Twenty years ago Carlisle erupted and the rest of the world spluttered its disbelief.

Jimmy Glass is reflecting on something more recent: the day six weeks ago when he returned to Brunton Park for the first time in nearly a decade, and learned that Cumbria has not forgotten him.

A sold-out event saw Glass reliving May 8, 1999, when his goal against Plymouth kept Carlisle United in the Football League.

It was the last kick of the season, scored by an on-loan goalkeeper.

No wonder Carlisle supporters remember. No wonder they were keen to say thank you. The evening ended with a standing ovation.

“It was fun to come back,” Glass tells the News & Star from his home in Bournemouth. “It was good to catch up with people I’d not seen for a long time.

“I do enjoy coming up. I’ve got such a tight bond with the fans and the town.

“I never tire of speaking to Carlisle fans about a moment that’s affected their lives.

“They bring their children who weren’t even born. They still enjoy the moment. They’re now living it themselves.”

That goal - that incredible, impossible goal - never dies.

Its flame has been fanned by a new Sky Sports documentary.

Jimmy Glass: The Great Escape was filmed partly during that visit to Cumbria in late March.

The programme also includes an interview with Eddie Howe, the manager of Premier League club AFC Bournemouth, where Glass, 45, is now a player liaison officer.

“He just took the mickey out of me for most of the time they were filming,” laughs Glass.

“The guys I work with take the mickey out of the goal. So does Eddie. But he loves the goal. Every person that comes to the club: ‘Do you know who this is? Jimmy Glass!’

“I never really mention the goal. And the running joke at the club is that I’m always talking about it!”

Another interviewee was Glass’s manager at Carlisle, Nigel Pearson, who described his former goalkeeper as “different”. Glass’s interpretation?

“Probably the fact I didn’t want to play in goal in training the day before the Plymouth match! I was running around up front.

“The character I portrayed to try and give myself confidence - a bossy, loud character - was probably very different to the other characters he had in his squad.

“I was trying to raise spirits, probably more for myself. And for a goalkeeper to step into the position Carlisle were in, to put yourself into the melee for three games, takes a certain type of character.”

For a while, Glass struggled to know who or what he was.

Two years after scoring the goal, he walked away from football.

He’d tired of the battle to establish himself in the game. He felt that his moment of glory saw him regarded as a novelty act rather than a dependable goalkeeper.

He became a computer salesman then a taxi driver. At times he succumbed to a gambling addiction before returning to football with Bournemouth four years ago.

While away from the game, the goal was both comfort and curse. It reminded Glass of what he had achieved, and of how far from that world he had travelled.

“I used to sit and watch it,” he says. “Over the years I have shed tears watching it. Sometimes tears of joy, sometimes sadness.

“When I was struggling, I was looking back at what my life used to be like.

“When I was so far away from football, the goal seemed like a distant memory.

“Now I don’t get so emotional. I’m closer to football. But it does make me proud. That people are still enjoying it 20 years on is a great compliment.”

Two decades have, says Glass, helped him understand himself much better.

“As a young goalkeeper I wasn’t the player I should have been. The work ethic, the presence of mind, the self-confidence, were missing.

“I told myself I’d make sure if I got another chance in football I’d make the most of it.

“Learning from my younger self makes me more driven and focused.”

Not everything the young Jimmy Glass did was a mistake, although his greatest achievement started life looking like one.

Leave the comfortable obscurity of Swindon Town’s reserves to play the season’s last three games for a team at the other end of the country; a team at risk of dropping from the Football League after 71 years.

Run up the pitch in the final match’s final seconds and become a headline, a pub quiz question, a hero in Cumbria.

“I’m not sure if I’m a great spiritual believer,” says Glass.

“I don’t know if I believe in fate. I do tend to believe that what you reap, you sow.

“To come up to Carlisle in the first place and show willing, show desire and passion, regardless of what could have happened... I think football or the universe or whatever rewarded me.

“I said this in the documentary: it’s not my goal, it’s football’s goal. It’s there for everyone to enjoy. It’s wonderful to be associated with it. It is amazing. But football’s amazing.”

Glass says it’s rare for a day to pass without someone mentioning the goal. People ask him to send video messages to loved ones. He has just recorded one for a groom-to-be in America.

At Bournemouth his duties include talking to fans before home matches. “Half the people want to ask me about the goal I scored for Carlisle rather than anything to do with Bournemouth.

“Bournemouth represents what can happen, what you can achieve.

“There’s no reason why Carlisle can’t reclaim some former glories and move themselves up the league.”

Glass is married to Louise. They have 17-year-old twins, Jack and Ella.

His life is busy, and much has happened since 1999. But the world knows him only for one distant afternoon.

That’s fine by Glass, who insists he never tires of talking about something which creates so much happiness.

He has no plans to mark today’s anniversary. It would be a shame if he didn’t pause to remember, to reflect on how his life has changed... and how it hasn’t.

“Last weekend I played a charity game at Poole Town with Darren Anderton and Paul Walsh,” he says.

“We lost 8-3. Don’t blame me for the eight goals - I played up front.”

Did he score?

“Yeah, I scored one. James Hayter went through and lobbed the keeper. Everyone stopped and watched it. I followed it in, it hit the bar, and I put it in from three yards... my favourite distance.”

Does it still feel natural, scoring goals? Glass laughs. “Mentally, yes. Physically, I’m like a ship turning.”

He doubts that the 20th anniversary will put any kind of lid on the world’s fascination with his best-known goal.

“People are still talking about Ronnie Radford’s goal [for Hereford against Newcastle in 1972]. While Carlisle have fans who are young enough to remember me, they’ll talk about it.

“They’re very passionate about their club. They’ve had a lot more downs than ups in recent years.

“But the thing is, there’s always hope. That’s the beautiful thing about football - the possibility of what could be.”