The chairmanager: Michael Knighton's turbulent reign at Carlisle

It doesn’t take much for football fans to turn on a failing chairman. Especially if that chairman is also the manager. But that's exactly the position noted eccentric Michael Knighton plunged himself into at Carlisle United in the 1990s.

Knighton was known for some bizarre boasts throughout his career. A promising young player on Everton’s books, he claimed a senior figure at the club had described him as “the best youngster at that age he had ever seen” – a statement that precisely no one has been able to verify.

When football didn’t work out, he turned to teaching, and became headmaster of a school in Huddersfield. In eerie foreshadowing, he bought the school and ensured he remained in the top job. But he couldn’t resist the call of the beautiful game…

In 1989, he launched an ambitious takeover bid for Manchester United. The deal was so progressed, he appeared at Old Trafford before a game, performing keepy-uppies to thousands of bemused Mancunians. Bryan Robson later described him as a “head case”.

Shortly after, Knighton’s bid collapsed, and he settled for a rather more modest prospect, buying Carlisle United in the fourth tier. After a frenetic early chairmanship that saw a revolving door of managers, Knighton found success with fans’ favourite Mervyn Day, who guided Carlisle back to League One.

Alas, Knighton couldn’t keep his own irrepressible ego in-check. A man who once described himself as “English football’s greatest visionary”, he fell out with the popular Day shortly after promotion and gave him the boot.

Knighton wracked his brains searching for a name that could help Carlisle kick on in the third tier, and eventually he landed on the perfect candidate: himself.

“I was always a tracksuit chairman anyway,” he said to press after giving himself the job while wearing a suit emblazoned with the club crest. But Carlisle endured a torrid season as attendances dwindled, and they were relegated without so much as a whimper. Strangely, though, Knighton somehow kept hold of his position.

Back in the fourth tier, things didn’t get any better. Knighton did eventually sack himself – presumably with a decent severance package – and hired Nigel Pearson to do a firefighting job.

But he didn’t make it easy for Pearson when he sold the club’s only fit goalkeeper with a handful of games remaining. Ironically, emergency loan keeper Jimmy Glass scored a famous goal that ensured Carlisle narrowly avoided relegation on the final day.

Fans were furious and called for Knighton to sell. But the chairman was busy suing the local newspaper for a story that claimed he'd made up a UFO sighting. He tried to set up his own local paper in response.

In a desperate attempt to keep hold of the club, Knighton wrote to the local council and offered to lease Carlisle United to them for £1-per-year. When that failed, a mysterious businessman called Michael Brown appeared from the woodwork, and Knighton claimed a deal was in progress.

However, said businessman was soon exposed as an out-of-work barman whose last job was serving pints of Cobra in a curry house, and rumours abounded that Knighton was using him as a cover to clear debts and sell the club back to himself…

With fan marches against his ownership now a weekly occurrence, Knighton threatened to close the club down completely, before he was finally forced to sell in 2002 amidst a flurry of tax debts.

He fled south, never to return to Carlisle, and settled into a retirement of painting, writing poetry (over 3000 poems according to the man himself), and nursing sick seagulls back to health.

That was until 2022, when he decided to buy Manchester United again. Strangely enough, the takeover bid collapsed. Maybe he’ll write a poem about it.