Carlisle United 2 Rochdale 0: “It’s not really about me,” Paul Simpson had said before this game. Good luck trying that line on the folk of Carlisle now.
This possibly isn’t the way to keep a low profile, Simmo. This isn’t how you blend into the background. Two matches, two wins, an immediate easing of stress, all that immediate popularity vindicated – and, late in this game, also some of the noisiest celebrations heard at Brunton Park for quite some time.
Most first weeks in a new job aren’t like this. The majority of people, seven days into fresh employment, are only just figuring out where the stationery is and who to avoid in the canteen.
Simpson has only gone and transformed the mood of a despondent football club in that short time. “The Swindon game feels so long ago now,” said Morgan Feeney, one of the defensive stars of this dogged 2-0 win.
He’s not wrong. Carlisle, since that desolate Saturday afternoon when Harry McKirdy seemed to be laughing them all the way to non-league, have a new spirit: one that is, crucially, also fizzing through their fanbase. United’s directors may have known they were playing a popular card with the re-hiring of Simpson, but can’t have expected it to be this big a hit, this soon.
This was an at times anxious contest against a good footballing opponent, but Carlisle came through it with character, spirit and many of the other qualities they’ll need to win this relegation battle.
Simpson, as you would expect, was keen to put it all on the players afterwards: goalscorers Omari Patrick and Tobi Sho-Silva, defenders like Feeney and goalkeeper Mark Howard, who also very much excelled when needed.
The wider uplift doesn’t happen, though, without the manager’s return. United are up to the inexplicable heights of 19th, and who would have put any money at all on this a week and a half ago, when Carlisle’s ground felt like the most desolate place on earth and the narrative was about who needed to be sacked and at what speed?
As well as revitalising it by his sheer presence, Simpson has also brought immediate gains by getting his hands dirty on United’s shape and system. The return to three centre-halves has been an obvious win. Alongside Feeney, Dynel Simeu and Jon Mellish were indefatigable here and this, again, is refreshing progress in a back line that, before Saturday, was leaking and listing dreadfully.
At the start of this cold night, with an almost touchable anticipation in the air for Simmo’s Brunton homecoming, the manager slipped almost unnoticed into the dugout. His first programme notes of this mini-season were also dipped in realism. “Being a fan myself, I am fully aware of the worries and concerns you have about succession, and about the direction the club is going, particularly with the position we currently find ourselves in the table,” he wrote.
"But the most important thing for all of us is that we unite and pull together for the 14 games that remain."
That level-headedness appeared a wise tone when this thorny game began to unfold. Rochdale’s possession game made the initial mark and Alex Newby, their No10, made a habit of landing on second balls in front of United’s defence.
It took Carlisle time to sort this out. The visitors’ movement, and their ball-players’ low centre of gravity, left Simpson’s side without the ball for much of the opening spell.
Was this going to be the night the honeymoon was abruptly ended? It may have done had Matty Done been able to beat Howard in the sixth minute, but the goalkeeper saved well, and then Newby fizzed a shot wide from that 25-yard pocket where he was often located.
Carlisle stepped into the game better when they found ways of closing off that space. It was never a comfortable half, but on the occasions when Callum Guy positioned himself in good midfield destroying areas, and United used the ball with a degree of composure, things improved.
One creative move saw Jamie Devitt put Kristian Dennis’s cross wide, then Jordan Gibson almost spooked keeper Jay Lynch with a low cross. Then they scored: Lynch coming too far for Devitt’s searching free-kick, stretching and spilling it, and Patrick gobbling up the breaking ball and finding the attic of the net.
Patrick, a short while later, took a layer of paint off the right-hand post and, let's be honest, two-nil at this still formative stage would have been most unlike Carlisle United. Baby steps and all that.
Rochdale responded by stretching the play again, Newby and Tahvon Campbell regularly extending Feeney and his colleagues. It was hard going at times but you had to admire the defenders' willingness to do what Zigor Aranalde, a fine defender from Simpson’s first era, called “the dark work”.
That continued in a second half which had its attacking moments but saw United go deep late on in their anxiety to see things through. Howard denied Done and, after Patrick and Gibson had failed to clinch things on the counter, fresh legs from the bench for both mainly brought Rochdale further on to a defensive but thoroughly committed Blues.
Rochdale pressed and countered, and Howard’s 86th-minute save from Conor Grant seemed the half’s decisive moment – until, four minutes later, Mellish launched the ball out from defence and Sho-Silva, up against Jeriel Dorsett from halfway, showed strength, persistence and finally a delicate touch to fashion the room to slot past Lynch.
At that moment, the balloon went up at Brunton Park. It was as joyous a moment as the ground has known for ages. Five thousand supporters roared and sang and then fairly skipped home. The man himself won’t want it described as the Simpson effect. But it’s very hard, just now, for the rest of us to call it anything else.
READ MORE: Paul Simpson hails 'best feeling for a long time' after memorable Carlisle United win over Rochdale
READ MORE: 'That was heart and soul tonight' - Carlisle United fans salute Rochdale victory
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