Carlisle City ended their losing run with a splendid 3-2 win at Pickering Town.
It was a remarkable effort as City had 19 first team players unavailable through one reason or another.
They had 11 starters and manager Jim Nichols was on the bench with a substitute goalkeeper.
“It was a terrific effort and we certainly deserved the win. I knew the lads who came in would give it their all.
“To be fair, when we’ve been on this poor run, we have not deserved to come away with no points from the games we’ve lost.
“We should have won a good few of them and it’s fair to say Saturday’s result has been coming.
“I think we dominated for long spells of the game and we only had a dodgy 10-minute spell in the first-half.
“We have a big game coming up on Saturday at home to the best team we’ve played so far. We pulled-off a smash and grab to win over at Bishop Auckland so we know they will be extra keen to avenge that.
“I’m hoping that we will have a lot of the missing players back, certainly so that I’m nowhere near a substitute’s shirt.”
Pickering hit City with two quick goals in the 36th and 38th minutes from Matty Dawes and Harry Jessop. But a minute before the break Josh Simpson produced a wonderful finish from a free kick to put City back into it.
Callum Birdsall levelled seven minutes after the re-start and soon afterwards Pickering had Bruno Polatos sent-off for throwing a punch.
City took control and Marc Gallimore’s goal after 65 minutes proved to be the winner.
- City’s Cumbrian neighbours Penrith should have entertained Heaton Stannington on Saturday but the game was postponed because Frenchfield was waterlogged.
