On the surface, yes: a fluke. A cross that, from the right, bent with O’Neill’s momentum as he fell, dipped over Peter Bonetti and landed snugly in the home net at Stamford Bridge. In such an unexpected manner, the legend of Carlisle’s first game in England's top-flight was written for all time.
But the story was not just the cross/finish. That’s the bit we usually focus on, and indeed was the part O’Neill enjoyed telling. Yet the real business was the part the midfielder was too modest to dwell upon: the build-up to Carlisle’s second goal in west London on August 17, 1974, rather than the culmination.
Watch it back, as many will have done following [the sad news of O’Neill’s death](https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/25654959.carlisle-united-top-flight-legend-les-oneill-81-dies/?ref=ed_direct) this week, and just observe the man. In a few short seconds you get the full essence of Les O’Neill. See how he runs when someone doesn’t – bursting from the centre to the right of the pitch like a cork popped from a bottle.
If you didn’t go with O’Neill, chances were you might regret it. His blue-jerseyed Chelsea opponent was a split-second slow to react. More than enough. United’s running man was gone – gone to a place where the land was free and possibilities were now open. The fact the cross went straight in, rather than to its intended target (centre-forward Hugh McIlmoyle), is not quite by the by, but it still misses the overall point.
It is that Les O’Neill barely ever stopped, and became a supreme player in Carlisle United’s history because of this attitude. Things happened because he made them more likely to happen, with all of his will. Not for nothing did Eamon Dunphy – hardly a man loose with praise – single him out for comment in his seminal book, ‘Only A Game’. Dunphy, referring to O’Neill’s performance in a Carlisle game at Millwall, referenced his relentless attitude to running, to work. He had, reckoned player/author Dunphy, “a heart as big as The Den.”
Les O'Neill, left, with manager Alan Ashman and John Gorman, right, pictured on the night in 1974 when Carlisle were promoted to the First Division _(Image: News & Star)_
Carlisle, in 1974/75, went straight back down from the First Division after the previous season’s historic promotion, yet the fact they competed as well as they did – only a proficient goalscorer short of survival, many believe – was down to their unity, their grit and their philosophy on work. Except it wasn’t called a philosophy then. It’s just what they did.
“I honestly felt it was one of the easiest seasons that I’ve played,” O’Neill once told me. “In the lower leagues, work-rate and effort were far greater than in the top league. In Division One, the footballers just wanted to play football. They weren’t ones for chasing back, winning tackles. We didn’t have as much skill, but our work ethic was higher.”
O’Neill and Ray Train, another midfield workaholic, helped keep Carlisle in games, and helped them sometimes win them, when neutral expectation was the opposite. O’Neill scored eight goals in England’s top division: a notable return for a raiding midfielder playing for the side destined to finish bottom.
He could play as well as graft, then. John Gorman, that team’s silky left-back, has said a great many things about his lifelong friend over the years but until Thursday I had never heard him [compare O’Neill to Stan Bowles](https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/25654959.carlisle-united-top-flight-legend-les-oneill-81-dies/?ref=ed_direct). Not in terms of the maverick skill which Bowles exhibited so ingeniously, but in O’Neill’s ability to perform at his peak at a moment’s notice, however well he had trained in the preceding days or weeks.
There was, in effect, something of the natural in O’Neill, which his furious work-rate perhaps disguised in the mind’s eye. This was his identity from the beginning. It should be recalled that, as a young player, he was gifted enough to be snapped up by Newcastle United after a handful of appearances at Blyth Spartans, leaving behind his job with a hydraulics firm to chase a dream. Torn ankle ligaments, on the eve of his Magpies debut, offered a serious blow but left O’Neill with a desire to play that was now scalding hot.
He ran up and down terraces to rebuild his ankle’s strength. He jogged by the sea. He regained his feel for the game in reserve football and, with Newcastle's XI largely closed to his claims after 11 months out, he went to Darlington to achieve first-team football. He played his way to Bradford City and duly to Carlisle, in 1972: O'Neill by then a rising force in the Football League, a player with a knack of being where good things occurred.
And that season, that glistening chapter of 74/75: O’Neill top scorer in the country after three goals in the first two games as Carlisle rose to the summit. That superb, stolen winner at Goodison Park, where a formidable Everton team had not been beaten all campaign. The levels United hit to defeat others, such as future champions Derby County, Arsenal, Ipswich Town and Everton again. The rarefied air they breathed.
John Gorman's painting of his Carlisle team-mate and lifelong friend Les O'Neill _(Image: John Gorman)_
O’Neill was so often their lungs, with dynamism attached. In retirement, where his work ranged from a milk round to a long and respected spell as a scout, he became the best kind of Carlisle United legend: someone who would see you or answer your call with boundless cheer, enthusiasm and a willingness to talk wherever you liked about whatever subject was on your agenda at that time.
For his big heart, his generous and warm personality flecked with sharp humour, so many people in Carlisle and beyond will miss him. As he joins those other boys of 74/75 – Chris Balderstone, Allan Ross, Bill Green, Joe Laidlaw, Frank Clarke, Tom Clarke, Mike McCartney – on a celestial pitch now, we can reverse something else he said about that high-flying time with the Blues.
“We were delighted, but I think the Carlisle people were in space. It’s their club, their city, I feel humbled I was a part of it.” We, of course, were even more humbled to have Les O’Neill for as long as we did. And should any United player feel minded to offer his own tribute this afternoon, yet not know how, there’s one simple thing they should do. If in doubt, run.