The Football League career of Mike McCartney consisted of 287 games, in two spells, for Carlisle United – more than four times as many appearances as he made, in between, for Southampton and Plymouth, combined. A schoolboy international who supported his home-town Hearts, he had turned down the chance of playing for them, preferring to sign for Alan Ashman’s West Brom. Having failed to get a First Division start at The Hawthorns, he rejoined Ashman, now at Second Division Carlisle.

A speedy and tenacious left-back,

he remained at Brunton Park for seven years, as the Cumbrians had their only-ever season in the top-flight and then slid all the way down to Division III. But then, in 1980, Lawrie McMenemy offered Mike a surprise-return to Division I – a return that was completely overshadowed by his arriving at The Dell, and then making his debut, on the same day as Kevin Keegan. After a good initial run of appearances – albeit including the ignominious 7-1 League Cup mauling by Watford – Mike would get few more opportunities, as Nick Holmes took possession of the No.3 shirt.

Despite rumoured interest from Alex Ferguson at Aberdeen, Mike dropped down to Division III again – with Plymouth Argyle – before returning to Carlisle, now in the Second Division. This second spell ended when an ankle injury forced him out of the English game. Well, to be precise, he moved back to Scotland, but to play for Gretna, who operated in England’s Northern League.

To describe Mick’s time with the “Weddingmakers” – a nickname derived from the village’s main claim to fame – as “romantic” hardly does it justice. He took them to back-to-back titles in 1991 and 1992 and, in the second of those seasons, Gretna became the first Scottish club, for 105 years, to play in the First Round of the English FA Cup, losing to Rochdale after a replay.

But Gretna wanted to be in the Scottish League and Mick personally deployed a range of building skills on the necessary ground-improvements. When their application failed, the club instead joined the Unibond League, against his wishes. He was proved right: financing the longer-distance forays into England crippled the club and Mick was sacked in January 2000. How self-made millionaire, Brooks Mileson, soon bought Gretna and bank-rolled them all the way to the SPL and the 2006 Scottish Cup Final is another story. Mick was rooting for Gretna’s opponents at Hampden Park: Hearts, his boyhood club, who won on penalties.

He continued to watch the Jambos, travelling from his home in Carlisle, where he worked in the building trade and as a delivery driver.  He passed away aged just 63 in 2018. He had been admitted to hospital not feeling well and died suddenly while there.