ARCHIVE: League Fixture Controversy 1996

Описание: The 1995/1996 Football League Division 2 season ended in controversy when, after the original match between Brighton & Hove Albion and York City had to be abandoned due to a supporter protest, the match had to be replayed after the original end date of the League calendar.

The controversy was caused because York City lay in the relegation places and, with a win at Brighton, the Minstermen would escape relegation and send down Carlisle United, with their chairman Michael Knighton crying foul.

As it was, York won the game at the Goldstone Ground 3-1 sending the Cumbrians down to Division 3 after only one season at that level. The Carlisle chairman, incensed by the outcome, threatened legal action against the Football League.

The legal action never materialised and, also in the same year, Knighton, who once famously tried to take over Manchester United, claimed to have seen a UFO and communicated with aliens reported in the local Evening News and Star. Carlisle United won automatic promotion back to the third tier the following year.

This piece features interviews with Knighton, City manager Alan Little and Keith Sutton, the Editor of the Evening News and Star, Carlisle’s local newspaper.

Footage from BBC Sport
Re-edited and Remastered by Phil Howden