John Courtenay’s reign may not have been the most successful in Carlisle United’s history. But it was surely the most necessary.

Without Courtenay, after all – without someone with his energy, stamina and sheer, bloody-minded will to extract United from the hands of Michael Knighton in that bleakest of times – where would the Blues be now?

There are enough examples of hollowed-out, distressed and collapsed clubs to know the answer to that, or at least to imagine where things might have been heading without the Irishman’s crucial intervention.

This is exactly why the sad news of the businessman’s passing at 70 has been met with the warmest of words from so many supporters. They appreciate with deep respect that Courtenay was the man who gave them their club back.

This conclusion requires a chilling recap of what United was like before he marched onto the scene. Anyone who stood on a terrace or warmed a seat at their ground in the first months of this millennium will remember painfully how rotten it was all becoming.

Let us consider the final few acts pre-Courtenay. In the summer of 2000, for instance, Ian Atkins, the manager, was unable to sign players until a week before the campaign kicked off. When he did so it was in the form of trialists hurried onto short-term contracts. Throughout that term, his idea of building a competitive football team seemed at ludicrous odds with the general picture.

United’s good times of the mid-1990s were now mocking supporters from the pages of history. Carlisle were now in a dismal and disturbing retreat. Some of Knighton’s past activities were attracting the interest of the Department of Trade & Industry and, while things on the pitch were bad, who, too, could ever forget the off-field travesties of 2001?

Carlisle, instead of making good on all that end-of-century promise, were now the sort of club that could almost end up in the hands of a skint curry-house waiter (Stephen Brown, the bizarre chancer who apparently hoodwinked Knighton). There was the MAMCARR mystery, other false takeover dawns, the mobilisation of supporters against the ownership and, in the spring of 2002, the removal of the latest manager – Roddy Collins – for speaking out of turn when the latest mooted change of regime appeared to be going nowhere fast.

Knighton, by then, was no longer selling dreams. Brunton Park had become a political and financial hellhole. It was a miserable, hostile place. Fears that you would one day walk down Warwick Road and be confronted by padlocked gates were certainly active in many fans’ minds.

Courtenay, praise be, saw past this chaos. Encouraged by Collins, the Dubliner approached Carlisle with the charisma, nerve and vision that the situation demanded.

Many people, at that time, wanted Knighton out and volubly said as much. It was Courtenay, though, who did the real dirty work, who got through the horrible sweat and minuscule detail at the moment of truth.

It was Courtenay who, in one memorable radio exchange, also proved he had the public wiles to go up against Knighton, who was as eloquent when on the embattled defensive as he had been when in Pied Piper mode.

It was Courtenay who made it happen, Courtenay who was, that day in 2002, famously depicted on the front of the News & Star holding the document confirming the transfer of controlling shares; Courtenay who oversaw one of the most refreshing times in United’s history when, flanked by Collins, he hosted an upbeat, open-air fans’ forum in front of the East Stand, setting the scene for an opening-day game against Hartlepool which attracted a five-figure crowd and felt like the most wonderful occasion of renewal.

United were afflicted by a heavy hangover despite that new start. The football was seldom successful and the financial side required serious medicine. Courtenay threw considerable funds at the predicament and energised staff with his can-do manner. When United came out of administration in the autumn of 2002, they did so with the rare and honourable approach of paying their creditors in full.

Supporters, at this point, were minded to help the club, by selling tickets and contributing in other dedicated ways. Before Courtenay, that attachment had been broken.

His style was to talk, to whip things up, sometimes to be hair-trigger and argumentative but invariably to come round to ways of thinking which fans and colleagues could identify with.

Putting him in a co-commentary position on BBC Radio Cumbria was always hazardous, given his capacity to berate referees, use the odd salty word or even, on one infamous day at Lincoln, get into confrontational situations with stewards.

Such outbreaks of agitation were always a risk given the way things on the pitch tended to proceed. From periods of heavy recruitment there were notable good additions, but too many who did not come up to the mark.

Some who ventured over from Ireland were indisciplined and took Courtenay’s jaunty personality for a ride. Some appeared to see a career at Carlisle United as an excuse to live a flamboyant life. There was enough wild drama to fill a television series – The Rod Squad, which had the fiery Collins as the star – but performances were rarely good enough to excuse the excesses and although the Blues reached the LDV Vans Trophy final in 2003, Football League survival remained a precarious concern. Sacking Collins later that year must have pained the owner but by then he had realised that loyalty in football only gets you so far.

His appointment of Paul Simpson was a better, more calculated gamble on a more rounded and frankly smarter football person, and though United did go down in 2004, the feel of the Blues, under their focused young manager and the more credible squad he was building, was infinitely improved.

The age of chaos was over. United’s soaring rise over the following two seasons could be traced to that decision to put their future in Simpson’s adept hands.

It was, from 2004, Fred Story’s ownership which gave Simpson the framework to deliver his two promotions. This was because Courtenay was no longer able to sustain his control of United in alignment with his other interests in Ireland.

When he recognised this, he did not cling on. He met Story in a Little Chef and they thrashed out a deal. The Cumbrian building tycoon brought the sort of order and acumen Carlisle then needed. He made their foundations more secure and the general operation more polished and driven.

A crucial platform, though, had been constructed by Courtenay all the same. It was one of goodwill, of restoring a sense of what United could be capable of, given the right people in the right posts.

Supporters were always eager to embrace him, and he returned the affection. He drank with them, debated with them, even gave some lifts to games. He communicated not just through official channels but on the CUFC Online forum, where the user jcourtenay did not only respond to club-related questions but frequently got involved in some of the more offbeat discussions the burgeoning online world of the Blues threw up.

He welcomed media folk into his company, falling out with them and then, just as avidly, falling back in. Certain sessions on Carlisle’s drinking scene are still recalled wistfully, and with a rub of the head, by those involved.

Those outside that close orbit, those who simply paid at the turnstiles and wanted United to do well after all the previous suffering, had their frustrations in Courtenay’s era but never that aching feeling that the Blues were at the cliff-edge any more.

This, ultimately, is where the gratitude comes from. Courtenay assuredly saved Carlisle United from a dreadful, possibly terminal reckoning. Under his rule they were manic, volatile, passionate, messy, flawed, alive. They had a future. There could be no more valuable legacy.