Special flag to commemorate Paul Simpson’s feat in leading Carlisle to safety

A special flag to commemorate Paul Simpson’s feat in leading Carlisle United to safety in League Two is to be unveiled at the end of the season.

Blues supporter Chris Cope hopes to have the flag at the Bradford City game, the final fixture of the season on May 7.

He wants it to be a thank you to the manager for the way he has reunited the club since his return.

Chris set up a Just Giving page with an initial target of £500, and that sum was raised in next to no time after he went public with the campaign.

Paul Simpson responded by saying: “It’s brilliant, absolutely fantastic.

“It’s a really tricky one because when I left the last time I had a situation where my son had to be taken out of his class because he was being threatened by somebody on social media that he was going to stab him.

“I was led to believe there was an effigy of me being set alight in Denton Holme, which isn’t very pleasant.

“When I’m down in Preston and getting a phone call from school to say just to let you know, we’ve isolated Jake because he’s being threatened and there’s somebody in school with a knife, that’s difficult to deal with as a parent, especially when you’re talking about it because of a game of football.

“To hear this side of it, where you’ve got fans talking really favourably, it’s brilliant. I love this sort of stuff.

“When I think about what happened at Tranmere, and when I watched the Rangers-Celtic game and I’m seeing glass bottles being thrown on the pitch, and we experienced it a little bit when we’ve got young kids running onto the pitch, trying to antagonise supporters – that’s horrible.

“I just think those things are horrible in football. There’s no place in football for that. But for me, there’s definitely a place for supporters showing gratitude towards managers, and that side of it.

“I love that and I’ll be delighted to see it. I don’t need it, but if I see it that is absolutely fantastic. If it happens, I will be making sure I thank the players and staff, because they’re the ones who’ve helped to get this real positive feeling that’s going around the place at the moment, because of what they’ve done. It certainly makes my life a lot better.

“It’s even better because I was slightly worried about coming back, I did have concerns about it. My family still live here. I’ve lived away from here, barring the three years I was here as manager before. I’ve lived away from here since 1982.

“But I still consider myself a Carlisle lad and the response has been brilliant. I didn’t want to come here and it all falls flat on its face, or I do, and I get ran out of the city and I’m not welcomed back in.

“This has been really good. I didn’t know about this flag but that’s brilliant. The fans have been brilliant, the players have been superb, the staff, everyone.

“I really want to finish well though, to have a really good April and one game in May, and let everyone have a really positive finish to the season. If we’ve done that, they’ll probably still want me to have the flag. If we don’t, it might get burned in front of me!”