How we reported Carlisle United's First Division promotion

On the 50th anniversary of the day Carlisle United won promotion to the top-flight of English football, here we reproduce in full the next day’s Evening News & Star front page article that marked the achievement.

DIVISION 1!

Carlisle hit the big time

We’re in, we’re in, we’re in the First Division. Carlisle United, average gate 8,000, is now a member of the classiest soccer elite in the world!

And today all Cumbria was celebrating.

Orient’s 1-1 draw with Villa last night put Carlisle in the First Division and will bring some of the best soccer sides in the world to Brunton Park next season.

Alan Ashman got up late today and collected the happies bundle of letters of his life. Telegrams poured into Wetheral Post Office, opposite the Ashmans’ home, and the pile got so big that Alan offered to collect them himself.

As the glory of last night cleared he sent out a firm message to his players – enjoy yourselves.

“After all we’ve been through we deserve a good time. I’m going to tell everyone with the club that they should just enjoy themselves for the moment,” said Ashman.

How our front page looked the morning after Carlisle's promotion was confirmed - with the masthead turned blue to mark the occasion (Image: News & Star)

“Last night was quite an ordeal and looking back I think I would have preferred it if I had gone to the game. The waiting for each telephone call from the ground was just agony.”

Neighbours in the village have been round to congratulate the jubilant manager and today his phone hardly stopped ringing as friends in the soccer world decided to send their best wishes to the tiny club which has joined the giants.

Nearly 2,000 people rang a specially manned switchboard at Cumberland Newspapers last night to find out how the make or break game went.

For a team that has no reserve side, no internationals and a comparatively small regular band of supporters, Carlisle ha completed a fairy tale season.

And it’s an achievement that has set the soccer world talking.

As Ashman, who managed West Bromwich Albion when they won the FA Cup, sat down to consider life back in the First Division, he still couldn’t quite believe his luck.

“It’s just fantastic. You couldn’t get a story like that if it was in showbusiness.

“In the next few days there will be nothing but celebrations and after that we can get down to thinking about life in Division One.”

And spare a thought for Orient. Said manager George Petchey: “It is a shame to have missed promotion by one point. I feel sorry for the players; they are choked.”