MANAGER: It's a brilliant thing they're doing

The feeling of goodwill from the fans is set to continue this weekend with a pre-match march to Brunton Park and a call to action for flags to bedeck the Warwick Road End the next phase in the club’s supporters stepping up their backing for Paul Simpson and his squad.

“Normally when you talk about football fans marching it’s for a negative reason, but this one is positive,” the manager said. “They’ve done a brilliant job, they’re out on match days in numbers and it’s brilliant to see them doing the painting as well.

“Hopefully they’ll be there again in numbers this weekend, and our part of the bargain is that we have to give them something to make a noise about. If we perform properly they’ll stick with us, and hopefully the Warwick Road march will be with us for another game.

“We’ve been together since last February and there’s been a really positive feeling with it. Even when things haven’t gone brilliantly, they’ve stuck with us. That’s all we ask.

“There are 13 games to go and if we stick together as a group of fans and a group of staff, players, everybody, hopefully we can achieve something together.”

Expanding more on the positivity, he commented: “It's been huge over the whole 12 months I've been here. And the way that the supporters have responded to the performances from the players has been absolutely brilliant.

“We all want it to keep going. We want to make sure we finish this season strongly, we've given ourselves a really good chance, and the supporters have responded, as have the local businesses.

“Everybody's responding in a real positive way and we have to make sure that at the last home game of the season there's still a real positive feel because we've still got a lot to play for.”

“But the flags and the marches, it’s brilliant,” he concluded. “Absolutely fantastic. There's such a really good feeling at the moment and the supporters are playing an absolutely enormous part in that because of the way that they've embraced everything that's going on.

“Credit to all of these people for what they're trying to do. What we have to do as a group, the players and staff, we’ve got to make sure we put a performance on that makes it a real worthwhile march to the ground, the banners get a performance that pays them justice and hopefully we get a win that makes them want to come and do it the next home game.  

“As for the lads who painted the Warwick, I'm just waiting for them to come and do my office next, because that might need a lick of paint as well.

“They've done a brilliant job. Credit to them for taking their own time to come and do that. And I keep saying it. We’ve just got to keep winning games of football and keep that positive feeling around it and, if we do that, we can all have a really good summer.”

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