Last month I was lucky enough to attend a reunion of my contemporaries from Trinity School. A lot of alcohol was consumed, friendships re-established and a bit of booze-fuelled dancing went on into the early hours, as it does.

The reunion was held to mark twenty years since all of us were together doing our 'O' levels, and it got me thinking about the last 20 years at Brunton Park. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since 1981.

Back in '81, the year that Charles and Di got married and Ian Botham bashed the Aussies around Headingley and Old Trafford, Carlisle United were playing in the old Third Division under the wizardly guidance of Bob Stokoe. Now Stokoe wasn't loved by everyone but he had a pragmatic streak that ultimately lifted the Cumbrians up into the Second Division and for a few brief weeks we even had a glimpse of the First as Stokoe's remodelled side occupied a top three spot, battling it out with the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, Chelsea, Newcastle and Manchester City. It's hard to believe now. Stokoe, with little money to spend, and on gates that were not much higher than we get today, managed to craft a squad good enough to beat teams who now occupy Premiership places.

How the game has changed. Twenty years ago shirt sponsorship was only just appearing, and even then, only at the biggest clubs. Carlisle first had names on their shirts in 1982, when McEwen-Younger started a four-year deal with the Cumbrians. Famous names that have now passed into legend such as Paul Bannon, Gordon Staniforth and Alan Shoulder were in the first batch of players to wear them. Shirt sponsorship is now taken for granted and is an increasingly large source of revenue for clubs, especially those near the foot of the league like United.

Pitch-side hoardings have been around for donkey's years of course, but nowadays there are bigger gaps around the side of the pitch than there were in '81. The unpopularity of our present owner has seen to that. It's also fair to say that our whole commercial operation back then was streets ahead of where we are now thanks to the visionary genius that was Colin Hutchinson, still a shareholder in the club and back then, destined for greater things at Wimbledon and Chelsea.

Brunton Park stadium was certainly not in as good a shape then as it is now, although it did used to have all four sides occupied in those days, unlike today. The old Scratching Pen was slowly decaying, so much so that a couple of years later, during the 1983-84 season, it was closed for the whole campaign, except for an upgraded away fans section. Fans clubbed together to help raise the necessary funds and the terracing was replaced and the stand re-opened a year later. The Paddock had a much bigger capacity thanks to less stringent safety demands and the lack of Foxy's restaurant cutting into it from the back. The Warwick was largely the same as it is today and of course the Petteril End was still part of the civilised world and occupied by a few hundred people every week, unlike the weed-infested bank of concrete it has become in the past few years.

The make-up of the crowd itself was a lot different. There were fewer families at games, and fewer women. Old men in flat caps still proliferated. The tobacco smoke rising from the Paddock was still a familiar sight. The game was changing, but those changes took a good few years to make themselves apparent. We had the odd bit of hooligan trouble, as we still occasionly do today, although I have to say Brunton Park has never been a hot-bed of trouble, unlike some grounds I could mention.

Finally, and most tellingly, it was relatively cheap to get into the games. You could still get substantial change out of a £5 note and the match programme cost about 30p. The cost of watching football has undoubtedly gone up, but the disparity between the top and bottom divisions was nothing like as great in those days. I went to see Liverpool play Ipswich with some school pals in 1982 and it cost the same to get into the Anfield Road End as it did the Scratcher! The programme was the same price and I have to say it was a very impressive read. Nowadays, you need to spend a fortune to get a season tickets for some teams such as Arsenal and Chelsea. Nevertheless, despite all that, gates are a lot higher this season across the board than they were in 1981. Football has changed. You can argue whether it's for the better or not and never get a satisfactory answer. But it has changed, there's no disputing it. It will continue to change. What will be saying in 2021 I wonder?