Imagine Carlisle United playing in the second tier of English football, scoring six goals in a thumping home victory over a future FA Cup winner, and fewer than 3,000 fans there to see it?
It sounds surreal, given the swell of support behind the Blues’ fourth-tier efforts this season, yet it was very much the reality at United in the spring of 1985.
The visitors in question were Wimbledon, whose side featured a number of players who would go on to be household names. The hosts, meanwhile, were negotiating their third season back in the Second Division in what would turn out to be their most recent stretch at that level.
It proved to be a game that caught Carlisle in ravenous goalscoring form, too. Yet the general climate was not as thrilling, given that United were at the top of a downward slope, while the mid-1980s were not prosperous broadly speaking, while football was also at its nadir in terms of public perception.
All in all, early 1985 was not the most vital time to be around Brunton Park, even though history holds it in a much fonder light. The 1984/5 season followed a seventh-placed finish under Bob Stokoe when, for a while, the Blues had looked in shape for an unlikely return to the top flight.
A sense of more realistic struggle then set back in, their bursts of form too brief and unpredictable to last, and a bottom-half season with little prospect of emulating the previous term duly unfolded.
They had, though, a team with talent and character in various places. There was the exciting wing play of John Halpin and the consummate goalscoring instincts of Malcolm Poskett.
There was the class of Jack Ashurst at the back, an all-time goalkeeping star in Dave McKellar, the diminutive quality of Alan Shoulder in attack and, also against the Dons, the angular threat of Andy Hill.
Wimbledon’s arrival on March 23 proved the brightest day in Hill’s Carlisle career, against a Dons side who were spending their own first season in the second tier after back-to-back promotions.
Having only been a Football League club for eight years, they were on an impressive climb, and the side that ran out in front of that small Brunton Park crowd included further top-flight stars Dave Beasant and Nigel Winterburn, along with a player who, several years later, would have a short and forgettable spell at United, in Carlton Fairweather.
Carlisle went into things in one of their best mini-spells of the campaign, and signs of a prolific campaign appeared early when the Wimbledon defence showed themselves, in the classic words of Evening News & Star reporter Ivor Broadis, “as brittle as clay pipes in a fairground shooting gallery”.
It took Carlisle only two minutes to claim the lead and, if Wimbledon disputed the penalty as former Derby County prospect Hill battled with Mike Smith, the spot-kick was awarded by referee Alan Saunders and Mike McCartney showed no mercy as he fired past Beasant with typical composure.
That served to open up the game almost instantly – and, as Wimbledon attacked in pursuit of parity, Stokoe’s United were primed to capitalise.
The visitors went close when Andy Sayer failed to convert a Fairweather cross, but Carlisle then cruised clear with a superb goal on 20 minutes. Shoulder’s deep corner was headed back into the middle of the box by Don O’Riordan, and Hill met it with an overhead volley which was too good for Beasant.
For the south Londoners, there was a feeling of inevitability about the remainder. Carlisle’s defence, which included a debut for Newcastle United loanee Steve Carney, was untroubled and the Blues went through again for two more goals before the break.
First, Hill flicked the ball to Poskett, got it back and then rifled it home. Then, in the 42nd minute, Poskett claimed one himself, finding space between Wimbledon’s defenders to convert a low Paul Haigh cross.
A four-goal first-half salvo – echoed all these years later by the Blues’ recent efforts at Crawley – was welcome indeed for Stokoe and the 2,779 faithful. It rendered the rest a formality, even though Wimbledon produced a consolation goal early in the second half when Sayer this time steered a Fairweather cross past McKellar.
Carlisle’s response was simply to add two more to their tally. Their next came when the 26-year-old Beasant failed to get a Poskett header under control after a Halpin corner – and the tall figure of Hill was there to pounce and, in the process, complete his first ever hat-trick.
Poskett then wrapped things up in style, picking up the ball on the left and going past two Wimbledon defenders before calmly bringing up Carlisle’s half-dozen with his familiar finishing class.
It was United’s first six-goal haul in a league game for 13 years – and a champagne afternoon for Hill. Manager Stokoe, afterwards, admitted he had been preparing to move him from attack to midfield after a prolonged drought.
“I can understand the reason for a move back after going so long without scoring,” Hill said. “I hope the goals will help.”
United’s best victory of the season was followed by two more in impressive fashion against Barnsley and Middlesbrough. That, though, was as good as it got, and a late-season slump delivered no wins in their last seven and, relatively speaking, an underwhelming 16th-placed finish.
Dave Bassett’s Wimbledon ended four places higher – another step on their rise to the top, which they completed the following season by reaching the First Division, with that famous FA Cup victory to follow in 1988.
Carlisle’s trajectory was the opposite. A season after they routed the Dons, they were on their way back down to the Third Division, and a year after that they were back at the basement division, their second-tier adventures already a fading and increasingly elusive memory.
United: McKellar, Haigh, Ashurst, Carney, McCartney, O’Riordan, Halsall, Halpin, Shoulder, Poskett, Hill. Not used: Robson.
Wimbledon: Beasant, Kay, Morris, Smith, Winterburn, Handford, Evans (Gage), Ketteridge, Fishenden, Sayer, Fairweather.
Crowd: 2,779
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