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" When I bought the club people were asking what our ambitions were and what our projections were. I think, quite wisely, I said that I wasn't going to predict anything, all I was going to say was that we were going to work hard. I think everybody associated with the club has worked very hard and I think we've deserved the success that we've got. You've got to say there has been an element of luck, there always is in football but I think the harder you work the luckier you get. I think everyone at the club has worked so hard, but to get this success, a possible third promotion in a row is just incredible.
" I think in football you can only do a 90 minute plan can't you because you are in the lap of the Gods, once that whistle blows it's about the football. We haven't had a plan to say that we want to go to the Championship. We just had a plan to say 'right, the place was in a mess, how can we go about running it properly and getting examples from other clubs.' I think the important thing is that we've left the football to the footballers.
" That is crucial, we were really lucky in having Paul Simpson as manager for two years (under Story) and I think they have done really well in getting Neil McDonald here. I think Neil, for his first season as a rookie manager, I think he has had a fantastic year.
" I think the danger is that if we were to get to the play-offs, and if we were to get to the Championship, the problem we would have when we get into the Championship is the gates at Carlisle are realistically going to be hopefully ten or twelve thousand. We'd be competing with clubs, two thirds of whom, have regular home gates of 20,000+, that puts us at a real disadvantage. Sensibly, plenty of people are saying it's fantastic to be in the position that we are in, hopefully we can get to the play-offs and hopefully we can get promotion.
" Wait a minute though, promotion is perhaps a step too far for this club at this stage and it's hard to disagree with that. Having said that you go out to win every single game, if we got to the play-offs, and if we got to Wembley, I'd be sitting there at Wembley, whether people believe it or not, hoping that we'd win and get that promotion. Then we'd just have to address those problems when we got there but there would be big problems in going up to the Championship.
" It can be done at clubs like Colchester but when those players contracts at Colchester come up, those players are obviously in that squad or that manager is good enough to have them as a successful Championship side. So other big clubs, and look at the big clubs that underachieve - Sheffield Wednesday and clubs like that, they can afford to go and buy those players off them. So Colchester are going to have to be at some stage addressing their wage structure, and they haven't got the gates to finance that. "
" I know it's being miserably realistic but how long they can they last at that? We all want to go into the Championship and I think that would help build the club but what we mustn't do is go up like a three-penny rocket and come down and start a free-fall, as we did from the First Division 30 years ago. I only temper my enthusiasm about going up into the Championship with the fact that, right if we do go there, and we want to go there, that we don't want to fail when we get there. We want to be successful and we want to be sustainable because it's the long-term future of the football club that is important.
" I think we get £350,000 from the Football League in League One, that goes up to about £1.1 million in the Championship and we'd get more SKY revenue as far as matches that were being shown. So there would be an increase in revenue, there is no question at all about that, but again though you've got to remember that you are competing against every other club that is getting that same SKY revenue and subsidy from the Football League. The difference is though that they've got a 20,000 customer base instead of a 10,000 customer base, that is always going to be a disadvantage.
" Some of those clubs are in debt or they don't own their own stadium so that works against them, that's why we are trying to work here so we are slowly getting out of debt. We own our own ground though and all of those things are structurally important for the long-term sustainability. We've got to generate something here at Brunton Park that throws money into the club so that we can give that money to the manager.
" At the end of the day you can have the best manager in the world but if you haven't got a budget for him to work with then he is going to go, he hasn't got a hope. It's all the same old boring stuff I keep on trotting out, we've all got to keep working hard to create as much money and much income as possible so that we can put the best possible team out there on the pitch.
" I took over almost reluctantly because quite honestly there was no-one else daft enough to do it at the time. It was in a mess and it was on the way down, I was confident though with the crowd base that we had that we could get back and eventually get back into the league that we were in. I never for one minute dreamed that we would get two promotions in a row. Then here we are in our third year with a chance, and I don't want to get carried away with it because I don't want to tempt fate, but the chance to do something that no other English Football League club has ever done.
" For Carlisle to achieve that is a great thing for the club and all its supporters and the whole area. At last again we've got something to be proud of that everybody is pleased to talk about. The buzz about the town and about the county is about Carlisle United again, we're not the eternal losers, we're a winning club and that's great. "