Success or failure? How to rate Hughes and Carlisle?

Mark Hughes has won 37 of his 70 matches in charge of Carlisle [Getty Images] As Carlisle United fans packed into Brunton Park on Sunday, excitement and expectation was high that the team would be heading to Wembley for a promotion shootout. A solid third place in the National League had geared the side up for a play-off shot at earning an immediate return to League Two. Over two hours of football later, the opportunity had slipped through their grasp as Mark Hughes' 10 men were beaten in extra time by Boreham Wood to the sheer disappointment of the vast majority in the 13,814-crowd.

The Cumbria club will now face successive seasons outside the EFL and it raises a stark question - does that make the efforts of the last nine months a failure? The previous time that Carlisle went out of the EFL in 2004, they regrouped under Paul Simpson in finishing third in the Conference (as it was then called). Crucially, they then made it to the play-off final where they defeated Stevenage to to immediately return to League Two.

That was a huge success and has gone down in club folklore as such. The aim all season has been to repeat that effort and in losing to Boreham Wood, the simple answer is that Carlisle have failed. Since being elected into the Football League for the first time in 1928, this was only the second season that this proud football city had not been in that company but their stay in the National League will have to linger on.

Boreham Wood beat Carlisle to reach promotion final Carlisle owner vows club will come back stronger Last summer, the club was counting the cost of successive relegations from Leagues One and Two. Carlisle were ill-prepared for the third tier in 2023-24 after a surprise promotion while the campaign in League Two was an unmitigated disaster as changes under the club's new American ownership did not work. Mark Hughes arrived in February 2025, but the ex-Manchester United and Wales hero could not save them from relegation with the damage too great to undo by the time he took over.