Believe it or not, although sadly it is true when I look at my hairline, it will be 20 years in November since we played an FA Cup game at Valley Parade, although it wasn’t against Bradford City of course, but versus Guiseley. Like Sunderland this season, it was another Sunday game too, with the Bantams also being drawn at home in the 1994-95 first round as their tie finished all-square at 1-1 on the Saturday, Chris Kamara ‘unbelievably’ featuring in midfield for City that day.
On to Carlisle though, and with Guiseley’s small Nethermoor ground not deemed fit to host the tie for the Northern Premier League club, the match took place at Valley Parade with around 3,500-4,000 Carlisle fans making the journey down to West Yorkshire to the cheer on the Blues. The United team that day, with substitutes, being: Caig, Edmondson (Joyce), Gallimore, Walling, Mountfield, Conway (Thorpe), Thomas, Currie, Reeves, Davey, Prokas, as the match was played out in front of an attendance of 6,548, that 1,067 more than had watched the City tie against the Iron 24 hours earlier.
It only took the Cumbrians 19 minutes to take the lead too as David Reeves headed home from a David Currie cross before Paul Conway made it 2-0 with a close range strike following a bit of a goalmouth scramble at a corner. The scoreline only remained 2-0 going into the interval though after a contentious decision involving Geoff Horsfield, the former bricklayer appearing to go down like a ton of those to put it mildly to earn the Lions a penalty. I don’t think it was him who stepped up to take it, feel free to correct me on that, but whoever’s responsibility it was it proved a pretty easy spot-kick for Tony Caig to save away to his left.
That came in front of the baying Blues fans who were packed into what was then known as the Kop when it was terraced, and the third Carlisle goal came at that end too when in the second-half Derek Mountfield nodded into the net from an inswinging corner. The goal of the game did come Guiseley’s way though when Vince Brockie lashed in an excellent 22-yarder into the far top corner of the Carlisle goal, the final result ending 4-1 however when Reeves was on hand to get his second goal of the tie with a tap-in from inside the six-yard box.
Former Guiseley defender and United centre-half Dean Walling commenting on the game: “The better finishing that we had was the difference all-in-all. Both teams played good football, I think the penalty just before half-time, if they had stuck it in they maybe it would have made it a bit of a harder game second-half but we rode our luck and went on and scored four.” While star striker Reeves said: “I should have got a hat-trick really but the keeper [Steve Dickinson] made a couple of good saves, there was a really great save in particular when I should have scored when I was through, but I might get three soon with a bit of luck.”
The next stage of the competition saw Carlisle playing on a Sunday once more as a bumper crowd of 8,365 at Brunton Park saw the Blues defeat Darlington 2-0 thanks to goals from Conway and Currie. Of course not much needs saying from that point on as it was those two famous FA Cup games against Sunderland in the third round, in a near repeat of the scorelines just 12 months earlier as déjà vu almost struck all over again.
As for Guiseley, well living in Skipton as I did for 20 years, they were one of the local non-league clubs that I used to go and have a watch of occasionally, seeing some stellar names playing at Nethermoor for the Lions too such as, erm, Greg Abbott and George Oghani, while Keith Walwyn played for the club in the later 1970s, as did Kevin Gall and Jason Price in much more recent years. This season meanwhile both Ben Parker and Gavin Rothery are in the Guiseley side, and keeping goal once more after various moves round the country is 41-year old Steve Dickinson, almost 20 years since he stopped David Reeves from claiming a hat-trick at Valley Parade.