Last updated 10:33, Saturday, 27 September 2008

Greg Abbott is adamant his mind won’t be assailed by flashbacks when he pokes his head out of the tunnel at the Banks’s Stadium at some point this late-summer afternoon.

The boss: 13 months ago Greg Abbott was United’s caretaker manager. ‘The players and fans would be disappointed if I wasn’t ambitious,’ he says. Inset: Abbott and John Ward

And you can just about believe him, since the monumental sequence of events which shaped his season and, perhaps, his career, occurred 48 hours after Carlisle United’s last jaunt to Walsall on the opening day of last season.

In other words: the stunning termination of Neil McDonald’s stint as manager which pitched Abbott, his assistant, into the chair on that bewildering Monday morning 13 months ago.

Keep the thumb on rewind, because it’s necessary to recall that Abbott made such a spirited fist of his caretaker duties that Fred Story, then United owner, later described the decision to overlook the coach in favour of John Ward as the toughest of his four-year reign at Brunton Park.

Out on its own as the most poignant image of Carlisle’s season was Abbott’s crimson face on the October night at Hartlepool when he revealed to the Cumbrian public that his roaring ambition to be United’s manager had been doused by the arrival of Ward.

A year on, and the flames are leaping again. Not to the extent that Carlisle need fear losing their prized coach just yet. But high enough to reveal that Abbott, now 44, will indeed pursue the taste of management again, long before his time in the game is through.

“I’m not better for the initial experience when Neil lost his job – that wasn’t a pleasant experience for anyone,” said Abbott when I encouraged him to delve into the archives yesterday.

“But on a personal note, doing the caretaker job was a fantastic experience for a short period and, I think, a pretty successful period. People were commenting on how well I had done, and that maybe I was unlucky not to get a shot at the job.

“But since the decision was made to bring John in, he has welcomed me and given me a free rein to do what I’m good at. That’s working with the boys, who, by the way, are willing, enthusiastic and very receptive to the things we try to tell them.

“As you go through life, every day brings something new for you to deal with. What happened at the start of last season was a surprise, but it seems a long time ago now. It won’t be in my thoughts this weekend. All I’m doing is looking forward to a tough game against Walsall and getting a result that gets the momentum going again.”

On the subject of his own professional aspirations, Abbott does not recoil from laying his thoughts on the line.

“The players and fans would be disappointed if I wasn’t ambitious,” he says. “At the moment, my burning ambition is to drive Carlisle into the Championship and make sure we keep pushing on.

“We’ve progressed so quickly over the last couple of years that it might slow down a bit now, but if I think things aren’t going to go forward at all, then I will look to chase that dream of being a manager.

“There were bits and pieces of interest from other clubs in the summer – a couple of phonecalls asking what I was doing, was I happy, what were my plans for the future?

“But when you are looking for managerial jobs, you want something that is going to be better than where you are at the moment. I’m happy here. I love my job, I’m well looked-after, I hope people think nice things of me and I’m a pretty loyal person.

“My desire is to help take this club into the Championship. If we do that, we will see where things stand. Yes, I’m ambitious, but I would only consider something that was bigger and more challenging. If something happened and it was best for the club and for me, we would look at it. But honestly, I’m in no rush.”

When asked to describe his character, Abbott replied: “Sometimes I’m fiery, sometimes I’m calm, sometimes I’m excitable,” which goes down as a 2-1 victory for the devil in the scrap for the soul of Ward’s animated accomplice.

Any caricature which depicts him as an touchline ranter from the old-school, however, needs to be binned. What we have here is a proper football man whose biggest problem, and greatest luxury, is measuring the length of his own apprenticeship.