Just three of his several hundred career appearances came in a Carlisle United shirt yet, to Clive Allen, his fleeting time in Cumbria did not pass in the forgettable blur one might expect. Allen was at Brunton Park for a very short and unsuccessful spell but, nearly 25 years on, it is surprising to find he has not banished the time from his mind.

In his new autobiography the great former Tottenham, QPR and West Ham striker says he has a crystal clear memory of all the goals he scored. When it comes to Carlisle it is the ones he didn’t put away that come back sharply.

“Against Notts County,” he says, “I had a couple of chances, opportunities I really should have taken. I really regretted that. It was a very, very frustrating game.”

That was Allen’s third United outing in the autumn of 1995, which was supposed to be the start of a notable last hurrah for one of the best English finishers of his generation. Allen was also meant to be the latest veteran player to come to Carlisle’s aid in a bold Blues era which had already seen positive input from the likes of Derek Mountfield and David Currie.

Those two had helped Mick Wadsworth’s team to the Division Three title in 1994/5 and, early in the following campaign, Allen was a surprising but, at the time, welcomed addition to a side in need of extra poise at the higher level. History judges it as one of United’s more surreal episodes, since Allen accumulated 270 minutes for the Blues, didn’t score, left and promptly retired.

It is a period seldom touched upon yet Allen, 58, has devoted a short chapter to it in his memoirs and is happy to talk about the circumstances of the move’s beginning and abrupt end.

“I was near the end of my career, out of contract, and I think I just wanted to show everybody that I still wanted to play,” he says. “I’d played so many years for London teams, apart from my spell at Manchester City, but it was a case of, ‘Look, I’ll go and play anywhere’.

“It took me out of my comfort zone, coming so far north. Carlisle was something new.”

Allen also admits in his book he was “scared” of retirement and, at 34, was happy to speak to United’s No2 Mervyn Day, an old sparring partner, and Wadsworth, the director of coaching whose path he had crossed at the Football Association.

“Through the summer, I’d been training at West Ham after leaving Millwall, and we’d had a few conversations,” he says. “Carlisle were keen to come to an arrangement whereby I could play, but I wouldn’t have to be in Carlisle all week, because I was based in London. I think both parties wanted to make it work.”

Allen duly negotiated a deal and looked forward to what represented a fresh challenge for his ageing skills and mind, and lingering appetite. He had made his name by scoring an incredible 49 goals for Spurs in 1986/7 and both Wadsworth and the player himself hoped for a few last traces of that pedigree. “Having had the career I’d had, and listened to so many people saying, ‘Play as long as you can’, that’s exactly what I wanted to do,” Allen adds.

“In the back of your mind, you always think you’re going to go on forever. I’d had a calf problem but I was over that. I’d had a good pre-season. I was as fit as I could be. I could still play.”

Allen says he was “warmly welcomed” when he arrived at Carlisle even though negotiating with chairman Michael Knighton was, inevitably, an experience of several episodes. “It won’t be right,” Wadsworth and Day had told him, laughing, when Allen walked in to sign the deal, and it was only after some back-and-forth that he eventually put pen to paper, having threatened to abort a pre-arranged press conference if Knighton did not honour the terms he believed had been agreed.

“I would say it was an interesting confrontation with Michael, when doing the contract,” Allen says. “I’d come across a number of very interesting chairmen over the years…so you can never be surprised in football.”

Allen’s arrival on an initial month-long deal made inevitable headlines and sparked the curiosity of fans, who envisaged a ripe strike partnership with captain and talisman David Reeves. “It probably surprised a few people that I was actually there,” he recalls. “But I was determined. I desperately wanted to do well.

“We had a decent team, a nice mix. Derek Mountfield, who I’d played against when he was at Everton, was still there. Rod Thomas had been a real young starlet and you realised he had lots of ability. A very young Rory Delap was there too and you could see he was gonna have a future. Micky Wadsworth was a fantastic coach and the atmosphere around the club was positive. I was looking forward to the challenge as a senior player.”

His first week at the club was sabotaged by a virus but Allen restored some fitness with an hour for the reserves at Walsall – a game more notorious for a controversial foul by Steve Hayward on the hosts’ Stuart Ryder – before he was picked to face Hull. Carlisle had won just one of their first eight Division Two fixtures but the veteran, who received an excellent reception from a near-6,000 crowd, showed some astute touches in the game, including one slick through-ball for Reeves. The latter scored two first-half goals and the second came when Allen dummied a Currie pass.

United benefited enough from Allen’s wisdom, against a Hull side that included future Carlisle boss Greg Abbott, to encourage Wadsworth to predict the old stager could play 50 games for the club. Afterwards he paid tribute to his “great touch and perception”.

Allen returned to London after the game and came back up later in the week when United were preparing for a trip to Walsall. His second game brought a 2-1 defeat in which the striker had a shot cleared off the line.

A week later, October 8, came the visit of Notts County. Allen, again, was denied on the line, this time from a header, and a 0-0 draw brought a further sense of frustration for the team – and a sudden and unwanted glimpse of the end for the player.

“I think that game made me realise that I wasn’t the player that I used to be,” Allen says. “Missing those chances, that in earlier days I probably would have taken, I think made me aware of exactly where I was at.”

Allen said he had been fully determined to succeed at United, and despite his struggles had not intended that game to be his last – but his trip home that evening drained his resolve. A bridge was down on his planned train route, meaning Allen had to board a rail replacement bus. He was quickly spotted by a group of Celtic fans who subjected him to “a staggering array of songs and swear words” and, upon arriving in London, a tube strike meant he did not get to his house, via a taxi, until 3am.

“You aren’t doing that any more, are you?” asked his wife Lisa, as Allen crawled exhaustedly into bed. Allen nodded.

“I’d always been a stickler for seeing out contracts that I’d signed,” he says, “and that was my intention. It was just the journey home that tipped me over the edge.”

Allen says that, had he made more of, and scored in, his three United games, his decision might have been different. But weariness had come from different avenues and he quickly agreed the terms of his departure. “I had the discussion with the chairman, and it was all very amicable,” he says.

“I was glad I took on the challenge, and I don’t regret it at all. But it was tough, the realisation that my playing days were probably over.”

Allen formally retired soon afterwards and, initially, found this hard. “You know it’s on its way, but part of you never thinks it’s gonna happen,” he says. “I’d played football from six years of age, and professionally for 17 years, and all of a sudden it’s over. I would say it was a body blow, a shock.”

The stress saw Allen lose much of his hair, before he stepped back into the game via the media – he was among the first faces on Sky’s Soccer Saturday show – and, briefly, ventured into American Football as a kicker with the London Monarchs. Since then he has coached alongside Harry Redknapp back at Spurs, where he is now an ambassador.

It goes without saying that he sits more snugly in club history there – and at other places such as his first club, QPR – than at Carlisle. At Loftus Road he had emerged as a teenage striker in the same side as the older and more established former Blues maverick Stan Bowles: “That was an education for me,” he says. “He was a special player. One of the best passers of the ball that I played with. He was so well-balanced and should have played more times for England. Perhaps at times he wasn’t appreciated enough.”

Allen was not a special Carlisle player, and cannot have imagined his great career would end with a goalless draw for the Cumbrians against Notts County in the third tier, but all these years on is measured in the way he regards that short, strange time. “To this day,” he says, “I’ve always followed the clubs that I’ve played for. It’s a nice feeling that you have actually pulled on the shirts for those clubs. I absolutely include Carlisle in that.”

* Up Front, by Clive Allen with James Olley, is published by DeCoubertin.