also, eventually, resulted in a happier ending.

"We decided to use that insurance money to put a deposit down on a house," he says. "So, until then, we had seven months of sitting on a couple of plastic garden seats, eating on our laps from the microwave as our old place dried out.

"We've bought a house now, and, funny as it sounds, it was that whole event that made us want to make our base here for the long term. The flooding, in a weird way, sold Carlisle to us. Because of how good the people were."

Their new home, he says, is "on a hill" and so free from obvious danger. Brunton Park, though, remains where it always was and, though now refurbished, it was a stark place after Storm Desmond, when Fearn and physio Neil Dalton lost many essential tools of their trade.

"Our heart rate system was lost. All our monitoring equipment lost. Players' programmes lost. You think, well, no big deal, we'll print them off the computer. But the computers were flooded too.

"There was a picture on The Guardian website of some of the ruined gym equipment, and someone left a comment underneath saying, 'Well, why don't you just wipe it down and crack on?' It was a bit insensitive for a start. But the damage done, just with the silt getting in, made it beyond repair.

"It left things difficult. We had to find a way of adapting, as people did in their day-to-day lives. Find different ways of monitoring training load, different ways of reporting. It probably, in hindsight, makes you a better practitioner. You're put on the spot."

Fearn says only by working through things methodically - the same as at home - could his department at United get by. Brunton Park now has a new, state-of-the-art gym and many more restored facilities, but at the time the team was playing 'home' games at other grounds whilst trying to sustain a promising season.

Supporters also descended on United's battered stadium to help clear it out last December. "That was special for everyone at the club," Fearn says. "I'm a massive football fan myself, but when you're involved in it you sometimes forget how much it means to people. Then you see people giving up their time, not for any reward, just to help out. And some of them had had their own homes flooded too.

"We saw that as bringing the community together. It's a bit cliched but it's true. We were desperate to go out and win games, to give something back to people for whom it was maybe their only escape; going down to Preston to see us play Notts County. The atmosphere that day was one of the best I've experienced."

Fearn says it was rewarding too, in all these circumstances, when United's medical department was later named League Two team of the year at the Football Medical Association awards. This season, Carlisle's low injury count and strong fitness levels have seen manager Keith Curle pay tribute to "little Lee", who was initially hired by Graham Kavanagh, and the long-serving Dalton.

Fearn is modest about these compliments. "We've got stats in terms of injuries, and how we try and reduce things, but we just try our best. We'll probably get some things wrong, but reflecting on those is part of being a strong department. If you sing from the rooftops, it can bite you on the bum.

"Whatever you do, you're part of a team. Dolly's the one who gives me the most advice. He's a local boy. He's been here for a hundred years! Whatever situation arises, he's experienced it. He's a real unsung hero."

Dalton has a deep affiliation with United, but Fearn is feistier on the touchline. United's win against Wycombe in September, for instance, saw the coach confronting an angry visiting coach. "You have to look after yourself," he says, a bashful smile playing on his face. "You can't let people walk over you. We're just desperate to win. Just like somebody can get a little bit mad in the Paddock, we can get a little bit mad ourselves. The important thing is that you shake hands afterwards.

"You tend to find emotions rise higher when you can't control something. It's like the floods - that helplessness. That night last December, whether I'd been in Welling, Carlisle, or Timbuktu, there was nothing I could have done to prevent that water coming. That's when the emotion is there."

The storm is, he says, a story he will "tell the grandkids", while he hopes many more people are on the way back to normality. "If it does happen again, and you pray it doesn't, we'll try and be the same kind of support that people were for us. We'll never forget it."

The last point is strong, for there is now a permanent reminder in Fearn's new house: a photo taken by Sarah from the doorstep of their previous place, of two mountain rescue men wading along the lake that was Greystone Road. "It is quite a poignant picture," he says. "We got it blown up at Boots and put on a canvas.

"It reminds us where our new house has come from, and it symbolises as well; if you have bad times, it's how you get through it."