Mark Gillespie - Player Ambassador for #cufc6000
United keeper Mark Gillespie was quick to step forward to offer his services as the Player Ambassador for #cufc6000 – a fan led campaign designed to help to bring the buzz back to Brunton Park – as soon as the project was launched last week so we caught up with him between training sessions on Tuesday to talk about the scheme.
“I heard about it when I was listening to Radio Cumbria last Tuesday [27 May] during the interview with John Nixon,” he explained. “I immediately thought it was a good idea.
“It’s about promoting a positive start for next season and I think that’s something we all need to get behind. It would be fantastic to have a big crowd for the first game of the season and I really do think it’s more than do-able. It would be a superb boost for the players and it would be a chance to help us to start to make this a season to remember for all of the right reasons.”
“The club has spoken a lot about fan engagement recently and I think our supporters want to see the players get on board with that,” he told us. “We’ve been purposely trying to improve that over the last year or so and that has been excellent to see.
“I’ve done quite a few things in the city centre, at the Youth Zone and around the schools, because of my injury, and every little helps with something like this.
“I think we all know that the most important thing to our fans is the results on the pitch. However, the off the field stuff matters and we know we need to get a good feeling back around the club. That’s something we really do need.”
“I think it’s particularly important to me because I’ve been with the club for six seasons now,” he added. “It’s been a massive part of my life since I was 16 years old and I’ve effectively grown up here.
“It’ll always been a special place for me and I genuinely have loved every single minute of it. As at any club there will be highs and lows, but I think I’ve felt more lows this season than ever before. Hopefully we can switch that right round and this type of positive campaign is, in my opinion, a great way to kick that process off.”
“The simple fact is that we need our fans to be behind us,” he concluded. “With football being what it is these days, clubs need the money to develop and improve and it’s our job to get people through the gate.
“It’s down to the players to perform on the pitch to complement what’s going on behind the scenes because that’s what will really bring people back. As I say, that part of it is down to us and that’s why we will be working extremely hard over the next six weeks to make sure we’re in the best position possible to achieve it.”
Click HERE to follow #cufc6000 on Twitter and keep up to date with the latest news from the campaign.
Click HERE to see our first gallery of images of the fans showing support for the #cufc6000 cause.
Click HERE to see Mark Gillespie discussing #cufc6000 on our YouTube channel.
