“I saw the look in Sir Jack’s eyes, and I don’t know who had the greater desperation for success, him or me,” said Jones, who argued that the play-offs were not beyond his new charges. “Most clubs would give anything for a stadium and support like Wolves’ They had 24,500 against Preston on Boxing Day If we get success they’ll be hanging from the rafters. But without hard work, you could throw £100m at this club and not guarantee a Premiership place.”Several dozen of the old-gold faithful turned up to give Jones a warm welcome, but he knows that opposition fans may not be so generous “Football humour is sick,” he stated matter-of-factly. “It’ll be interesting when Wolves play Portsmouth, where Southampton are known as the Scummers, but if some idiot wants to shout something, so be it.

That’s the last thing that’s going to worry me.”Jones suffered a setback last night when Dennis Rofe declined the job as his assistant because he did not want to uproot his family from South-ampton, where he is reserve-team manager.. Michael Knighton can claim to have left Carlisle United exactly as he found it. They were bottom of the Football League when he took over in the summer of 1992, only retaining their status because Aldershot went bankrupt two-thirds of the way through the season. Michael Knighton can claim to have left Carlisle United exactly as he found it. They were bottom of the Football League when he took over in the summer of 1992, only retaining their status because Aldershot went bankrupt two-thirds of the way through the season.
Yesterday, as Knighton sold his 93 per cent stake in the club to a Gibraltar-based company called Mancarr, Carlisle were still in last place, although the intervening eight years have hardly been dull and nor will this one be.The first match of the new regime is Saturday’s FA Cup tie with Arsenal; the 15,000 tickets sold out in less than a day, proof of what potential lies beneath the constant defeats.

It is “coincidence” Mancarr has taken over just when the club’s profile is likely to be higher than at any time since an on-loan goalkeeper called Jimmy Glass scored in the 95th minute to preserve their League status two seasons ago.It is unclear who the new owners are. The public face is provided by Stephen Brown, a hotelier who was once the commercial manager of Gala Fairydean in the Scottish borders, and David Low, a management consultant who has previously worked with the then Celtic chairman, Fergus McCann, to oversee the redevelopment of Parkhead and later tried to move Clydebank to Dublin. The others have as yet refused to be named.Brown has seen Carlisle play once and when asked when he last saw a game of football he replied: “It must have been a Hibs match three or four weeks ago.” He claims to support Partick Thistle and trots out the usual clichés about the “sleeping giant”. He has, however, given permission for new players to be signed, something his predecessor would not have sanctioned.Brown did, nevertheless, decline to offer Ian Atkins, Carlisle’s manager, a vote of confidence. “If we beat Arsenal and then get a home draw with Manchester United, his future might be assured,” he laughed. “We will talk to him after the Arsenal game.” Atkins, who is commuting from Solihull, remarked he, too, would like to see the owners, “if only to know whether I should move my family up.

This club has played Russian roulette for the last two seasons and they will not survive a third. Seventy-five per cent of my team have been brought in because they were available rather than because they were what I wanted.”If I had been told when I came here that I would have had to begin the season with five players who had never played League football, then maybe I wouldn’t have taken the job. I came in one Saturday to find Anthony Carss had signed for Oldham, something I didn’t know about.”Carlisle are no ordinary ailing representative of Third Division England. They are the only League club in the vast, rural and wealthy area that runs north from Preston to Dumfries.