Why we should all take pride in Manchester United's Cumbrian star Dean Henderson

Are we taking this in? I mean, properly, truly? That one of the most coveted positions in club football is on the very brink of being claimed for the foreseeable by one of our own?

One of the perils of familiarity is that it gradually takes away that sense of wonder. We now read about Dean Henderson most days, hear about his performances, his status, his prospects, what Manchester United’s legends think of him and, by the way, what his progress means financially for Carlisle.

Henderson being in the news, being very good, is no longer revelatory. It is part of football’s background noise rather than something to raise eyebrows.

And this is the time we should all make ourselves pause, stop scrolling, and think deeper. For we are in the early stages of a special era for Cumbrian football here and we must not let it pass with only a glance or a click.

Henderson, only just 24, is now regarded by many Old Trafford sages as the rightful claimant to the No1 position. Although Ole Gunnar Solskjaer may not make definitive noises on the subject yet, the Cumbrian is as close as he has ever been to surpassing de Gea for the long run.

I mean, how good is this? The job of being Manchester United’s last line is a task that has made legends, crushed smaller figures and been downright elusive to the vast majority of goalkeepers who have walked the planet.

Many judges believe Henderson is edging ahead of David de Gea at Manchester United (photo: PA)

It is only a role for a giant, whether in stature, personality or, more often than not, both. And here is a kid from Hillcrest, from St Benedict’s School, from Whitehaven Miners FC, from Carlisle United’s academy, showing that he has the aptitude to be that person.

Well, if that isn’t the most uplifting football story from our part of the world, please show me the better one. If this is not a richly talented young man clearly capable of going down as a Cumbrian all-time great, kindly say why.

And if you feel the latter prediction is far too much to load onto a still-developing player who has the large part of his career in front of him, with all sorts of unknown paths and pitfalls yet to be encountered, well…you would normally be absolutely right.

With Henderson? Probably not. One imagines he would take that ambition on with all the others. He has not got this far, after all, by limiting his reach or thinking his potential had a ceiling somewhere nearby.

An often-shared clip is of Henderson, then on loan with Grimsby, talking to ITV Border about his hopes in 2017. The aspirations included to become the “best goalkeeper in the world” – or at the very least, the leading candidate in England.

Carrying the idea that he might become one of the finest ever to emerge from our county may not, then, trouble him greatly when his head hits the pillow.

Cumbria has dispatched many a superb player into the heights of English football down the years, yet never, this far, has it supplied both a Manchester United No1 and a highly credible England goalkeeping contender at such a burgeoning age: someone with the skills, the wit and the iron-clad confidence to come through the youth stages of a club which only promotes the elite of the elite, and then go boldly into the first-team, not stay contentedly around the fringes.

I hope, at this tantalising point, that Henderson feels a large wave of pride surging his way from this corner of the country. I hope he knows that the magic of his feats is being fully appreciated and celebrated – that the gravity of his status is acknowledged, not skipped past as one more news item or greeted with just another Gif of a man spraying money around on account of what his every Red Devils move means for Carlisle.

Henderson was on Carlisle's academy books as a boy before moving to Manchester United

We clearly cannot sidestep the welcome nature of that financial help when it, as a minimum, helps the Blues, and at most could transform them. But we would be wrong to leave our focus only there and not give just as much time to the sheer thrill, the football romance, of a Cumbrian boy galloping to the top of the hill and looking like he very much intends to stay there.

Think of how many hopefuls fall short of that peak, and think of what Gary Neville – a man who ought to know about these things – said about the challenge Henderson is tackling and, so far, boldly overcoming.

“It’s the job that’s most scrutinised in football, Manchester United’s number one,” Neville said. “If you make a mistake, you get absolutely punished.”

That is true of most keepers, but at the club whose net has been protected by Schmeichel and those other greats? Multiply it infinitely. “He’s a young goalkeeper,” Neville added of Henderson, “but in the first five or 10 games that he’s played, he’s been really confident and really sure. You have to have courage to play that position, full stop.”

So let us take that pause, applaud Henderson and cheer him on through the coming weeks and years. Each time we see his name in high circles and it feels more usual, more predictable, more expected and more the normal way of things, let us sharply remind ourselves: it’s not. Not just for a Cumbrian, but for any footballer from anywhere.

It’s highly rare, and to be treasured.