Three-nil up with half-time approaching, a new manager settling comfortably into position, and an aspiring Carlisle team laying waste to the opposition. Could it possibly get any better?

Yes, it could. A free-kick was awarded 25 yards from goal, and Marc Bridge-Wilkinson stood over the ball. He proceeded to curl it with beautiful accuracy past the Millwall goalkeeper, Rab Douglas.

Four-nil in the 45th minute, then, game over already, the perfect start to the John Ward era...and a performance rich in promise about where the 2007/8 season might lead at Brunton Park.

Well, we know how it finished – with crushing play-off failure – but for a while, the possibilities that campaign seemed endless. Carlisle were cruising, having hurdled early-season turmoil and parked themselves in a League One promotion race just two years after coming up from the Conference.

United’s evolution under Fred Story’s ownership certainly hit its greatest height in 2007. They had completed a progressive first season back in the third tier and even when the owner sacked manager Neil McDonald one game into the new campaign, it did not put the brakes on the Blues.

Caretaker Greg Abbott’s designs on the job were overlooked in favour of the experience of Cheltenham’s Ward. He described moving to Cumbria as a decision he needed little time to make, and he first took the helm for Millwall’s visit in early October, with Abbott returning to the assistant position.

Their job was to oversee a team still possessing many of the players who had driven United forward over recent years. Keiren Westwood was by now the outstanding mainstay in goal, while in Danny Livesey, Peter Murphy, Chris Lumsdon, Simon Hackney, Zigor Aranalde and others, a positive core remained.

Carlisle had added to this with the summer signings of three former loanees in Danny Graham, Joe Garner and Bridge-Wilkinson, and all these men combined for a display that was far too much for Willie Donachie’s Lions, who were struggling to find their teeth near the foot of the table come early October.

In front of a 7,022 crowd, United began briskly and eased into a 15th-minute lead. Garner was the man who opened the scoring, the record buy from Blackburn applying a firm header to a Bridge-Wilkinson free-kick.

It soon got better for both United and their strikeforce, since Graham was next to get greedily in on the act. After Dave Brammer had hit the post for the visitors, ex-Middlesbrough man Graham made it 2-0 in the 29th minute, sliding home Bridge-Wilkinson’s pass after a move started by Livesey’s header and continued by Joe Anyinsah’s run.

United’s potency went in hand with Millwall’s evident disarray and four minutes later it was three. Graham was quick to grab his second of the afternoon when he bashed home an Anyinsah cross, and Carlisle’s three-goal superiority was followed by further discord in the away ranks.

Jamie O’Hara, the young midfielder on loan from Tottenham, was hooked by Donachie after the third Blues goal and did not take kindly to the decision, ripping off his shirt and giving his boss plenty of choice words as he stormed off.

Millwall then suffered the further blow of an injury to veteran defender Richard Shaw, who had to be stretchered off after colliding with Garner. Then came the fourth goal, when a handball led to midfielder Bridge-Wilkinson’s sweet free-kick.

“I haven’t been four up for about two years, so having to deal with that at half-time was a new one on me,” Ward later said with a smile. The second half was a more even affair but without the dramatic tension of a close encounter. Alan Dunne, Neil Harris and Gary Alexander failed to pull goals back for Millwall, while sub Kevin Gall missed a late Blues chance. 4-0, though, remained an ample way to begin the Ward era as Carlisle went up to third in the table.

“There was a thoroughness, a pace and excitement about it,” said Ward of his first game, and while there were a few ugly scenes away from the ground – eight people arrested amid clashes with police in the city after the game – it had otherwise been a bright new beginning at Brunton Park.

It got better again when United topped the table in November, memorably scything Leeds at Brunton Park, but visions of a second-tier return for the first time since the mid-80s faded at the last. Carlisle stuttered to the line and a late-season thrashing from Millwall at the Den contributed to their failure to seal automatic promotion.

Instead they landed fourth, and fell to Leeds in the play-off semi-finals. Ward was gone a few months later: quite the slide from that heady and hopeful sunny autumn peak.

United: Westwood, Raven, Aranalde, Livesey, Murphy (Arnison), Anyinsah (Carlton), Bridge-Wilkinson, Lumsdon, Hackney, Graham, Garner (Gall). Not used: Howarth, Smith.

Millwall: Douglas, Senda, Shaw (Bakayogo), Robinson, Frampton, Dunne, Brammer, O’Hara (Fuseini), Simpson, Harris (Hackett), Alexander. Not used: Day, Barron.

Crowd: 7,022.