EFL stalwart’s failed move to Carlisle United could have saved their League One status | OneFootball

The 2023/24 campaign is Carlisle United's first one back in League One since they were relegated a decade prior.

Things are looking bleak for the Blues as things stand, but, had one failed transfer gone right, there might not have been such a long gap between their stints in the third tier of English football.

In the 2013/14 season, Carlisle finished 22nd in League One and were relegated to League Two. They finished five points behind Notts County - the last club to avoid the drop - and their -33 goal difference was the worst in the division. The club's current head of recruitment Greg Abbott and former player Graham Kavanagh were the two men to take charge of the Blues that season, with the latter ultimately taking them down to the fourth division, but things could have been so different.

David Amoo finished the season as Carlisle's top scorer with eight goals. They may have had an even better forward, and been able to beat the drop, if they'd have got the best out of a striker that they'd sold the season before in Paddy Madden.

Paddy Madden's disappointing stint at Carlisle United

Madden joined Carlisle on a two-and-a-half-year deal from Irish side Bohemians, for an undisclosed fee, in January 2011. He was with the Blues for two years, but he never really got going for them. The Irishman only managed two goals in 37 appearances for the Blues.

He'd scored 10 goals in his last season with Bohemians, so it was disappointing for the club, and the fans, that he wasn't able to show the same promise that made the club buy him in the first place.

Nothing from what fans saw of him in a Carlisle shirt would have suggested that he'd have gone on to do as well as he did, including becoming a full international for the Republic of Ireland.

Paddy Madden could have saved Carlisle from relegation to League Two

His career in the EFL really kicked off when he was sent on loan to Yeovil Town in October 2012. Madden was an immediate hit for them. He scored 22 goals in 35 league appearances between his arrival and the end of the season. He also provided a goal and an assist in the play-offs to help Yeovil win promotion to the Championship.

His performances with the Glovers did peter out after they won promotion, but, for the several years following that promotion, in the 2012/13 campaign, he was a stalwart of the League One scene.

In Carlisle's first two seasons back in the fourth tier of English football, Madden scored 34 goals for Scunthorpe United. He ended up scoring a total of 60 goals for them in 191 appearances, and he produced similar levels of work for Fleetwood Town when he moved to them in January 2018.

Not only has Madden been very successful in the third tier, but he's been very good for Stockport County, in the National League and League Two, since joining them in March 2021. Although, he wasn't able to help County get up to League One in May 2023 when they lost to the Blues in the play-off final, at Wembley.

He was obviously a very talented player, and he went on to prove as such, but it just didn't click for him at Brunton Park.

Indeed, supporters are left wondering 'what if' as had Carlisle got the best out of Madden in the 2013/14 campaign, they may not have dropped out of League One that term and there would not have been such a large gap between appearances in the third tier for the Blues.