• Seven years ago Michael Knighton took control of Carlisle United with the club bottom of the Football League and facing extinction. The charismatic Chairman has guided United to two Wembley appearances and promotion to the Second Division.
• He has also made Brunton Park the envy of many top Football League sides with the ground besting a superb new £3m stand, which holds around 6,000 fans.
• But last season United were relegated to Division Three and although they have only lost one league game in the last eight, the club are in the bottom half with fans hoping Carlisle can recover and make the playoffs
• Here, Michael Knighton answers the questions every Carlisle United fan is asking
THERE is a belief that the club have made a substantial profit from the transfer of o players in the last two yea Matt Jansen and Rory Delap brought in around £3m, yet the last time the club paid a reasonable sum was £100,000 each for Andy Couzens and Ian Stevens around 18 months ago. Where has the money gone?
YES, we have sold players for considerable
A sums of money but the confusing thing is that Id fans just see headlines like 'Jansen goes for £2m' or 'Delap signs for £1mb yet these are Figures for paper transactions between the clubs, not the amount Carlisle United received. Football clubs sign players on drip feed so it can take as long as five years to get the full amount.
We only received £500,000 up front for Rory and the same sort of sum for Matt. So we have had £1m altogether but we'll never get the full £2m for Matt until he is transferred the rest is deferred for two years. In Rory's case we get more money every time he completes 20 appearances for Derby County, so it could take two more years to get the full amount
We are legally obliged to pay the debt of the East Stand. The club planned that the overwhelming majority of money received from players would go towards paying off the debt. Then, of course, there's the new players we have brought to the club.
THERE is considerable confusion about who owns what and the role of Knighton Holdings. Can you explain this and the financial background to the East Stand, which cost just under £3m.
A LET'S GET one thing straight. Carlisle United A Football Club owns the East Stand and Id Knighton Holdings provided the club with the majority of the money to build it. I've heard this nonsense about Matt Jansen being contracted to Michael Knighton personally This really is utter nonsense and an absurd rumour.
Some people say we should never have built that stand. They say we should have spent money on players but what they don't know is that that side of the ground was condemned. We would not have been issued with a ground certificate unless we built something there so we could have built a cow shed with no facilities or seating but we would not have met the criteria to move up the Football League, so the strategic decisions to build it were correct.
We have an overdraft which we are constantly on the threshold of, or exceeding, yet the football club should be congratulated for having virtually paid off huge assets in a short space of time. We should have paid for the stand in the next 12 months which should allow us to go forward although we will still need to sell players.
You need to remember that when clubs sell players it's not always to go out and buy more players, it's to help pay off the budget deficit.
THERE are some useful players at Brunton Park, notably Tony Caig, Ian Stevens, Graham Anthony, David Brightwell and Stuart Whitehead. Younger players who have impressed fans include Peter Clark and Paul Boertien. Could you give us an idea of the costs involved in signing these players?
FOOTBALL has changed. We've invested huge sums of money for players this season. You're looking at well over £500,000 for wages and signing-on fees for the seven players we brought here in the summer.
Firstly, every single player we brought in was a First or Second Division player. Damien Searle, for example, had five clubs chasing him. Then if you look at David Brightwell, he could have been worth up to £500,000 if he had been on a long contract and Stuart Whitehead had been offered a two-year contract at Portsmouth by Alan Ball.
You can't get the likes of Scott Paterson, Stuart Whitehead and Steve Finney unless you offer extremely attractive packages.
We have one of the highest wage bills not just in the Third Division but in the Second Division too. We beat off First Division competition to buy Ian Stevens for £100,000 when Shrewsbury wanted £500,000. We were the only football club to offer the money up front, without a drip feed.
CAN YOU give Carlisle United Supporters an idea of the running costs of the football club?
IT WOULD be unfair to talk about specific contracts but we have had players at this football club, during my reign, earning £2,500 a week. It costs £50,000 a week to run this club and we average around £132000 income.
Around £4 h m has been spent on Brunton Park in the last five years. That's an accounting fact and a huge investment for a small company we employ around 70 full-time staff and on match days that goes up to 250. The police and stewarding costs come to around £6,000 for every game and we have spent more than £100,000 to install policing measures for things like video surveillance.
This football club cannot sustain its current level of expenditure without the support of people like me and with the good grace of our creditors and bankers. This is a fact that can be vindicated by the auditors That’s the case at just about every football club. Just look at Everton, who sold Duncan Ferguson to Newcastle £8m. If you believe newspapers, the bank told them to sell a player, yet they have gates of 30,000. Then you have Oxford who are £13m in debt.
The situation in the bottom two divisions is now at crisis level.
CAN WE talk briefly about loan players? Fulham striker Rob Scott performed reasonably well during his recent loan spell at Brunton Park. He was for sale for £50,000— not an exorbitant figure these days—yet you couldn't agree terms and now he has signed for Rotherham. What went wrong?
THE TWO football clubs agreed a fee of £50,000 for Rob because he was coming to the end of his contract otherwise he might have been worth say, £250,000. Rob was happy here too.
Then his agent asked for a £100,000 a year salary on a 2 1/2 year contract and accommodation. I told her we weren't prepared to pay that but that we would take over his contract and offer him a substantial promotion bonus and pay an his removal costs but she never got back to me.
Now I have been told that Rob was so disappointed that the agent scuppered his move to Carlisle that he went to Rotherham and did the deal himself. Is this a sign for the future? Agents must start realising that clubs can no longer afford the outrageous demands players are making. Now it’s all catching up with them.
PAUL MeGregor is back at Brunton Park on loan from Nottingham Forest. He is the best player I have seen this season and even though Forest want £250,000, he looks like the kind of player destined for the Premiership. Do you agree and are you determined to bring him to the club on a long contract?
YOU'RE right. Paul is a fantastic player and we want him to be a permanent signing. He's an exceptional forwards top drawer at our level and his immediate future will be outside the Premiership, hopefully with Carlisle United.
He's a crowd pleaser and a lovely man who we all like. I will fight as hard as I have ever done to get him here. But Wolves want him too and we can't compete with them. Paul is a very, very bright prospect and he is the sort of quality you need.
YOU HAVE consistently defended your position as a 'tracksuit' chairman who helps pick the team, along with John Halpin and David Wilkes. Critics say you are in the bottom half of the Third Division and although you have only lost one of the last eight league games, a play-off place seems unlikely. Who is responsible?
I AM the director of football which is a very difficult job. But David and John will be out there holding the coaching sessions. They are excellent coaches. We have an outstanding relationship. We trust each other and we are all trying to achieve the best we can for Carlisle United.
To a man, we were aware that we were holding the job open for Peter Beardsley from not long after Mervyn Day left. We pick the team together, looking at the opposition and our available squad.
The first team usually picks itself but if there is a need for change we all have our say and there has virtually never been a disagreement, but if there is I will take the decision. I have never wanted John and David to take all the flak, so in answer to your question, I am responsible.
YOU MENTIONED Peter Beardsley? He has now joined Fulham permanently so does that mean he will never return to Brunton Park?
I HAVEN'T given up on Peter coming to a Carlisle. I would love him here. But as you say he’s now at Fulham but I hope one day we'll get him at Brunton Park. He would be a tremendous boost for the club.
YOU HAVE always been outspoken and happy to express your opinions. There have been occasions when you have been extremely critical, some would say offensive, towards a minority of supporters who question your tactics and plans? Do you think that's fair?
A FANS are the lifeblood of the football club and no one appreciates that more than me the 3,000 regulars are Carlisle United. They are the real fans who have been very good to me and I am so grateful for the support they've given.
We can't survive without them. I genuinely believe we have some of the best fans in the country. The fans and the city deserve a successful football club and I deeply regret that at the moment we aren't giving it to them. We all want to, especially the players.
I have criticised a tiny minority of people who are verbally abusive to myself and my family and it's that sort of loutish behaviour I will not tolerate.
EVEN THE most passionate supporter realises Carlisle United will never play in the Premiership unless a benefactor donates £100 million to the club. Yet we can aspire to the First Division. How can clubs of a similar size to Carlisle such as Bury, Crewe and Stockport play there? What are they doing different to us and do you still have long-term plans to take Carlisle into the First Division?
DON'T FORGET, Crewe used to be a yo-yo side but suddenly they have consolidated n their position in the First Divisions I suspect Carlisle United will be the same.
We have the foundations herein we have a great stand and some good young players and we must get to the First Division. Don't forget all these clubs have sold players. I believe Stockport sold two players for around £2m each.
The infrastructure is in place at Brunton Park and though we still have to watch our pennies the club and the fans together can firstly become established as a Second division team and then make a real push for the First Division. I think that with a bit of good fortune there's no reason why we can't be up there within three or four years. The fans deserve no less.
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