Yes, there were all those goals from centre-back, the many moments when United were awarded a corner and the defender in the number four shirt started trotting forward to the chant of ‘Deano, Deano’: both a note of expectation and a threatening message to the poor defending side.

There were wins, promotions, Wembleys and, over the years, the kind of cult status few players truly attain. A great deal, though, was distilled into one cool spring night at Stockport County, when Walling was so often Carlisle’s last line of defence.

The Blues, as was the way in those recurring Auto-Windscreens Shield campaigns, led from the first leg before coming under sustained assault in the second leg of the northern final. Like at Rochdale two years before, it was about protection, and survival.

Wembley, and the old Twin Towers, remained a thrilling prospect for both sides, even if Carlisle had experienced them as recently as 1995. Stockport went at it every bit as hard as United, and the highlights remind us how precarious games like this, and the history they generate, actually are.

There is Walling, charging back to swipe a goalbound shot off the line, a split-second before a lunging Stockport player can finish it off. There is Walling, back on the line a while later, a seemingly certain Stockport goal crashing into his head and marginally to safety.

To the home side, an accident of positioning. To United, and all who knew Walling, just another moment of resolve. These times utterly defined Carlisle’s passage to Wembley, where they would win the Shield for the first time – again, in part, thanks to Walling’s nerve, as he converted a penalty just as the shoot-out looked to be slipping painfully from United’s control.

Substance. Steel. The readiness to stand up, step forward, not shrink into the shadows. Walling arrived at Carlisle as a striker then had the wherewithal to convert to defence, where he made his career. When I spoke to ‘Deano’ this week, he was a preparing to catch up in Spain with Derek Mountfield, his old defensive partner.

Deano, right, catches up with his old Carlisle defensive partner Derek Mountfield in Spain this week (Image: Submitted)

What a barrier that was. What a wonderful combination of strength and athleticism, wisdom and energy, intellect and determination. Carlisle’s most dominant league season of all time, 1994/95, had this as their bedrock, and Walling then went on to help the 1996/97 vintage, which operated a different defensive set-up, to a further promotion.

Walling was there at Wembley twice, he was there at Colchester when United won the title in ’95, he was there for all of the best days of that cherished, fleeting period. Others may have played higher for the Blues across their history but few sit loftier in the hall of fame when it comes to enduring popularity.

The reasons for that are detailed above. Yet now, Walling having given so much to us, it's time to offer something more meaningful in return even than the applause and the "Deano"s that accompany his every step back at Brunton Park.

The impenetrable force of March ’97 has cancer. Heroes get that cursed thing too. News of his prostate cancer diagnosis was a “shake-up”, he admits, whilst saying that his first thought when hearing the word was of death.

Deano was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and has shared his story in a bid to spread awareness (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Thankfully, the outlook is better given that Walling’s cancer is at the less aggressive end of the scale, and can be managed by “active surveillance” rather than direct treatment. It will be monitored at six-monthly intervals, with intervention required only if it spreads, which it might not.

Deano feels “blessed” that his situation is not more severe. Some mindset, this, truly – cancer having made its insidious way into your system, and it existing there for the long foreseeable, but somehow being able to look on the more fortunate side.

Yet this part of the message in itself is a good one to share – whilst Walling wishes to reinforce a wider theme. His cancer was picked up after a routine “Well Man” check-up: something he has every year, remembering how he lost his father in his 50s to a pancreatic cancer which was not detected until it was too late and which his dad never shared with his loved ones.

I can remember the interview Deano gave on the pitch at Wembley before one of those finals in the 1990s, referring to his father’s passing. “It will haunt me for the rest of my life,” he says of losing his dad in a shroud of silence about cancer. Three decades on, and the pain and regret does not disappear.

So let us all follow Deano’s lead. Let us not confine our admiration and active respect for him to the memories on the pitch. Let us observe the best way to acknowledge our heroes when they do something even more meaningful.

“I've always said that, if there's anything wrong, the first thing you've got to do is speak to somebody,” he said. “Speak to your wife, your partner, your parents, your mum, your dad – but go and get a test, too. Especially people my age.

“Don’t wait for any symptoms, because if you wait for symptoms, it might be a little bit too late. Be aware that something can be going on without you knowing.”

The man gave so much to us, helped shape the lives of those lucky enough to have experienced that team, and still he gives amid his illness. The least we owe Deano now is to listen, act and above all look after ourselves.