Carlisle United losing Tranmere Rovers battle will rob player of Jimmy Glass-esque moment | OneFootball

Carlisle - a club famed for their goalkeeping heroics - witnessed more brilliance between the sticks last Friday.

Carlisle United's hope of staying in the EFL has been hanging by a thread for some time, until one moment on Good Friday when things looked a bit brighter.

The mission brief for the Blues in the final month of the season was clear. To give themselves any chance of not being relegated from League Two, they had to win the majority, if not all, of their final half-a-dozen games of the campaign.

Given they'd been victorious in the league only seven times prior to the start of April, it was hard to see how they were going to climb out of the hole. But then a switch was flipped.

The return of striker Georgie Kelly sparked life into Mark Hughes' side. They came from 2-0 down to win 3-2 against Newport County on 5th April, thanks to two goals from the Irishman. He then netted again versus relegation rivals Morecambe in the Blues' 2-0 away victory a week later and added again to his impressive run against Port Vale.

His goal on Good Friday was the first of three unanswered goals - the others scored by Matthew Dennis and Aaron Hayden -that United hit past Darren Moore's then table-topping Valiants in what was one of the shock scorelines of the weekend.

But then Vale started to show why they were the favourites to return to League One. They pulled back two goals in the second half and then, in the dying minutes of the match, they won a penalty.

All of a sudden, the brilliant work that Carlisle had done to upset the odds was about to be undone.

Gabe Breeze's Jimmy Glass moment against Port Vale

For those non-Cumbrians, the Blues are probably best known for one particular goal in 1999. On the final day of the season, again, in the dying embers of the match, Carlisle had to come up with a moment of magic to get a goal against Plymouth Argyle to save themselves from dropping to the non-leagues.

They had a corner and up stepped loanee goalkeeper Jimmy Glass, who pounced on a loose save by his Plymouth counterpart and smashed the ball into the back of the net, saving Carlisle from the drop.

Hughes, like his predecessor Nigel Pearson, needed someone to provide that magical moment that would live in the heads of the 10,000+ home supporters at Brunton Park. The only difference was that Pearson had his full XI to rely on, Hughes just had Gabe Breeze.

Breeze, 21, had faced four penalties in the league since debuting for the club on Boxing Day 2023 and had saved none of them, prior to Lorent Tolaj stepping up to take his crack at levelling the score on Good Friday.

The Swiss forward has been in electric form this season. He has scored six goals in his last five games, including two braces in two matches prior to facing Carlisle. That one game where he didn't score was against the Blues.

He took the spot-kick and put it to the goalkeeper's left, but Breeze was there to push it around the post. Carlisle were able to see out the game from there and took home a vital three points thanks to the brilliance of the shot-stopping Cumbrian.

Gabe Breeze's Jimmy Glass moment may be lost in the history books

It was such a unbelievable moment for everyone associated with Carlisle. The hope and belief that they could finally pull themselves out of the firm grip of the bottom two was well and truly alive for the first time in a while.

Three days later, they played Accrington Stanley - the side directly above them. A win at the Wham Stadium would bring United within three points of the Lancashire side with two games to go, giving them a real good chance of staying up, given their form.

It wasn't to be for the Blues though. They couldn't find the energy and quality that they had against Vale for the match on Easter Monday, and they needed a late Callum Whelan equaliser to get anything from the contest, after Accrington went ahead with just over 20 minutes left in regular time.

So Stanley remain six points clear of Carlisle with two games to go and a significant goal-difference advantage; it's unlikely that United will be able to catch them.

Now Carlisle's attention has turned to Tranmere Rovers, who, as a result of the Easter weekend, are four points clear of the bottom two.

Still, the Blues certainly aren't favourites to swap places with either of the teams above them, which, if they fail to beat the drop, would mean that Breeze's heroic moment would have been for nothing.

This brilliant split-second event, which could've been the pinpoint of why Carlisle were able to beat the drop, would become redundant. It would be so sad if that's what becomes reality.

Supporters of any club usually feel more of an affinity towards players that have come through the academy than those that have been signed from elsewhere, and Breeze is certainly one of the fans. He said after Carlisle's win over rivals Barrow that if he wasn't part of the team he'd have been in the away end.

Getting to witness one of your own pull off the spectacular, the unexpected and the unthinkable makes the moment even sweeter. If Carlisle fail to overcome their gap to Tranmere, or even Accrington, that memory will slowly start to fade.