David Conn: Fans' fury at Knighton threat to close Carlisle

The Football League may be facing up to the loss, now certain, of its £178.5m deal with ITV Digital, Carlton and Granada's failed TV venture, but normal service has still to be maintained across the country. Clubs are being triumphantly promoted or crushingly relegated, girding themselves for the play-offs and, that football perennial, there is mayhem at Michael Knighton's Carlisle United.

The latest uproar was sparked by telephone conversations with two prominent supporters, who said Knighton threatened that unless his family received "a full unreserved apology" for negative publicity from Carlisle's supporters' trust and the local newspaper, the club would be withdrawn from the League and their Brunton Park ground boarded up. Knighton said his family had "had enough" and "the people of Carlisle don't deserve a Football League club". Knighton has subsequently told The Independent that the threat to leave the League has been withdrawn.

His outbursts followed mass boycotts by Carlisle supporters of two recent home games, against Cheltenham and Plymouth, this month's sacking of the club's manager, Roddy Collins – who had steered Carlisle towards their highest finishing position for five seasons, 17th in the Third Division – and the collapse of tortuous takeover talks between Knighton and the Irish businessman John Courtenay.

A local MP, Eric Martlew, who is a Carlisle supporter, said: "I've never seen my constituents this angry. The club is a community asset and Michael Knighton does not have the right to take it away."

When Knighton bought Carlisle in 1992, he vowed to take them to the Premier League within 10 years. This latest chapter concludes a decade in which promotions in 1995 and 1997 gave way to two desperately narrow escapes from relegation to the Conference, including the celebrated 94th-minute goal from the goalkeeper Jimmy Glass in 1998-1999. The last year has seen three aborted takeovers and now, a decade on, the club are in a deepening financial crisis.

The club are losing more than £10,000 a week. The local newspaper, the Carlisle News and Star, recently reported nine County Court judgments against the club, for amounts ranging from £158 in Staines County Court to £3,362 in Carlisle. There is a £960,000 mortgage over Brunton Park taken out by Knighton's holding company, the proceeds of which were used to pay previous debts.

Martlew raised the club's financial position on Tuesday in the middle of a House of Commons debate about, of all things, the Government's funding for the National Health Service. Martlew rose during a session with Andrew Smith, a Treasury Minister, to discuss the relevance of Carlisle to the nation's health: "I totally agree with the Government's policy of raising taxation for the NHS, but I believe that it is as important to collect taxes as it is to raise them. Yesterday, the owner of Carlisle United announced that he was going to take the club out of the Football League. I understand that the club and Carlisle United Holdings owe in excess of £700,000 in taxation. Is it not a fact that if more people paid the tax that they owed, we would have a better health service?"

The Minister replied that he would "draw his remarks to the attention of the Inland Revenue and, if appropriate, to the Department of Trade and Industry" before returning to answer questions about the Government's NHS budgets in 2003-06.

Knighton derided Martlew's intervention in the House as "an abuse of Parliamentary privilege". He confirmed that some money was owing but said it was substantially less than the figure quoted, which he described as "absurd". He stressed that he did not owe a penny personally.

In October, the club borrowed "substantial" money from the Professional Footballers' Association to help to pay players' wages and, according to the PFA's deputy chief executive, Brendan Batson, the loan has not yet been fully repaid. Carlisle also owe £25,000 to the Dublin club Shelbourne for the Irish Under-21 striker, Richie Foran, the only player Collins signed for a fee and whose goals have been central to Carlisle's survival this season. Olly Burn, Shelbourne's chief executive, said two instalments due in January and this month have not been paid: "They told me they didn't have any money. I said that wasn't my problem." A club spokesman, Phil Holmes, said Carlisle had financial problems, like all lower division clubs, but the Shelbourne money had been "rescheduled". He added that he could not say when it would be paid because that was "classified".

For Knighton and his 24-year-old son, Mark, who is one of only two Carlisle directors, the situation is personally very difficult. Michael Knighton and his wife, Rosemary, were both disqualified in September 2000 from acting as directors of any company for five and a half and two years respectively.

The DTI sought the disqualifications after St David's, a private school company the Knightons ran, went bust owing £474,000. The Knightons admitted to having paid their holding company, Knighton Holdings, £203,000, in preference to other creditors, "in particular the Inland Revenue", which was then owed £288,000.

A disqualification order bans a person from being a company director or "directly or indirectly being concerned or taking part in the... management of a company." If a banned person contravened the order, they would be committing a criminal offence.

Mark and Michael have always been adamant that Michael plays no part in the management of the club. When the bans came into effect in December 1999, Michael Knighton resigned as a director and Mark, then 22, was appointed a director. He and Andrea Whittaker became the only two directors of Cumbria's only League club. Michael still owns 93 per cent of the holding company.

Knighton's telephone calls last week were made to two prominent fans. The first was to Mike Corry, chair of the Carlisle and Cumbria United Independent Supporters' Trust, following the fans' boycott of the Cheltenham match, which led to a crowd of only 2,100.

Knighton, according to Corry, said the Knightons had held a "family meeting", at which "certain options were discussed", including withdrawing the club from the League and closing the ground.

Lord Clark of Windermere, the former Labour Minister and a lifelong Carlisle supporter, telephoned Knighton later the same day and was also told there had been a "family meeting", at which the decision was taken that the club would be withdrawn from the League unless CCUIST and the News and Star issued apologies. Both men said Michael had stressed that the directors – and not him – would take any decisions.

Michael Knighton told The Independent this week that he did meet with Mark to discuss the future of the club and gave his opinion about it. However, he said he could not play any part in decision-making and any decisions would be taken by the board and announced by Mark. "Ultimately, the directors will make a decision," he said. "But they have to discuss options with the major shareholder and I expressed an opinion." Knighton said that his family had "bankrolled" Carlisle for years but had received only abuse from CCUIST. The club had called for "non-confrontational" supporters to come forward to discuss the future and said 200 fans had contacted them. Knighton said that Carlisle would not now be withdrawn from the League, that a new board would be appointed shortly and he might even give his shares to a charity. Courtenay, meanwhile, said he was still prepared to buy the club.

Lord Clark was mournful: "It's a tragedy, and so unnecessary. We had five very good years with Michael Knighton at first but we have had five horrible years since and I just wish he'd solve this problem by selling the club and moving out."

That, however, might only land the League with another problem it does not need: if peace breaks out in Carlisle, where will we turn for tragi-comedy?

davidconn@freeuk.com