Why the Cumbrian heart of this Carlisle United team is particularly refreshing

Paul Simpson.

Seriously. That’s it. It does make you wonder, given the ripe success he has had at Brunton Park, why the Blues haven’t tried it more often.

And yes, of course it’s about the right man and not where he’s from. And no, it didn’t matter diddly squat that Alan Ashman was born in Rotherham not Ravenglass, or that Mick Wadsworth was from Barnsley not Blennerhasset.

All the same, there have been many failures as well as successes, bosses who didn’t turn out a good fit, those who came and went without any attachment other than to the role and the salary.

Was there really never a time, in all the decades, when there wasn’t a Cumbrian there, someone with a deeper feel for the goings-on behind those big metal triangles on Warwick Road, who could have got his hands on the job?

We can never know. What we can know, though, is how it feels when the Blues are being steered not just by a Cumbrian, but by Cumbrians. Loads of them for that matter.

You will have seen those lovely photos from Tranmere Rovers last weekend, taken by Richard Parkes and Ben Holmes, of four local-born players lined up together after United’s 2-0 win.

There were two from Carlisle, one from Maryport and one from Staveley: Owen Moxon, Paul Huntington, Taylor Charters and Jack Ellis. A few steps behind were two further Cumbrians: Simpson and his assistant, Gavin Skelton.

It wouldn’t have gladdened the heart in quite the same way had Carlisle been stuffed at Prenton Park. But they weren’t. They were driven to a consummate victory in no small part by that 36 per cent of the starting XI who were raised inside the county boundaries, plus the pair on the other side of the white line.

Paul Simpson is a rarity: a Cumbrian manager of Carlisle United (Image: Richard Parkes)

Didn't it look and feel good? And might it also help us rediscover something which, with its enhanced professionalism, advanced connections, and financial imbalances, might have been slipping away from professional football?

Until Tranmere, United had not fielded so many Cumbrians in a starting league XI for seven-and-a-half years. That statistic conceals all sorts of details, directions, decisions and intangibles, and we’d need several pages to go into all of those.

What we can do in shorter order is pinpoint why last Saturday was a good thing – why it’s more refreshing than it may have been in generations past.

A bit of localism – which doesn’t have to mean being parochial – is increasingly harder to promote at clubs of Carlisle’s size. United could easily point to a number of young Cumbrians in the modern era who either left long before first-team age, or were snapped up the minute they poked their heads into the senior environment.

Dean Henderson (Whitehaven) and James Trafford (Greysouthen) were taken, aged 15 and 12 respectively, by two of the biggest clubs in the land. Jarrad Branthwaite, after half a season in the first team, was spirited to the Premier League with Everton. Liam McCarron (born in Preston, but grew up in Appleby) was swooped upon by Leeds.

In the first two cases in particular, you see the difficulty in doing something which Paul Murray, that fine young Cumbrian player from the 1990s, was always proud of at one stage during his time at the club: having an XI on the pitch which is festooned with home-grown players.

The way United are doing it now is different to the 'Brunton Babes' era, and perhaps more realistic given today's challenges. While two of the current four are academy graduates in Charters and Ellis, Huntington is only at his home-city club at 35 having played elsewhere and higher all his career. Moxon is back for a second go having been rejected at 16.

The latter pair are here to no small degree because they want to play for Carlisle; because they are Carlisle. Roots can evidently count for much, even if the journey has to be different.

As such, Simpson can speak about Huntington giving United the next three years with a degree of realistic optimism. With Moxon, it probably comes down to Carlisle keeping pace with the flourishing of his midfield talent.

The route of players such as James Trafford - snapped up by Man City at 12 - shows the difficulty clubs like Carlisle face in bringing through top local players (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Ellis, a composed head at just 19, has already represented the club with great pride and professionalism and seems just the sort of young player United would wish to secure for longer. Charters is only just getting his latest chance, but he showed the benefit of lots of senior appearances last weekend, even if the majority have been as a substitute. And it's no secret what playing for the Blues means to him, either.

Is it not better, if not ideal, to know that when Carlisle United take the field, they are doing so with at least some players who, long before and after these careers, could be counted on to possess a certain feeling for the place that cannot be shaken?

It is not to suggest those who arrive here from elsewhere are less committed – the way the current group are playing is evidence enough of that – but equally we’ve seen plenty of cases over the years of players, and coaches, suddenly discovering Carlisle’s position on a map and deciding it maybe wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Those episodes underline the fact that no matter how polished your scouting, no matter how well WyScout shrinks the footballing nation, there is something valuable in the notion of Cumbrians playing for Cumbria, lads from here playing for us.

It's neither insular nor old-fashioned to think like this. If anything, it might just pull us back that bit closer to a game which can appear too orchestrated and remote for its own good these days.

“I can only talk about how feel coming back and being the manager of Carlisle United,” Simpson said last weekend. “I’m quite sure for the [Cumbrian] players playing for Carlisle United, it’s a big thing too.” A big thing for us all, if we let it feel that way.